Iron Man‘s fourth album, I Have Returned (review here), was released 15 years ago this week, on April 25, 2009. It came out through Shadow Kingdom Records, which over the next couple years would also stand behind reissues of the quintessential Maryland doomers’ LP catalog up to that point — namely 1993’s Black Night (discussed here; reissue review here), 1994’s The Passage (discussed here) and 1999’s Generation Void (reissue review here) — and its arrival was all the more ceremonious with the decade’s split between records.

Of course the truth is more complex than Iron Man returning and putting out a record called I Have Returned to mark the occasion — founding guitarist and principle songwriter “Iron” Alfred Morris III had brought the band back in the mid-aughts and released two live albums (both recorded in Cincinnati) and an EP, Submission, in 2007 — and though 10 years from one record to the next should be well long enough to build anticipation among fans, they were never a ‘hype’ kind of band.

I was about 12 at the time and can’t claim to have been aware/on board when their first two records landed through the venerable German label Hellhound Records, which dug into the Maryland doomsphere in the ’90s to unearth outfits like Unorthodox, The Obsessed, Iron Man, Wretched, Revelation, Internal Void and Vortex of Insanity — along with Count Raven, Pigmy Love Circus, Lost Breed, Saint Vitus and plenty of others from elsewhere; their catalog is a lost trove of doomers’ doom dying for loyalist reissue — but for me and I think a generation of underground-heavy heads who would come up in the next few years, I Have Returned marked a new beginning.

Perhaps it was less that for Morris. When I asked him in a 2009 interview here how things were different after 10 years, doing a new record and bringing out a revamped lineup with vocalist Joe Donnelly, bassist Louis Strachan (Life Beyond, Wretched, now Spiral Grave), and drummer Dex Dexter (who had played in Force with Morris, pre-Iron Man), he said simply: “Nothing has changed much.”

Fair enough, and on a few levels that was almost certainly true. Morris had started Force, from which Iron Man sprang initially as a Black Sabbath tribute act, in 1976, and he would continue with Iron Man for the rest of his life until his passing in 2018 at the age of 60, after a long decline in health that had left him legally blind and largely unable to tour. For him, maybe, it was so much a part of himself that it wasn’t a big deal, wasn’t a “comeback,” because as long as he existed so did the band, even if they hadn’t done an album in however long. To an extent, he was Iron Man.

And while I won’t discount the punch of Strachan‘s bass as “Burn the Sky” starts I Have Returned at a decent clip with Donnelly — a more technical Ozzy-style singer who had done Sabbath tributes as well, and something of a comedian on stage — riding the coursing groove in the verse, the coordinating efforts of their manager Michael Lindenauer (who gets an Executive Producer credit), or anyone else’s work throughout, Iron Man was forever rooted in the riffs. And in this regard, in his riffs, Morris was a poet. The production of Frank “The Punisher” Marchand (so many, from Unorthodox and Sixty Watt Shaman to Foghound and Borracho) gives each instrument its space, and while the ethic the band always followed was light on flourish in a way that became a tenet of ‘Maryland doom’ as a style, hooky second cut “Run From the Light” was damn near stately in its dense distortion as Morris‘ guitar set the pattern for the lyrics that turned Trouble on their head, and whether it’s the march of the memorable title-track or “Curse the Ages (Curse Me),” the speedier chug of “Blind-Sighted Forward Spiral” and the shredding finale “Among the Filth and Slime,” the dug-in lumber of “Sodden With Sin” or the standalone acoustic strum-and-pluck of the interlude “Days of Olde,” in tone, tempo and delivery, Morris‘ work distinguished Iron Man as ever sure of their purpose, never having forgotten where they were coming from.

It’s not a perfect record, even before you take on the sleazy lyrics of “Gomorrah Gold” — recommend you don’t, actually — but its love of classic metal and of course doom still resonate in the hard-hitting tension of “Among the Filth and Slime” as well as the more atmospheric nod of “Fallen Angel” just before it, and in “Run From the Light” and “I Have Returned,” “Burn the Sky” and “Curse the Ages (Curse Me),” etc., Iron Man declared themselves within and beyond the bounds of the fertile Maryland underground. Further, it was the point at which they started to get a modicum of the respect they’d long since deserved.

Strachan held the bassist position for the remainder of Iron Man‘s career, but Donnelly was out of the band and replaced by “Screaming Mad” Dee Calhoun (now Spiral Grave, solo, etc.) on vocals before 2011’s self-released 2011’s Dominance EP (review here), and Jason “Mot” Waldmann (also now Spiral Grave) would take over on drums circa 2012, in time to be part of the final Iron Man long-player, 2013’s South of the Earth (review here), also helmed by Marchand and issued via Rise Above Records in an era that saw Lee Dorrian (Cathedral, With the Dead, etc.) standing behind landmark albums from the likes of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Ghost, Blood Ceremony and others.

When Iron Man got picked up by Rise Above, it brought them to another level entirely. They would travel abroad to play a Rise Above anniversary party and other shows like the Castle of Doom Festival in Italy where the 2021 live album Hail to the Riff (on Argonauta) was recorded, and while they’ll probably always be undervalued to some degree, that it turned out to be their final run is bittersweet in hindsight because at least Morris had the chance to experience some of the impact of his work in and on the doom genre. I Have Returned set that in motion.

And in a move that remains both duly respectful and respectfully classy, after Morris‘ death, Calhoun, Strachan and Waldmann put the band to rest as well, moving on to Spiral Grave and carrying the legacy forward in new ways while telling their own story as well.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

Most of this week was dedicated in my head to returning from, processing and thinking through the trip to Roadburn last week and weekend, and that’s how it played out. Thanks to the unending kindness of The Patient Mrs., coming home wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as it might’ve been, and while I wouldn’t say The Pecan took it easy on me — she had darted in the parking lot of the airport and had to be picked up and put in the car to leave, at which point comes the hitting and biting; she wanted to keep riding the people-mover after however many laps back and forth; transitions are always her hardest moments — we’ve done a lot of good reading this week, both about Zelda and not, and I think maybe she missed me a little bit. Not that such a thing would ever be said outright, mind you.

Specifically in terms of The Obelisk, it was a catchup week in which I didn’t get caught up, so maybe not the most successful, but neither was it the most ambitious, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t drop the ball on anything I was actually on the hook to post. A couple album announcements — Lord Buffalo spring to mind first — and tours for Greenleaf/Slomosa and Dopelord/Red Sun should’ve gone up and didn’t, but hopefully I’ll get there. I’m surviving, in the meantime, and the world continues to spin.

Where I’ve really been lacking is in email. I’ve got a backlog from the contact form of things to check out in addition to relevant press releases and contacts about this and that. Messenger has been a bit better but I’m behind on that too (also less comes in). But I’ve found that with the limited time and brainpower I have in a given morning/early afternoon, I need to be writing if I want to get done what I want to get done. Not saying interpersonal communication isn’t part of that — I’m not on a total blackout or anything, just not keeping up the way I should — but if I have the time to write, then I’m going to do all I can to put myself in a position where I’m writing.

This thankfully also leaves me little time for questions like, “Is this crazy?” or “Does this matter to anyone but me?” or “Is this how I should be spending my days?,” which I’m not sure are any help in the asking. Being someone who writes about music, a reviewer or, in my loftiest of self-assessments, a critic, I’m used to a certain amount of condescension, generally from other creative-types based on their own insecurities. How much I want to feed into that cycle, I’ve never been sure. With the proliferation of other blogs and here-listen-to-this algorithms, what do I really add to anything by stressing out about news posts?

I’m not ready to hang up the site, emotionally or practically. I don’t have another outlet, for example. Nowhere to go at this point. But “I just want to write” has become only one of the processes involved in The Obelisk, and I need to look at that. I am not a content-provider. I do not want to pose out for social media, or do reaction videos instead of reviews. Does that make the work I do here out of date and/or irrelevant? Maybe.

These are vague thoughts presented in vague terms, so I’ll be concrete and say this: someday this will end. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I’m 42 years old, and when The Obelisk started I wasn’t yet 30. I’ve dedicated 15 of the years of a life that in the best of cases is probably more than halfway over to this thing, and I’m comfortable thinking of it as my life’s work in terms of writing and reaching an audience. I’m happy with what it’s become, the generally respectful tone in which it’s spoken about, and that it’s spoken about at all. Every now and then, someone on the internet says something very nice about my work. I feel fortunate to have that as my situation. It is not something I take for granted. Thank you for reading, in other words. I’ll leave the discussion at that, which is what I most want to say anyhow.

This weekend we’re headed to Legoland, which I expect will be a total shitshow, but one of a familiar sort, and probably that will be the big event. I have two liner notes projects coming due at the same time, so my big plans to review Brume and DVNE and do three track/album premieres besides next week might prove too much, but I’ll do my best to dig into as much as I can, same as ever. Whatever you’re up to, I hope you enjoy the time. Have fun, be safe, hydrate and all that. It’s a hard world to live in, but there’s music too.

FRM.

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When Los Angeles-based ’90s-style stoner grit rockers Max Boogie Overdrive premiered their video here for the catchy single “Suffer Sister,” their debut album, Stoned Again, was a ‘coming soon’ kind of affair. That was a full year ago as of this week — fun coincidence — and indeed, the shove-prone 38-minute eight-track groover had a 2023 soft-launch, but the official release was at the end of March, and it remains firm in its declaration of purpose regardless of the timing.

The four-piece of guitarists Jim “Max Boogie” Bacchi and Richard “RC” Clark, vocalist/bassist Daren “Drop Dee” Ford and drummer Tom “Knuckles” Hernandez dig into older-school heavy riffing throughout, touch on a bit of metal gallop behind the solo, as in “Freakazoid,” for an example, and offer hooks a-plenty across the span, riding choice grooves on the C.O.C.-style “Van Boogie” and finding a space for an almost garage-style feel on “Demonaire” before the penultimate “King of Fire” lands with one of the record’s heaviest thuds, moving all the more effectively for the push-pull and subtle shifts in style around its central dirty-fuzz revelry.

Stoned Again caps with its title-track (video premiering below), which starts with a sample of former US president Barack Obama saying that, yes, he did inhale, and as regards mission statements, they’re not trying to hide what they’re all about. It’s right there in the first verse, “High like a mountain/I’m cool like the sea,” and the nigh-on-hypnotic chorus that follows to deliver the title line before they take off on a coursing lead-topped bridge, take another hit off that hook and slow it down.

Of course the cowbell comes out, and as with a lot of Stoned Again, “Stoned Again” is rife with if-you-know-you-know lyrical references — one might shout out a Monster Magnet influence for that alone, never mind the infinity-bound dope nod of “Freakazoid” — but namedropping Rainbow Rising over the steady nod that serves as the launch point for the record’s noisy finish is a hint at some of the ’70s-whatnottery also present in the hard-footed strut of “Bomb Incoming,” but despite the striking statistic that the album was recorded in five separate studios with five separate engineers, it never seems to be headed somewhere without an idea of the destination and path being taken. Songwriting, in other words, as well as a goodly dose of stonerly charm.

And I’m on record multiple times over as being a sucker for both. I don’t think Max Boogie Overdrive are out to rewrite the tenets of heavy rock on Stoned Again so much as to celebrate them and remind any and all within earshot that the whole point of the thing in the first place was to have a good time. They veer hither and yon, desert-bound in “Demonaire,” jammy in the rush later in “Freakazoid,” leaning into psych in that wash of “Stoned Again” and elsewhere, but like a West Coast Geezer, they know what they’re about and offer it without pretense otherwise.

If you see any of that and think maybe you can get down, the full album is streaming after the PR wire info, and if you want a quicker sampling, the title-track clip is nothing if not representative. It’s okay to have fun with it. They sure seem to be.

Enjoy:

Max Boogie Overdrive, “Stoned Again” video premiere

Max Boogie Overdrive was originally conceived in 2022, as a recording project between guitarist Max Boogie a.k.a. Jim Bacchi (Hittman, Fuzzbubble, The Tikiyaki Orchestra) and Drop Dee a.k.a. Daren Ford (Red Square Black, Ravine and the Generals) as a way to pursue their passion for all things Stoner and Boogie… mammoth guitar riffs, bellowing vocals, and the swagger of early 70’s Detroit rock n’ roll — dirty, fuzzy, with just a dusting of doom, and whole lotta Boogie (not Disco; Heavy Boogie Rock).

The debut album ‘Stoned Again’ includes the first single “Suffer Sister,” which offers up a dirty Motörhead vibe. Other songs “The Devil Knows my Name” and “Van Boogie” conjure the spirit of the more current Sabbath-influenced desert rock scene. And then there is the KISS thing — you know, those early records, when they were heavy. “Demonaire” and “Bomb Incoming” bring the Demon to mind (when Gene Simmons was still cool).

The cyclonic drumming of Tom ‘Knuckles’ Hernandez (Lords of Altamont, Superbeez) propels the band past the sludge and doom pace, and guitarist Richard ‘RC’ Clark’s guitar adds the necessary beef to the mix, fattening up the tone, and added vocal duties.

Produced by : Jim Bacchi and Daren Ford
Mixed by Jim Bacchi, except “Suffer Sister” mixed by Bob St John

Recorded at : Kingsize Sound Labs – Los Angeles, CA
Unison Sound – Northridge, CA
Le Studio – Huntington Beach, CA
Highland Studios, LaSalle, Ontario
PDQ – Ft Lauderdale FL.
Cover art – Big Toe

Engineers : David Dominguez, Bruce Witkin, Jim Bacchi, Bob St John, Mike Christie, Luc Michaud

Mastered at : Surfside Sound – Huntington Beach, CA

MAX BOOGIE OVERDRIVE LIVE 2024:
05/04 Las Vegas, NV – Red Dwarf
05/17 Costa Mesa, CA – Wayfarer (w/ Hippie Death Cult, Hashtronaut)
06/20 Palmdale, CA – Transplant Brewery

Max Boogie Overdrive are:
Lead/Rhythm Guitar: Max Boogie (aka Jim Bacchi)
Vocals and Bass: Daren (Drop Dee) Ford
Drums: Tom (Knuckles) Hernandez
Rhythm/Lead Guitar: Richard Clark

Max Boogie Overdrive, Stoned Again (2024)

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New York’s Geezer and Genoa, Italy’s Isaak are set to issue their split LP, Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes, on May 17. As labelmates on Heavy Psych Sounds, they are united in dedication to groove and weighted tones, and they’re certainly both acts you’d call ‘heavy,’ but from one side of the platter to the other, there’s no question they each stand on their own as well.

Geezer open side A with “Acid Veins” (lyric video premiering below) as one the first of four characteristically grooving inclusions. It and the capping “Oneirophrenia” were recorded with David Andersen at The Artfarm, while the middle two, “Little Voices” and “Mercury Rising,” were tracked during the sessions for the band’s most recent album, 2022’s Stoned Blues Machine (review here), which were helmed by Chris Bittner at Applehead Recording in Woodstock, NY, near the band’s hometown of Kingston. I’m not sure when “Acid Veins” and “Oneirophrenia” were tracked, but they fit well in bookending the Interstellar Cosmic Blues portion of this split, with “Acid Veins” sweeping in on a quick rush of noise and digging almost immediately into its verse riff in an easy nod and swing from guitarist/vocalist Pat Harrington, bassist Richie Touseull and drummer Steve Markota that holds for the duration through the first of their four choice hooks and into the fuzz-drenched twister solo section that carries them out in classic stoner rock style.

Perhaps in comparison to Isaak, whose stated purpose here is to branch out in sound and personnel alike (give me a minute, we’ll get there), Geezer‘s four cuts might not come off as outwardly pushing boundaries in the same way, but in “Acid Veins,” “Little Voices,” which might be about depression or might be about having kids — take your pick; either way, “sometimes it gets dark” — and “Mercury Rising” they bring to emphasis the more straight-ahead songwriting that on their albums has done so much to complement and sometimes ground their jammier and more psychedelic material.

“Mercury Rising” is a little longer and starts out with a mellow jam for its first minute-plus, but picks up from there around a rolling riff and verse/chorus trades. It’s a hook I remembered instantly from being in the studio when Stoned Blues Machine‘s basic tracks were put down, and it’s a highlight here as well. Rounding out, “Oneirophrenia” — the title in reference to the semi-hallucinatory dream-state between being awake and asleep; you know, brain stuff — grows insistent in its shove as it moves through its halfway point, but closes Geezer‘s stretch with a condensed exploration of low-key spacey vibing, giving some representation to the reach that might show up near the end of an LP. Hypnotic by the end of its six minutes, it’s the proverbial ‘big finish’ perfectly scaled-down to suit the context in which it arrives. Sometimes a song just finds its place. That happens four times on the first half of Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes.

The plot thickens with the start of Isaak‘s “The Whale,” as the core four-piece of the band — vocalist Giacomo Boeddu, guitarist Francesco Raimondi, bassist Gabriele Carta and drummer Davide Foccis — waste not a second of their circa-15-minutes and transfigure the crunch of a song like “OBG” from last year’s Hey (review here) long-player onto a careening gallop that, particularly with the bellow that tops it, feels more born of the Baroness school of riffing. Welcoming the first of three guests in Fabio Cuomo (Gotho, Liquido di Morte), they calm it down somewhat momentarily in the bridge before building up to a charged finish, but are very obviously working to expand the perception of the band as The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes, and both “Crisis” and “Flat Earth” follow suit in methodology and the shirking of expectation.

As to how recent Isaak‘s tracks are, I don’t know that either, but as vocalist Fabio Palombi (Burn the Ocean, Nerve) joins in for “Crisis” and Ufomammut drummer Alessandro “Levre” Levrero guests on “Flat Earth,” they both help the cause. “Crisis” sets out on an initially angular course of riffing before settling into the verse with Foccis on the bell of the ride, Mastodonic in thickness of tone in a way that feels not so far removed from what Hey wrought and daring a bit of shuffle in its chorus. The twist comes with the departure first into acoustic-inclusive heavy, almost-folkish push before they surge forward with the post-hardcore shouts of Palombi overtop, which give an intensity that Isaak answer by shifting back to the verse and chorus to round out. The sense of their trying new ideas, branching out in terms of sound, is palpable, but they’ve neither dropped their lead-with-riffs modus or the momentum of “The Whale” just before, and as Boeddu‘s own vocals have always had a bit of burl to them and certainly do here as well, it’s not too much of a leap to Palombi‘s part that it derails the song. It works, in other words.

They crash into the start of “Flat Earth” and set out across the split’s final track with a marked tension in the guitar. The pace isn’t quite as thrust-minded as “The Whale,” but the first of Isaak‘s three songs still affects the momentum of the last, and while they’re a bit more in line with what they’ve done before, when the chorus hits, what in many contexts would be a desert rock riff takes on a new persona and energy. It is both a blast and wall-‘o-tone heavy; the snare punctuating turns in the guitar and bass at the end of bellowing measures. Right at three minutes in, the guitar solo starts and the rhythmic pattern follows, but they’re back in the chorus soon enough and build from there into the ending section — which I’m pretty sure is where Levrero joins Boeddu — which both answers back to Geezer‘s ceremonious closeout and underscores the vibrancy behind the surprises from The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes, who just might need to add a ‘+’ to their side B descriptor.

The bottom line for Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes as a whole is quality work from established acts each with their own chemistry and intent for the release. They are nowhere near close enough in style to be competing with each other, but if you put one on loud, certainly the next will benefit from that same volume. Kind of a no-brainer for those who know the bands, maybe, and for those who don’t — that’s not a judgment on my part, ever; I’m not talking down to anyone — in Geezer‘s display of craft and Isaak‘s willful progression of style, they both play to strengths in an engaging summary of what they do. Yeah, the split’s got a long title, but hell, it also covers a lot of ground.

Enjoy “Acid Veins” below, followed by more info from the PR wire:

Geezer, “Acid Veins” lyric video premiere

ALBUM PRESALE: https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/shop.htm#HPS306

USA PRESALE: https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/shop-usa.htm

ACID VEINS is the third GEEZER single taken from the split album Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes. The release features Geezer and Isaak and will see the light on May 17th via Heavy Psych Sounds.

SAYS THE BAND:
“Acid Veins is about life on the road. The good, the bad and the ugly side of touring in an underground rock band. While it is (in many ways) the best experience in the world, it ain’t for the faint of heart and it sure as hell ain’t always fun and games. We love what we do and we don’t take anything for granted. This one’s for the road dogs, for the lifers. Much love and safe travels!”

TRACKLIST
SIDE A
Acid Veins (Geezer)
Little Voices (Geezer)
Mercury Rising (Geezer)
Oneirophrenia (Geezer)

SIDE B
The Whale (Isaak feat Fabio Cuomo from Gotho & Liquido di Morte)
Crisis (Isaak feat. Fabio Palombi from Nerve & Burn the Ocean)
Flat Earth (Isaak feat. Levre from Ufomammut)

GEEZER are:
Pat Harrington – vocals/guitar
Richie Touseull – bass
Steve Markota – drums

ISAAK is
Giacomo Boeddu – vocals
Francesco Raimondi – guitars
Gabriele Carta – bass
Davide Foccis – drums

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Gurt‘s fourth full-length, Satan Etc., will be released June 7, and to go with announcing that happy and foreboding prospect, the London-based party sludgers are premiering a lyric video for the new song “Knife Fever” that you can see below. With chasm screams and no shortage of aural crush, you’ll be glad to know that the five years since their last outing, 2019’s Bongs of Praise (review here), does not seem to have dulled their impact. But to coincide with its raw push, “Knife Fever” reminds that Gurt have always also been able to make caustic sounds memorable for more than just, well, being caustic, and as frontman Gareth Kelly repeats the lines, “I’ve never done this before/Can you tell?,” don’t be surprised if you end up with those screams stuck in your head after the fact.

Satan Etc. — not their first brilliant title, hopefully not their last — is a welcome reminder of the band’s dual penchants for hooks and aural slaughter, and some of the efficiency-uptick in their delivery as referenced by the PR wire below can indeed be heard in the structural clarity throughout the sub-four-minute runtime of “Knife Fever.” How that might play out across the album as a whole is something that probably requires hearing said thing in its entirety, and as I’ve not yet done that, can’t necessarily speak to it — but if they’re pushing a more pointed attack, “Knife Fever” embodies one in more than just the conveniency of a pun that I assure you was all the way intended.

And as Gurt approach their 15th year in 2025, perhaps you’re thinking this all a sign of maturity, grown-up-Gurt, and so on. Could be, but I mean, they did call the record Satan Etc., so I feel decent in the assumption that there’s further chicanery to follow. Here’s looking forward.

Info from the aforementioned PR wire follows here. Please enjoy:

Gurt, “Knife Fever” lyric video premiere

Preorder: https://gurt.bigcartel.com

It’s been five long years since “party doom” riff merchants GURT released their last crushing opus “Bongs of Praise”, now on June 7th 2024 they are set to return with their latest, crushing-ist opus yet, “Satan Etc”.

A lot has happened in the band members lives since 2019, some suffered tragic losses, some welcomed new life into the world, some grew awesome skullets. Not to mention that global event in 2020 that kept us all inside.

Left to ferment in frustrating circumstances has led to the new material being more aggressive and abrasive than previous offerings, whilst still retaining that signature GURT silliness and swagger.

In January 2024 GURT took these new songs into the mighty Monolith Studios in London and under the watchful eye of Steve Sears, they birthed the magnificent, monstrous “Satan Etc”. This album marks GURT’s 5th collaboration with Sears, who always coaxes the best out of the band with a healthy mixture of positive support and scathing insults.

When asked about the influences and inspiration behind this album vocalist Gareth Kelly states “it’s about survival in the very fucked up world we live in, but of course delivered in the bands tongue in cheek style”. Drummer Bill Jacobs says ” we wanted shorter punchier songs to go with the new aggro vibe, nothing to do with us being older and fatter” whilst bassist David “Spicy” Blakemore enigmatically adds “I’ve been listening to lots of Slavic hardcore!”.

Delving into varied topics, from bodged vasectomies to the beauty of brown cars, from self pleasure on Arrakis to the wholesome matter of how damn much Gareth loves his kids, “Satan Etc” is the sound of the band ready to get back to doing what they love most: having a great big sludgy party with their rabid fans. PARTY DOOM HAS EVOLVED.

“Satan ETC” is released on 7th June via When Planets Collide and is available to pre-order from: https://gurt.bigcartel.com

GURT are:
Gareth Kelly – Vocals
Rich Williams – Guitar
David Blakemore – Bass Guitar
Bill Jacobs – Drums

Band photo by Mithun.

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Darsombra released their plague-chronicle 2LP Dumesday Book (review here) last August — Crucial Blast has a double-tape out as of March — and, well, maybe it’s time to start thinking of the go-forth-from-Maryland two-piece as more of a longform art project than a band. If they were more pretentious, less inclined to roam and had more money, they’d probably be able to cast themselves as ‘arthouse,’ but the fact is their work isn’t really meant for gallery walls or any other kind. It’s too open in itself to be so contained. Free-drone.

From the sirens of “Call the Doctor (Pandemonium Mix)” and the chants of “Everything is Canceled,” from the drumless guitar prog and oddball vocals repeating the title of “Gibbet Lore” as it comes to a head to the serene reaches where the near-18 minutes of “Azimuth” end up, there’s not much that feels off limits to the duo of Ann Everton and Brian Daniloski. Synthesized, organic, programmed or pulsed, the material is defined in part by the whims it chooses to follow, and while that can at times lead to a kind of willful disjointedness — because not everything connects and not everything is supposed to; you’re not in an ’80s sitcom — Dumesday Book is an encompassing memoir of a time that at least many would rather forget than learn from. They’re not much for percussion and never have been, but neither do pieces like the empty-space strum and blown-out preach of “Plague Times” or the foreboding reprise “Still Canceled” lack movement. As they do, Darsombra are just tracing the patterns of their own math.

I won’t lie to you and say it isn’t helpful having a stated and discernible theme to latch onto in listening to Dumesday Book — the tracks themselves more ‘of the time’ than ‘about’ it — but their keys-and-guitar-based explorations have rarely been unwelcoming in the past, at least to those able to let go of expecting things like verses and choruses in their music. As regards the video premiering below for opening track “Shelter in Place,” the visual fluidity of movement of wind through the dark fabric that becomes ghostly, cosmic, colorized, and so on, is somewhat ironic given the title’s inherent stillness, but I’m not sure that isn’t the idea or that the spectral figure reminiscent of Death itself isn’t the story of the covid pandemic arriving at the shores of humanity’s collective helplessness at the outset of this downhill decade. And you know what? It’s Darsombra, so it’s also okay to not be sure. Not like they’re judging.

Everton and Daniloski begin their next European tour at Roadburn 2024 this Friday, and they’ll hook up with Stinking Lizaveta for the UK portion of the run to hit Desertfest London after playing the anniversary party for Exile on Mainstream in Germany. They’re abroad through the end of May and into June, and it likely won’t be long before they announce the next month-plus tour after this one because that’s how it goes with Darsombra‘s have-noise-will-travel nomadic tendencies. No coincidence that comes paired with such a resonant sense of sonic adventurousness.

“Shelter in Place,” at just three minutes, is the opening to the world portrayed throughout Dumesday Book. On its own, it provides a sample of Darsombra‘s aural dimensionality without necessarily encapsulating the whole. It leads you in, in other words.

Please enjoy:

Darsombra, “Shelter in Place” video premiere

Music by Darsombra
Video directed and edited by Ann Everton
Camera work by Brian Daniloski

“Shelter In Place” is the first track on Darsombra’s 2023 double album, “Dumesday Book”, available at darsombra.com.

Shot on location at Assateague Island, USA. No ponies were harmed in the making of this film.

The latest video from Dumesday Book arrives with “Shelter In Place,” the album’s opening track. “Shelter In Place” is an ominous, majestic introduction to the album’s uncertain journey of the deep range of human emotions characteristic during plague times. The track is quaking, vast, and full of portent; the video, filmed and edited by Everton, gives the tsunami of precarious fear a doleful, baleful visage. Welcome to the trip.

Dumesday Book is available on CD, 2xLP, and digitally on DARSOMBRA’s Pnictogen Records. Physical formats include a twelve-page booklet, a sticker, and a download code with access to bonus material.

Place orders at the band’s webshop HERE: https://www.darsombra.com/

Bandcamp orders HERE: https://darsombra.bandcamp.com/album/dumesday-book

Additionally, Crucial Blast just released the record in a limited double-cassette box set, available HERE: https://crucialblast.bandcamp.com/album/dumesday-book

This week, DARSOMBRA will make their return to the Roadburn Festival alongside The Jesus And Mary Chain, Chelsea Wolfe, Khanate, Blood Incantation, and dozens more. Roadburn is followed by shows across Germany, Poland, Holland, and Belgium, on their way to play Exile On Mainstream 25 Festival dates in both Berlin and Leipzig – the 25th anniversary of the diverse label for which DARSOMBRA is an alumni act – with Ostinato, A Whisper In The Noise, Caspar Brötzmann Massaker, Conny Ochs, and many others also on the four-day/two-city bill.

In the wake of EOM25, they’ll join up with their allies Stinking Lizaveta for shows across the UK, including Desertfest London with Godflesh, Suicidal Tendencies, Ufomammut, Bongripper, Acid King, Monolord, and many more. DARSOMBRA will then make their live debut in Ireland, playing three shows across the country. See all confirmed dates below and watch for additional tour dates for the Summer and Fall months to be announced.

DARSOMBRA Tour Dates:
4/19/2024 Roadburn Festival – Tilburg, NL
4/24/2024 Kunstverein Hintere Cramergasse e.V – Nuremberg, DE
4/25/2024 Kalambur – Wroclaw, PL
4/26/2024 Lot Chmiela – Poznan, PL
4/27/2024 Awaria – Krakow, PL
4/28/2024 Mlodsza Siostra – Warsaw, PL
5/03/2024 Het Alternatief – Nijmegen, NL
5/05/2024 De Loft – Herent, BE
5/09/2024 Exile On Mainstream 25 Fest – Berlin, DE
5/10/2024 Exile On Mainstream 25 Fest – Leipzig, DE
5/14/2024 The Gryphon – Bristol, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/16/2024 Puzzle Hall Inn – Sowerby Bridge, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/17/2024 The Cellar – Cardigan, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/19/2024 Desertfest – London, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/22/2024 The Lubber Fiend – Newcastle, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/23/2024 BLOC – Glasgow, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/24/2024 St. Vincent’s Chapel – Edinburgh, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/25/2024 Tooth & Claw – Inverness, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/30/2024 Coughlan’s – Cork, IE
5/31/2024 Kasbah/Dolan’s – Limerick, IE
6/01/2024 Saturday Anseo – Dublin, IE

Darsombra, Dumesday Book (2023)

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The tab’s been open for the last week in my browser, and that’s as long as Temple Fang‘s Live at Krach Am Bach has been out. I exhausted however many streams were allotted listening through the two-song/52-minute set the Amsterdam psych-of-spirit four-piece played at the June 2023 edition of the Krach Am Bach Festival in Beelen, Germany, and, well, April is tax season here in the US, so I was thinking maybe I could write off the three-euro download if I classify The Obelisk as a failed business venture. Yes, I do consider “failed business venture” a compliment.

There is a cassette pressing of Live at Krach Am Bach as well, 100 copies. It looks pretty sweet, with Maaike Ronhaar‘s on-stage photo of guitarist/vocalist Jevin de Groot as seen from behind mid-testimony printed on a black and white j-card, kind of a bootleg vibe, but pro-shop, as is the recording by Niek Manders for which guitarist Ivy van der Veer handled the mix. To be honest, I just didn’t have the €10 for it this morning or I’d have picked that up, but you take what you can get, and that Temple Fang — de Groot, van der Veer, bassist/vocalist Dennis Duijnhouwer and drummer Daan Wopereis — are able to put together an enticing live record at this point should come as little surprise. Live at Krach Am Bach is their sixth one in the last two years.

One might extrapolate from that some idea where the band’s priorities are generally when setting six live releases against their lone studio LP, Fang Temple (review here), which first arrived in 2021 and was pressed the next year through Stickman Records, and its later-2022 EP follow-up, Jerusalem/The Bridge (review here), but if Manders has a penchant for recording off the board while doing front-of-house sound for the band, that has only to this point served them well. To wit, Live at Krach Am Bach is — I believe — the third release from the tour they were doing at the time in 2022. It follows Live at Schlachthuis and Live at Freak Valley (review here), both released last April (the former on tape, the latter a CD/LP on Stickman), and as with those, the narrative around the performance is part of the character that emerges from listening.

I don’t want to just cut and paste the story from their Bandcamp, but the summary is that, as documented elsewhere, they were somewhat winging the tour as they got settled in with Daan Wopereis taking over on drums for Egon Loosveldt, playing different material. It started to rain before they went on. Between songs on the recording, you can hear Duijnhouwer say to the crowd, “Amazing view from here — you guys look good in plastic.” If you had no idea what was going on at the time — if you didn’t know that the audience had either put on ponchos or otherwise tried to cover themselves to keep the water off so they could enjoy the show — you could be forgiven for being confused. Is he on acid? Is he a serial killer? “You look good in plastic?” What the hell is that supposed to mean? It’s ponchos. Chill out.

By then, de Groot has already professed to being on the verge of tears and called the crowd “fucking beautiful, all of you,” before singing out “Take me to the place I have always been” ahead of “Gemini” (21:46) moving into its final phase in the last third, a build that starts with mellow bass, drums and guitar and resolves its extended flow with a striking and memorable chorus, de Groot, Duijnhouwer and maybe van der Veer sharing vocals. Both “Gemini” and “Not the Skull” (32:22) featured on 2020’s Live at Merleyn and the recorded-in-2019/released-in-2022 Live at Ocii and Live at Vera, but in different forms with “Silky Servants” included in “Gemini” and “The Radiant” between the other two pieces in the non-festival setting. If your eyebrow went up at Live at Krach Am Bach being the third offering from a single tour, I’ll note that the sets from Live at Schlachthuis and Live at Freak Valley were each comprised of one track only, “Grace,” which to the best of my knowledge, like “Gemini,” has yet to feature on a studio recording.

In addition, both “Gemini” and “Not the Skull” have evolved since those earlier 2019 recordings. That turn back to the chorus of “Gemini” in the back end doesn’t happen with “Gemini/Silky Servants” on Live at Occii, and “Not the Skull” at Krach Am Bach was 11 minutes longer than the studio version that appeared on Fang Temple. What one can glean from this is an ethic of openness to the moment. Standing on stage, the members of Temple Fang are in conversation with each other musically — not just with the “Yeah” at 29:33 into “Not the Skull” to mark the change as the band aligns around Duijnhouwer‘s boogie-shove bassline for a finish likewise raucous and rocking — and the amorphous character of the material that’s been revealed over time comes across as purposefully not definitive. This is what these songs were this day, in the rain, in Germany. The next day it might have been a completely different experience.

The underlying message might be that we limit our reach when we impose rules and definitions on ourselves, of style or substance. If Temple Fang went out and delivered the same set every night in the same way, well, they’d probably still be pretty cool because they play well individually and as a group, but the personality would be different, and by not limiting themselves, they are inspiring on a level that goes beyond the meditative aspects of their exploratory psych or the outright soul with which de Groot tears into a given solo. The songs aren’t completely shapeless by any means — as noted, “Gemini” lands a hook, and “Not the Skull” is all the more encompassing for its plotted movement toward that ending — but on Live at Krach Am Bach, it’s clear they’ve been allowed to breathe and become what they will. Along with the basic audio of the thing, that’s also part of what’s being preserved here. They capture it vividly, and it is an idea worthy of the reminder.

Which I guess is how you get to six live records in a two-year span.

They’re doing a weekender now and have another booked for later in April, two German and one Dutch show for each, and have been confirmed for Sound of Liberation‘s Lazy Bones Festival 2024 this October in Hamburg. I wouldn’t be surprised if more dates surface around that, or if they have another offering or two to make before they next hit the road, reveling as they do in the universe of infinite possibility.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

My sister called a few minutes ago. My mother fell. She’s 77, needs new knees, is figuratively and literally crippled by fear at the prospect of surgery. No serious injury — this time — but it’s a stirring reminder of her advancing age and of course of my own. My father is dead and they didn’t live together, and my sister, who lives in the same house with her own husband and two kids, is primary. I’m of course glad she didn’t get hurt. Takes the day down a peg.

But the whole week was a mess, really. The Patient Mrs., The Pecan and I started out Sunday on a four-plus-hours trip to somewhere in New York’s Finger Lakes — which it turns out are gorgeous; go figure — to see Monday’s eclipse in totality. We stayed somewhere in Pennsylvania on Sunday night, and one skinned Pecan knee from running by the motel pool later, continued the ride north Monday to meet up with family friends and their kids who had likewise made the trip from their home in Brooklyn.

Did we see the eclipse? Nope. Cloudy. It got dark, then it got light. It was weird, nowhere near as cool as we all tried to sell it to the children as being, and if the question is whether or not it was worth the five-hour drive home (The Patient Mrs. did the outbound trip; credit where it’s due) listening to The Pecan whining about not being able to play mahjongg on The Patient Mrs.’ phone, let alone the money for gas, food and lodging, my answer is a resounding no. Some you win, some you lose.

Tuesday I wrote all day. Following on from Spring Break all last week, this Wednesday was another day off from school for The Pecan. Most of the day was rainy and I chose to forego her ritalin since it was just the two of us and the dog, and I firmly believe that made her morning, afternoon and evening harder. She was a mess all day, and even after The Patient Mrs. came home from work to take her to her afternoon ice skating lesson while I did my remote-learning Hungarian language class upstairs, I could hear screaming from the ground floor. Something or other. Nothing that mattered for more than an intense four seconds, certainly.

I had gotten less than half of the Heavy Temple review that went up yesterday written in the morning before The Pecan woke up, and since I had homework to do before class, that was the sum total of my writing time for the entire day. It’s never enough, I know, but Wednesday was particularly spare. More so than I’d prefer, whatever the surrounding circumstances.

I’m still behind from that. I have the Horseburner album announcement — which was in my notes as DONE and which I’ve already fucking referenced in a post as a past event — waiting to be finished so it can go up. WyndRider got signed to Electric Valley for their second LP. That’ll be up Monday too I guess. I know this entire endeavor is small stakes, that nobody really cares about these things except me, and that I’m doing my best, but it is frustrating to put everything you can into a thing and come up short of where you want to be. That’s all.

So maybe Temple Fang closing the week is my way of telling myself to be less rigid. Or maybe they’re on my mind because next week is Roadburn and I’m actually going to be there for the first time in five years. That’s where I first saw Temple Fang, as well as Death Alley, of which Dennis Duijnhouwer was a founding member, and his prior band with Jevin de Groot, the cosmic-doom proposition Mühr, whose performance remains among the best live music experiences I’ve ever had.

I’m nervous to be back in Tilburg. I’m older. I’m worn down. I’m out of shape physically and mentally in ways that I just wasn’t in 2019. I’m tired all the time. Running in circles around my brain is the mantra that when the music starts it’ll all be okay.

Have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, hydrate, all that stuff. See you back here Monday for a Darsombra video premiere and all the rest of it. For now I think I might head up the hill and check on my mom.

FRM.

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San Francisco’s Brume will release their new album, Marten, through Magnetic Eye Records on May 3. That’s less than a month away. The interview in the video below was conducted back in February, and the reason for that was basically that I heard the thing, got excited about it, and wanted to chat. I had asked bassist/vocalist Susie McMullan (also keys) for a lyric sheet, which she was gracious enough to supply, and reading through, I could see the genuine poetic voice behind a lot of the words; somewhat playful, sometimes sad and/or angry, but pervasively grounded in the actual language being used. Mother Earth, in condemning humanity’s destruction of the planet, calls it rude (that’s “How Rude,” for which they have a new video, also below). McMullan‘s threat “Do you mind if I step in?” is pointedly low-key in redirecting the conversation of “Run Your Mouth.” Just two among many other examples throughout the record.

Part of what makes it striking is that with so much nuance in the careful balance of the vocal arrangements between McMullan, guitarist Jamie McCathie, and cellist Jackie Perez Gratz (also Grayceon, ex-Giant Squid, etc.), the chamber-style presence of the strings amid instrumental dynamics crossing the span from minimalism to outright crush — Jordan Perkins-Lewis‘ drums steady at the foundation for either — you’d almost expect more pretense, more grandiosity. Instead, Marten — named for the kind of varmint on its cover, and maybe also a little bit some dude they met on tour in Europe — is casual from the outset. What could be less formal than the name “Jimmy?” However sweeping or consuming “New Sadder You” or “Faux Savior” get, and no matter who is actually delivering the lines in a given verse, that underlying point of view holds firm.

It is a record loaded with stories. There was a lot to talk about, and there probably still is. As regards the interview itself, I’ll tell you that I had had a day by the time McGathie, McMullan and I hopped on Zoom. I should’ve canceled. It’s not a question of performance or anything like that, but about 20 minutes before we started talking I was getting punched by my kid for I don’t even remember what, and I just kind of suck here. I had a hard time going back and watching it, to tell you the truth. I’d transcribe it (ha) if I ever had time, maybe edit the video, but that also feels a little less honest to the experience, and, well, everybody on the internet pretends they’re fucking perfect all the time and in the interest of down-to-earth, here’s me taking myself down a peg. I haven’t done a lot of video interviews in the last year-plus. I really wanted to talk to Brume. If I had it to do over, I would, but sometimes one part of life bleeds into another, and while I’m sure it’s worse to me than to someone else watching, I just kind of get sad looking at and hearing myself here.

So enjoy! Yeah, I know. I haven’t sold it well. Fair enough.

What I’ll tell you is that whether you actually dig into the interview clip or not — and Susie and Jamie had cool stuff to say, so don’t not watch it — listen to the music. “Jimmy,” “New Sadder You” and, as of yesterday, “How Rude” are available as singles. They don’t represent the gospel blues of “Faux Savior” or the emotive fluidity that closes Marten in “The Yearn,” but god damn, do they land heavy on any level you want to consider.

So one way or the other, yeah, do enjoy. Thanks for reading and watching if you do:

Brume, Marten Interview, Feb. 22, 2024

—

Marten is out May 3 on Magnetic Eye Records. Preorders available here: http://lnk.spkr.media/brume-marten.

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I heard “Dance of the Dead” on the radio this week — that’s right, FM radio; thanks WSOU — and it prompted this revisit. Corrosion of Conformity‘s Blind came out in 1991 on Relativity Records with a follow-up release in 1995 through Columbia during the Raleigh, North Carolina-based outfit’s major label era, and to this day, it occupies a singular place in their history and discography. Running a ’90s-style 52 minutes and 13 songs, it was the first time they worked with producer John Custer, who has helmed everything they’ve done since, the only album they’ve ever done as a five-piece, the first that featured guitarist Pepper Keenan, who after this record would take over as their primary singer, and to my knowledge the only studio release they’ve had without founding bassist/sometimes-vocalist Mike Dean in the lineup.

Dean would be back in the band in time for 1994’s Deliverance (discussed here) as part of the definitive lineup with Keenan and fellow founders Woody Weatherman (guitar) and Reed Mullin (drums; R.I.P. 2020), but for Blind, bass was handled by Phil Swisher, while Karl Agell served as standalone frontman. Those two would play together in Leadfoot afterward, and Agell currently sings for both Lie Heavy and Legions of Doom, the latter of which is the post-Eric Wagner offshoot of The Skull, but during their time in C.O.C., they were part of the transitional moment between the raw punk and hardcore that defined their first two LPs, 1984’s Eye for an Eye, 1985’s Animosity, as well as 1987’s Technocracy EP, etc., and the Southern heavy rock they would in no small part help to shape over the rest of the 1990s.

You should know this isn’t an album I can pretend to be impartial about, let alone the band or the fact that human objectivity is a myth to begin with. Blind was one of the first CDs I ever owned, having unceremoniously swiped my older sister’s copy along with Master of Puppets, Rollins Band‘s Weight, Suicidal Tendencies‘ The Art of Rebellion, Alice in Chains‘ Sap and a couple others at around 10 years old, probably sometime in 1992 if I had to guess. “Damned for All Time” and the aforementioned “Dance of the Dead” — the one-two punch of charged riffing and crunching groove that follows the creeper-feedback-into-march of the intro “These Shrouded Temples…” — were on just about every mixtape I made for probably the next three years, the metal band connecting the over-ear headphones of my off-brand Walkman from the Caldor on Rt. 10 pulling my disaffected pubescent sadboy hair out with every tiny adjustment. I remember plotzing through the neighborhood on long walks with nowhere to put myself, sitting by the pond down the road, doing what I’d already been warned was irreparable damage to my hearing.

I’ll admit it’s been years since I actively engaged with it, but it’s always been there. The sinewy delivery of Agell in the chorus of “Mine Are the Eyes of God,” or the swaggering riff in “Painted Smiling Face,” the MTV-ready hooks and a sound that was in conversation with a classic heavy rock I’d yet to encounter; it was all new for me at that point, and I won’t say it’s the dragon of heavy I’ve been chasing all along for the last three-plus decades, but it spoke to me in a way that ‘regular’ rock and roll didn’t and helped me find my path into heavier and more metallic listening. Put simply, it changed my life.

Hearing it now, Blind is striking in its political theme. Even aside from “Vote with a Bullet,” which brought Keenan to lead vocals for the first time and is still a staple of C.O.C. live sets, its declarations of intended violence landing in something of a different context than when it first came out, cuts like the anti-white-supremacist “White Noise,” the envisioning a new world in “Great Purification” and more general anti-authority lines like “If the system had one neck/You know I’d gladly break it” in “Dance of the Dead,” and so on, land with a disaffection to coincide with the conversant-with-metal thrust behind the shred in “Painted Smiling Face,” and do so with a directness that one rarely if ever encounters in heavy rock now. It wasn’t the first or last time C.O.C. talked about social issues — lest we forget that the 2018 return LP from the Keenan, Dean, Weatherman and Mullin lineup was called No Cross No Crown (review here), or, you know, that the band’s name is Corrosion of Conformity — but while the language used and rhetoric have changed in the last 30 years, Blind taps American-style anti-governmentalism in a way that, coming off the Reagan years and as George Bush took the country to war in the Middle East in a preface to decades of moral and fiscal bankrupting, still resonates from its place in time.

Obviously, these weren’t cues I was picking up at 11 years old, but I understood wanting to break out, to not be told what to do, and internalized a lot of that from these songs, especially the singles. What I didn’t appreciate at the time was the connection via riffing to Black Sabbath in the starts and stops of “Buried” or the brooding, slower-rolling finale “Echoes in the Well” before the bookending outro “…Remain,” but that’s all over Blind in a way that not much I would’ve heard on the radio at the time would have captured. The idea of ‘heavy rock’ as something separate from metal didn’t really exist in the commercial sphere, but it’s inarguably here, and with the backdrop of what Corrosion of Conformity would accomplish in Deliverance, 1996’s Wiseblood (discussed here) and 2000’s more smoothly produced and undervalued America’s Volume Dealer, it feels both like the sore thumb standing out of their catalog and the root from which they grew into the band they wanted to be.

As noted, Agell is now in Lie Heavy and Legions of Doom, both of which one might consider actively active. Meanwhile, C.O.C. were last year beginning the process of putting together their next LP to follow No Cross No Crown, with Dean, Keenan and Weatherman collaborating with Galactic drummer Stanton Moore, who’d previously appeared on 2005’s In the Arms of God. I don’t know if that’ll be out this year, next year, or ever, but here’s hoping. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.

—

I don’t have much time here. It’s coming on eight in the morning and The Patient Mrs. and The Pecan will soon be finished playing games on the iPad and ready to start a morning that, whatever shape it takes, will require direct participation from me. Off-laptop, in other words.

This week was my daughter’s spring break from school. It started last Friday ahead of Easter, and she goes back Monday unless we decide to abscond to Pittsburgh to watch the solar eclipse. Depends on the weather, partially. It hasn’t been the easiest of weeks — it rained and was cold and miserable from Monday through yesterday morning — but she had a half-day camp thing and ice skating lessons to keep her busy. But stuck-in-the-house, tv-off boredom might be a piece of why there’s been an uptick in attitude and more punches thrown. The other day I ended up carrying her screaming and kicking from the rink after she unloaded on The Patient Mrs. for trying to stop her from skating through the next lesson taking place on the ice. I held her down to get her skates off because I didn’t think she was in control enough to stop herself from hurting either of us. It was an especially shitty moment to be alive.

I got hit last night too, for missing a button combo in Super Mario RPG and some other infraction I can’t remember. It’s a lot of “you can’t tell me what to do” and “you have to do what I say” from her as she, I guess, works on figuring out her place in the world. It has not been pleasant, but neither was the week unipolar in awfulness. We snuggled and watched Bluey yesterday evening as The Patient Mrs. was out at dinner with a friend. Last weekend we went to Connecticut with family to color eggs. She had a nice Easter, kept it together well at brunch, and we beat Link’s Awakening on the Switch. The lows are low, but the lows aren’t everything, is what I’m saying.

We’ll see how today goes. As regards the arguments, the opposition, the way I think of it is like this: It’s never everything, but it could be anything, and it’s almost always something. I just remembered that the other thing I got hit for last night was that I didn’t anticipate she’d want the Chromecast (which hadn’t been used in a year before The Patient Mrs. and I moved it to our bedroom) to watch the “Dad Baby” episode of Bluey, which isn’t on Disney-Plus. So yeah. I’ll be honest and say I’ve had a hard time looking forward to the last couple days. Another mantra, “things will not always be as they are now.”

Two sides to that, of course. Like everything.

Next week is slammed front-to-back and I’m already behind on news, so whatever. I’ll do my best to write as much as I can and that’s that. I hope you have a great and safe weekend, whatever you’re up to. If you get to see the eclipse, don’t look at it. Otherwise, hydrate, move your body a bit, watch your head, and I’ll be back on Monday with more of whatever you call this at this point.

FRM.

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