Welcome to the Spring 2025 Quarterly Review. If you’re unfamiliar with the format or how this goes, the quick version is each day brings 10 new releases — albums, EPs, even a single every now and again — that are reviewed at at the end of it everybody has a ton of new music to listen to and I’m a little closer to being caught up to what’s coming out after spending about a season falling behind on coverage. Everybody wins, mostly.

It’s a seven-day QR. As always, some of what will be covered is older and some is new. There are a couple 2024 releases. The 10,000 Years record, for example, I should’ve reviewed five times over by now, but life happens. There’s also stuff that isn’t released yet, so it all averages out to some approximation of relevance. Hopefully.

In any case, we proceed. Thanks if you keep up this week and into next.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Pagan Altar, Never Quite Dead

Classic metal par excellence pervades the first Pagan Altar album since 2017 and the first to feature vocalist Brendan Radigan (Magic Circle) in place of founding singer Terry Jones, who passed away in 2015 and whose son, guitarist Alan Jones, is the sole remaining founding member of the band, which started in 1978. Never Quite Dead collects eight varied tracks, some further evidence for the line of NWOBHM extending out of the dual-guitar pioneering of Thin Lizzy, plenty of overarching melancholy, and it honors the idea of the band having a classic sound without sacrificing modern impact in the recording. The subdued “Liston Church,” the later doomly sprawl of “The Dead’s Last March” and the willful grandiosity of the nine-minute finale “Kismet” assure that Never Quite Dead indeed resonates vibrant with a heart made of denim.

Pagan Altar on Facebook

Dying Victims Productions website

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Designer, Weekend at Brian’s

Somewhere between proto-punk and 1990s alt-rock come Designer with the three-song demo Weekend at Brian’s. Based in Asheville, the band have an edge of danger to their tones, but the outward face is catchy and quirky, a little Blondie but with deceptively heavy riffing in “Magic Memory” and extra-satisfyingly farty bass in “Midnight Waltz” as the band engage Blue Öyster Cult in a conversation of fears, the band wind up somewhere between heavy modern indie and retro-minded fare. “Ugly in the Streets” moves like a Ramones song and I’ve got no problem with that. However they go, the songs are pointedly straightforward, and they kind of need to be for the stripped-down style to work. Nothing’s over three minutes long, the songs are tight, and it’s got style without overloading on the pretense, which especially for a new outfit is an excellent place to start.

Designer on Instagram

Designer on Bandcamp

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10,000 Years, All Quiet on the Final Frontier

The hopeful keyboard of album intro “Orbital Decay” gradually devolves into noise, and from there, Swedish crash-and-bash specialists 10,000 Years show you what it’s all about — gutted-out heavy riffing, ace swing in “The Experiment” and a whole lot of head-down forward shove. The Västerås-based trio have yet to put out a record that wasn’t a step forward from the one before it, and this late-2024 third full-length feels duly realized in how it incorporates the psychedelic aspects of “Ablaze in the Now” with the physical intensity of “The Weight of a Feather” or closer “Down the Heavy Path.” But they’re more dynamic on the whole, as “Death Valley Ritual” dares a bit of spoken drama, and “High Noon in Sword City” reminds that there’s a good dose of noise rock underpinning what 10,000 Years do, and that cacophony still suits them even as they’ve expanded around that foundation over the last five years.

10,000 Years on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Amber Asylum, Ruby Red

Amber Asylum are a San Francisco arthouse institution, and from its outset with the five-minute instrumental “Secrets,” the band’s 10th album, Ruby Red, counsels patience in mournful, often softspoken chamber doom. The use of space as the title-track unfolds with founding violinist/vocalist Kris Force‘s voice over minimalist bass, encompassing and sad as the song plays out with an emergent dirge of strings and percussion, where the subsequent “Demagogue” is more actively drummed, the band having already drawn the listener deeper into the record’s seven-song cycle. The cello of Jackie Perez-Gratz (also Grayceon, Brume) gives centerpiece “The Morrigan” extra character later on, and it’s there in “Azure” as well, though the context shifts with foreboding drones of various wavelengths behind the vocals. Ambience plus bite. “Weaver” rolls through its first half instrumentally, realigning around the strings and steady movement; its back half is reverently sung without lyrics. And when they get to closer “A Call on the Wind,” the sense of unease in the violin is met with banging-on-a-spring-style experimentalist noise, just to underscore the sense of things being wrong as far as realities go. It’s not a minor undertaking as regards atmospheric or emotional weight, but empathy resounds.

Amber Asylum on Instagram

Prophecy Productions website

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Weevil, Easy Way

With Fu Manchu as a defining influence, Greek heavy rockers Weevil set forth with Easy Way, their 10-song/42-minute self-released debut album. They pay homage to Lemmy with the cleverly-titled “Rickenbästard” — you know I’m a sucker for charm — and diverge from the straight-ahead heavy thrust on the mellower, longer “The Old Man Lied” and “Insomnia,” but by and large, the five-piece are here to throw down riffy groove and have a good time, and they do just that. The title-track, “Wake the Dead” and “Headache” provide a charged beginning, and even by the time the crunch of “Gonna Fall” slides casually into the nodder hook of closer “Last Night a Zombie” (“…ate my brain” is the rest of the line), they’ve still got enough energy to make it feel like the party could easily continue. It just might. There’s perspective in this material that feels like it might take shape over time, and in my mind, Weevil get immediate credit for being upfront in their homage and wearing their own heavy fandom on their sleeves. You can hear their love for it.

Weevil on Facebook

Weevil on Bandcamp

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Kazea, I, Ancestral

Adventurous and forward-thinking post-metal pervades Swedish trio Kazea‘s debut album, and the sound is flexible enough in their craft to let “Whispering Hand” careen like neo-psych after the screams and lurch of “Trenches” provide one of the record’s most extreme moments, bolstered by guest vocals. Indeed, “Whispering Hand” is a rocker and something of an outlier for that, as Pale City Skin draws a downerist line between Crippled Black Phoenix and circa-’04 Neurosis, “Wailing Blood” finds a way to meld driving rhythm and atmospheric heft, and the seven-minute “Seamlessly Woven” caps with suitable depth of wash, following the lushness of the penultimate “The North Passage” in its howling, growl-topped chorus with another expression of the ethereal. I haven’t heard a ton of hype about I, Ancestral, but regardless, this is one of the best debut albums I’ve heard so far this year for sure. Post-metal needs bands willing to push its limits.

Kazea on Instagram

Suicide Records website

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Electric Eye, Dyp Tid

Hard not to think of the 14-minute weirdo-psych jam “Mycelium” as the highlight of Dyp Tid, but one shouldn’t discount the lead-you-in warmth and serenity of opener “Pendelen Svinger,” or the bit of dub in the drumming of “Clock of the Long Now,” and so on as Norway’s Electric Eye — which is a pretty straightforward name, considering the sound — vibe blissful for the duration. The drone “Den Første Lysstråle” is hypnotic, and though the vocals in “Mycelium” are a sample, the human presence periodically sprinkled throughout the album feels like it’s adding comfort amid what might be an anxious plunge into the cosmos. They finish with “Hvit Lotus,” which marries together various kinds of synth over a deceptively casual beat, capping light with vocals or synth-vocals in a bright chorus over chime sounds and drifting guitar. You made it to the island. You’re safe. Gentle fade out.

Electric Eye website

Fuzz Club Records website

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Void Sinker, Oxygen

Multi-instrumentalist and producer Guglielmo Allegro is the sole denizen behind Void Sinker, and while I know full well we live in an age of technological wonders/horrors, that one person could conjure up such encompassing heavy sounds — the way 14-minute opener “Satellite” just swallows you whole — is impressive. Oxygen is the Salerno, Italy, DIY project’s fourth full-length in two years, and its intent to crush is plain from the outset. “Satellite” has its own summary progression of what the rest of the album does, and then “Oxygen” (9:45), “Collision” (15:23) and “Abyss” (13:32) play through increasingly noisy slab-riff distribution. This is done methodically, at mostly slow tempos, with tonal depth and an obvious awareness of where it’s coming from. Presumably that, and a lack of argument from anyone else when he wants to ride a groove for 15 minutes, is why Void Sinker is a solo outfit. One of distinctive bludgeon, it turns out. Like big riffs pushing the air out of your lungs? Here you go.

Void Sinker on Instagram

Void Sinker on Bandcamp

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André Drage Group, Wolves

Draken drummer André Drage leads the group that shares his name from behind the kit, it would seem, but even if only one name gets to be in the moniker, make no mistake, the entire band is present and accounted for. Challenging each other in jazz-prog fashion, Wolves is the second album from the Group in as many months. It leads off with its longest track (immediate points) “Brainsoup,” and by the time they’re through with it, it is. We’re talking ace prog boogie, funky like El Perro might do it, but looser and more improv feeling in the solo of “Potent Elixirs,” giving a spontaneous impression even in the studio, ebbing and flowing in the runs of “Tigerboy” while “Wind in Their Sails” is both more King Crimson and more shuffling-Rhodes-jam, which is the kind of party you want to be at whether you know it or not. The penultimate “Fire” gets lit by the guitar, and they round out with “Nesodden,” a sweet comedown from some of Wolves‘ more frenetic movements. Like a supernova, but not uncontained. This is a band ready to drop jaws.

André Drage Group on Bandcamp

Drage Records website

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The Mystery Lights, Purgatory

The Sept. 2024 third album from NYC-based vintage rockers The Mystery Lights skillfully weaves together garage rock and ’60s pop theatrics, giving the bounce and sway of the title-track an immediately nostalgic impression that the jangly “In the Streets” is probably about a ahead from in terms of influence, but the blend is the thing. Regardless of how developed the punk is or isn’t in a given track — I dig the shaker in “Trouble” and it manages a sense of ‘island’ without being racist, so bonus points for that — or how “Cerebral Crack” brings flute in with its extra-fuzzed guitar later on or “Memories” and “Automatic Response” feel more soul than rock in both intent and manifestation, The Mystery Lights benefit from pairing stylistic complexity with structural simplicity, and the 12 songs of Purgatory find a niche outside genre norms and time all the more for the fact that the band don’t seem concerned with anything so much as writing songs that sound like home the first time you hear them.

The Mystery Lights’ Linktr.ee

The Mystery Lights on Bandcamp

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No lie, this very morning I checked the Desertfest New York socials to see if I had missed some word of when lineup announcements might start for 2025. The last post I saw on there was something about how “we will return in 2025,” and thusly reassured, I left.

A scant couple hours later, the folks behind Desertfest NYC — the Desertscene London crew, and I think Sound of Liberation and Tee Pee Records are still involved, but I’m in the suburbs so I don’t know shit — announce they’re taking 2025 as a gap year in order to come back regrouped in 2026. I take them at their word when they cite “headliner availability” and it becoming more and more expensive for international acts to travel to the US to play. And who is there who might pack out a place like Knockdown Center? They’ve had High on Fire, Amenra, Colour Haze, John Garcia, Boris, Godflesh, on and on. You wouldn’t accuse them of half-assing it to this point. New York City is a tough festival town. Everything’s expensive, including on the venue and production ends, and people not from there are intimidated at the prospect of getting around.

I could go on about the whys and whatses of that, but the bottom line is I sincerely hope Desertfest New York comes back next year. Not just because I’ve been to all of them and they’ve become a festival I look forward to every year, with great times, great music, and great people hanging out for both, but also for what Desertfest allowed to take place the last two or three years in September, aligning to Ripplefest in Austin, Texas, to become anchor stops for touring bands foreign and domestic. That’s a setup that Europe has nailed down — see every October weekend for an example — but just a first real inkling of something like that happening in the US, which was very exciting. Future prospects of bigger and smaller bands alike being able to travel to this country and find an audience. You don’t get better than that, and having Desertfest and Ripplefest at least working toward similar ends individually if not outright colluding on lineups makes the entire prospect of a band traveling to the US for the first time more possible. For that too, I’ll miss Desertfest New York this year.

The fest’s statement follows below. Fingers crossed for next year and all the best to the Desertfest NYC crew. Heartfelt thanks for the work to bring Desertfest to New York over these last six challenging years, and hope for more:

Desertfest NYC has made the tough decision to take a break in 2025 and will return to New York in the fall of 2026. Challenges with headliner availability and rising costs for EU bands has made it difficult to build a line-up that feels reflective and celebratory of a fifth edition.

We’ve been working on our 2025 line-up since August of last year & pride ourselves on producing world-class billings that bring together the biggest names in the underground. So, trust us when we say no stone was left unturned before this decision was made – a scaled down event, fewer days, less bands, we explored all options but none sat right with us. A move to 2026 will allow us the space to put together an event that celebrates just how far DF NYC has come.

We know it’s disappointing news to read & we are right there with you in it.

Desertfest NYC remains a fully independent event and we can’t do any aspect of this without y’all showing up, so we truly hope you’ll stick with us as we hit the gas hard for 2026, with more news soon….

– Your DF NYC crew

(photo: The Tinfoil Biter)

https://facebook.com/Desertfestnyc/
https://www.instagram.com/desertfest_nyc/
http://www.desertfestnewyork.com

Castle Rat‘s emergence over the last two years, given a landmark last year as the band released their debut long-player, Into the Realm (review here), through King Volume Records, continues unabated. The theatrically-minded Brooklyn cultists have announced their first and surely not last headlining tour after supporting Early Moods this past Fall, and over the course of two weeks of shows with just two nights off, the band will treat the Eastern Seaboard and as far inland as Texas and Chicago to their particular vision of doomed aesthetic.

Given the reception to the album and the band generally, it seemed like their first headlining tour — note that the first night of the tour is in support of Brant Bjork Trio; Haze Mage are also on that bill — was an event worth marking. Nanotear is behind the stint and posted the following on socials:

Thrilled to announce Castle Rat’s first headlining tour. Hot on the heels of funding one of the most successful heavy metal Kickstarter campaigns of all time, the band is ready to bring The Realm to you!

Most shows on sale now at link in first comment. \m/

Thu 3/13 – Baltimore, MD @ Metro
Fri 3/14 – Charlottesville, VA @ Southern Cafe
Sat 3/15 – Raleigh, NC @ Chapel of Bones
Sun 3/16 – Asheville, NC @ Eulogy
Mon 3/17 – Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn
Tue 3/18 – New Orleans, LA @ Siberia
Thu 3/20 – Houston, TX @ Hell’s Heroes
Fri 3/21 – Dallas, TX @ Three Links
Sat 3/22 – Little Rock, AR @ White Water Tavern
Sun 3/23 – St Louis, MO @ Red Flag
Tue 3/25 – Chicago, IL @ Reggies
Wed 3/26 – Indianapolis, IN @ Black Circle
Thu 3/27 – Detroit, MI @ Small’s
Fri 3/28 – Columbus, OH @ Ace Of Cups
Sat 3/29 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
Sun 3/30 – New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge

Castle Rat:
Riley Pinkerton – Singer, Guitarist, Songwriter; Rat Queen
Franco Vittore – Lead Guitarist; Count
Ronnie Lanzilotta III – Bassist; Plague Doctor
Josh Strmic – Drummer; The All-Seeing Druid
Maddy Wright; The Rat Reapress (Live shows)

https://www.facebook.com/castleratband
http://instagram.com/castle.rat
https://castleratband.bandcamp.com

http://www.facebook.com/kingvolumerecords
http://www.kingvolumerecords.bandcamp.com
http://www.kingvolumerecords.limitedrun.com

Castle Rat, Into the Realm (2024)

This is the last day of the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review. Day 11 of 10, as it were. Bonus-extra, as we say at home. 10 more releases of various kinds to underscore the point of the infinite creative sphere. Before we dive in, I want to make a note about the header above. It’s the same one I used a couple times during the pandemic, with the four horseman of the apocalypse riding, and I put it in place of the AI art I’d been using because that seems to be a trigger for so many people.

In my head, I did that to avoid the conversation, to avoid dealing with someone who might be like, “Ugh, AI art” and then a conversation that deteriorates in the way of people talking at each other on the internet. This saves me the trouble. I’ll note the irony that swiping an old etching out of the public domain and slapping an Obelisk logo on it is arguably less creative than feeding a prompt into a generative whathaveyou, but at least this way I don’t have to hear the underground’s moral panic that AI is coming for stoner rock.

Quarterly Review #101-110:

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Chat Pile, Cool World

Chat Pile are two-for-two on living up to the hype in my mind as Cool World follows the band’s 2022 debut, God’s Country (review here), with a darker, more metal take on that record’s trauma-poetic and nihilistic noise rock. Some of the bassy jabs in songs like “Camcorder” and “Frownland” remind of Korn circa their self-titled, but I’m not sure Chat Pile were born when that record came out, and that harder, fuller-sounding impact comes in a context with “Tape” following “Camcorder” in bringing together Meshuggah and post-punk, so take it as you will. Based in Oklahoma City, Chat Pile are officially A Big Deal With Dudes™, but in a style that’s not exactly known for reinvention — i.e. noise rock — they are legitimately a breath of air that would be ‘fresh’ if it weren’t so desolate and remains innovative regardless. There’s gonna be a lot of mediocre riffs and shitty poetry written in an attempt to capture a fraction of what this record does.

Chat Pile on Facebook

The Flenser website

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Neon Nightmare, Faded Dream

I guess the anonymous project Neon Nightamre — who sound and aesthetic-wise are straight-up October Rust-and-later Type O Negative; the reason the album caught my eye was the framing of the letters around the corners — have gotten some harsh response to their debut, Faded Dream. Critic-type dudes pearl-clutching a band’s open unoriginality. Because to be sure, beyond dedicating the album to Peter Steele — and maybe they did, I haven’t seen the full artwork — Neon Nightmare could hardly do more in naked homage to the semi-goth Brooklyn legends and their distinctive Beatles/Sabbath worship. But I mean, that’s the point. It’s not like this band is saying they’re the first ones doing any of this, and in a world where AI could scrape every Type O record and pump out some half-assed interpretation in five minutes, isn’t something that attempts to demonstrate actual human love for the source material as it builds on it worth at least acknowledging as creative? I like Type O Negative a lot. The existence of Neon Nightmare doesn’t lessen that at all, and there are individual flashes of style in “Lost Silver” — the keyboard line feels like an easter egg from “Anesthesia”; I wondered if the title was in honor of Josh Silver — and the guitar work of “She’s Drowning” that make me even more curious to see where this goes.

Neon Nightmare on Facebook

20 Buck Spin website

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Astrometer, Outermost

Brooklyn-based instrumentalist five-piece Astrometer present their full-length debut after releasing their first demo, Incubation (review here), in 2022. The double-guitar pairing of Carmine Laietta V and Drew Mack and the drumming of Jeff Stieber at times will put you in mind of their collective past playing together in Hull, but the keys of Jon Ehlers (Bangladeafy) and the basswork of Sam Brodsky (Meek is Murder) assure that the newer collective have a persona and direction of their own, so that while the soaring solo in “Power Vulture” or the crashes of “Blood Wedding” might ring familiar, the context has shifted, so that those crashes come accompanied by sax and there’s room for a song like “Conglobulations” with its quirk, rush and crunching bounce to feel cosmic with the keyboard, and that blend of crush and reach extends into the march of closer “Do I Know How to Party…” which feels like a preface for things to come in its progressive punch.

Astrometer on Facebook

Astrometer on Bandcamp

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Acid Rooster, Hall of Mirrors

An annual check-in from universe-and-chill molten and mellow heavy psych explorers Acid Rooster. It’s only been a year since the band unfurled Flowers and Dead Souls, but Hall of Mirrors offers another chance to be hypnotized by the band’s consuming fluidity, the 39-minute four-songer coming across as focused on listener immersion in no small part as a result of Acid Rooster‘s own. That is, it’s not like you’re swimming around the bassline and residual synth and guitar effects noise in the middle of the 14-minute “Chandelier Arp” and the band are standing calm and dry back on the beach. No way. They’re right in it. I don’t know if they were closed-eyes entranced while the recording was taking place, but if you want a definition of ‘dug in,’ Hall of Mirrors has four, and Acid Rooster‘s capacity for conveying purpose as they plunge into a jam-born piece like “Confidence of Ignorance” sets them apart from much of Europe’s psychedelic underground in establishing a meditative atmosphere. They are unafraid of the serene, and not boring. This is an achievement.

Acid Rooster on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

Little Cloud Records website

Tonzonen website

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Giants Dawrfs and Black Holes, Echo on Death of Narcissus

Five years on from their start, Germany’s Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes present Echo on Death of Narcissus as their third full-length and the follow-up to 2023’s In a Sandbox Full of Suns (review here) as the four-piece bring in new guitarist Caio Puttini Chaves alongside vocalist Christiane Thomaßen, guitarist Tomasz Riedel (also bass and keys) and drummer Carsten Freckmann for a five-track collection that has another album’s worth of knows-what-it’s-about behind it. Opener “Again,” long enough at eight minutes to be a bookend with the finale “Take Me Down” (13:23) but not so long as to undercut that expanse, leads into three competent showings of classic progressive/psychedelic rock, casual in the flow between “Soul Trip” and the foreboding strums of centerpiece “Flowers of Evil” ahead of the also-languid “December Bloom.” And when they get there, “Take Me Down” has a jammy breadth all its own that shimmers in the back half soloing, which kind of devolves at the end, but resounds all the more as organic for that.

Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes on Facebook

Sireena Records website

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Oryx, Primordial Sky

Oryx‘s Primordial Sky threads a stylistic needle across its four songs. Delivered through Translation Loss, the 41-minute follow-up to the Denver trio’s 2021 offering, Lamenting a Dead World (discussed here), is no less extreme than one would expect, but to listen to 13-minute opener/longest track (immediate points), 13-minute capper “Look Upon the Earth,” or either of the seven-minute cuts between, it’s plain to both hear and see that there’s more to Oryx atmospherically than onslaught, however low guitarist Thomas Davis (also synth) pushes his growls amid the lurching grooves of bassist Joshua Kauffman and drummer Abigail Davis. This is something that five records and more than a decade on from their start their listeners know well, but as they refine their processes, even the outright sharp-toothed consumption of “Ephemeral” has some element of outreach.

Oryx on Facebook

Translation Loss Records store

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Sunface, Cloud Castles

Heads up on this record for those who dig the mellower end of heavy psych, plus intricacy of arrangement, which is a number in which I very much count myself. By that I mean don’t be surprised when Sunface‘s Cloud Castles shows up on my year-end list. It’s less outwardly traditionalist than some of the heavy rock coming out of Norway at this point in history, but showcasing a richer underground only makes Cloud Castles more vital in my mind, and as even a shorter song like “Thunder Era” includes an open-enough sensibility to let a shoegazier sway enter the proceedings in “Violet Ponds” without seeming incongruous for the post-All Them Witches bluesy sway that underlies it. Innovative for the percussion in “Tall Trees” alone, Sunface are weighted in tone but able to move in a way that feels like their own, and to convey that movement without upsetting the full-album flow across the 10 songs and 44 minutes with radical changes in meter, while at the same time not dwelling too long in any single stretch or atmosphere.

Sunface on Facebook

Apollon Records website

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Fórn, Repercussions of the Self

While consistent with their two prior LPs in the general modus of unmitigated aural heft and oppressive, extreme sludge, Fórn declare themselves on broader aesthetic ground in incorporating electronic elements courtesy of guitarist Joey Gonzalez and Andrew Nault, as well as newcomer synthesist Lane Shi Otayonii, whose clean vocals also provide a sense of space to 11-minute post-intro plunge “Soul Shadow.” If it’s the difference between all-crush and mostly-crush, that’s not nothing, and “Anamnesis” can be that much noisier for the band’s exploring a more encompassing sound. Live drums are handled in a guest capacity by Ilsa‘s Josh Brettell, and that band’s Orion Peter also sits in alongside Fórn‘s Chris Pinto and Otayonii, and with Danny Boyd on guitar and Brian Barbaruolo on bass, the sound is duly massive, tectonic and three-dimensional; the work of a band following a linear progression toward new ideas and balancing that against the devastation laid forth in their songs. Repercussions of the Self does not want for challenge directed toward the listener, but the crux is catharsis more than navelgazing, and the intensity here is no less crucial to Fórn‘s post-metallic scene-setting than it has been to this point in their tenure. Good band actively making themselves better.

Fórn on Facebook

Persistent Vision Records website

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Gravity Well, Negative Space

Big-riffed heavy fuzz rock from Northern Ireland as the Belfast-based self-releasing-for-now four-piece of vocalist/synthesist Fionnuala McGlinchy, guitarist Tom Finney, bassist Michael McFarlane and drummer Ciaran O’Kane touch on vibes reminiscent of some of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard‘s synth-fused sci-fi doom roil while keeping the material more earthbound in terms of tone and structure, so that the seven-minute “The Abstract” isn’t quite all-in on living up to the title, plenty liquefied, but still aware of itself and where it’s going. This mitigated terrestrialism — think Middle of Nowhere-era Acid King — is the source of a balance to which Negative Space, the band’s second album, is able to reshape as required by a given song — “Burning Gaze” has its far-out elements, they’re there for a reason — and thereby portray a range of moods rather than dwelling in the same emotional or atmospheric space for the duration. Bookending intro “As Above” and the closer “So Below” further the impression of the album as a single work/journey to undertake, and indeed that seems to be how the character of “The Forest,” “Delirium” and the rest of the material flourishes.

Gravity Well on Facebook

Gravity Well on Bandcamp

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Methadone Skies, Spectres at Dawn

Romanian instrumentalist heavy psych purveyors Methadone Skies sent word of the follow-up to 2021’s Retrofuture Caveman (review here) last month and said that the six-songer Spectres at Dawn was the heaviest work they’d done in their now-six-album tenure. Well they’re right. Taking cues from Russian Circles and various others in the post-heavy sphere, guitarists Alexandru Wehry and Casian Stanciu, bassist Mihai Guta and drummer Flavius Retea (also keyboards, of increasing prominence in the sound), are still able to dive into a passage and carry across a feeling of openness and expanse, but on “Mano Cornetto” here that becomes just part of a surprisingly stately rush of space metal, and 10-minute closer “Use the Excessive Force” seems to be laying out its intention right there in the title. Whether the ensuing blastbeats are, in fact, excessive, will be up to the individual listener, but either way, Methadone Skies have done their diligence in letting listeners know where they’re headed, and Spectres at Dawn embodies that forwardness of ethic on multiple levels.

Methadone Skies on Facebook

Methadone Skies on Bandcamp

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I remember standing in the room some years after the Saint Vitus Bar’s reputation had been established, talking with somebody from out of town who’d heard that Black Sabbath played there in the ’70s. That wasn’t true, but it was emblematic of the kind of place Saint Vitus Bar was. New York has had probably more than its fair share of legendary clubs — from Studio 54 to C.B.G.B.’s to The Continental, which I still miss — but as it was tucked away in Brooklyn’s then-decisively-less-cool-than-Williamsburg Greenpoint neighborhood, and as it spoke and catered specifically to an underground audience in metal and all things heavy, it became more than just the place where the stoner rock shows went. It was a home.

Earlier this year, Saint Vitus Bar was shut down mid-show by the city of New York on account of some violation or other. The story emerged that some conservative headbanger with an axe to grind because Vitus had a rainbow somewhere or something decided to assassinate the gift horse by reporting whatever it was. By then, Saint Vitus Bar was nearing 13 full years of operation, having opened in August 2011 — the first show I saw there was Totimoshi and Pigs on Aug. 20 (review here) — which is more lifetime than many clubs and venues get before being eaten up by New York’s ever-present drive toward renewal.

Greenpoint had changed since 2011, too. Yeah, the bodega across the way still looked run-down, but just down the way from that is a luxury grocery store underneath about four floors of also-luxury condos, and there’s a wine store right next to where the venue (now) was. When I went there to see YOB in Feb. 2022 (review here) as my first show “back” from the pandemic — one of six times I saw the band there — I imagined the bottles rumbling off the shelves as the riffs shook the walls. Gentrification might not have actually killed Saint Vitus Bar, but only because some other asshole got in there first. This past weekend, after months of behind-the-scenes wrangling, the bar finally announced they were closed for good.

I have amazing memories of time and people there. Meeting friends. The way the sound in the room swallowed you. All the times I saw Kings Destroy. That release show they did with Apostle of Solitude. That time I got on stage to do vocals with Clamfight. Hell, in 2014 when I started kicking around the idea of The Obelisk All-Dayer, there was nowhere else I even thought of doing it. If I couldn’t have the date at Saint Vitus Bar, well, I’d find a different date. In the end, having Mars Red Sky, Death Alley, King Buffalo, Snail, Eye, Heavy Temple and the aforementioned Kings Destroy play, having Walter from Roadburn come just to hang out, was a landmark in my life, and I’ll never forget that Vitus hosted.

T-shirts in the back or the corridor right across from the bathrooms, between the barroom and the venue space. The booth seating they eventually had to take out so people could use that room to stand. The way they redid the front. It still felt like home the last time I was there. You’d see Frank Huang setting up a camera — a polite nod to the man responsible for filming so much of what went on; documentation that will prove all the more essential in the years to come in separating between the true and apocryphal — or maybe George Souleidis would be behind the bar or David Castillo would be in the crowd. You could say hi. Sure, they hosted the closest thing to a Nirvana reunion that’s ever happened, but, still, they weren’t jerks or anything. A lot of people would’ve been.

Saint Vitus Bar became New York’s “of course” venue. Of course that tour was going to hit Vitus. Acid King coming east for like two shows? Of course it’s at Vitus. Saint Vitus at Saint Vitus? Of course. I could go on here, but what it boils down to is that Souleidis, Castillo, Arty Shepherd and the myriad others behind the scenes in ownership and operation cared about what they were doing, about the music and the audience they were catering to. It wasn’t just a box with a P.A. It was the kind of place you tell stories about. The kind of place where you buy the shirt. An icon.

Thank you for everything, Saint Vitus Bar. You were bottled lightning. Something special. And of all the rooms I’ve stood in and watched bands — more than I can or have any interest in counting — you were far and away the most welcoming. I might miss that feeling most of all.

There’s talk of reopening in another space (move to Jersey!), and that worked well enough for Knitting Factory going from Manhattan to Brooklyn, so it’s not impossible that the brand could live on and a win could be pulled from the rubble of this loss. I don’t know the future, but if there’s a spark of hope in that regard I’ll hold onto it just to make the loss easier.

Saint Vitus Bar 2011-2024. Long may it reign.

 

I wouldn’t say we’re in the home stretch yet, but this 100-release Quarterly Review is more than three-quarters done after today, so I guess it’s debatable. In any case, we proceed. I hope you’ve enjoyed what’s been on offer so far. Yesterday was a little manic, but I got there. Today, tomorrow, I expect much the same. The order of things, as that one Jem’Hadar liked to say.

Quarterly Review #71-80:

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Bongripper, Empty

Eight albums and the emergence of a microgenre cast partly in their image later, it would take a lot for Chicago ultra-crush instrumentalists Bongripper to surprise their listenership, at least as regards their basic approach. If you think that’s a bad thing, fine, but I’d put the 66 minutes of Empty forward to argue otherwise. Six years after 2018’s two-song LP Terminal (review here) — with a live record and single between — the four new songs of Empty dare to sneakily convey a hopeful message in the concave tracklisting: “Nothing” (20:40), “Remains’ (12:04), “Forever” (12:43), “Empty” (21:24). That message might be what’s expressed in the echoing post-metallic lead guitar on the finale and the organ on the prior “Forever,” or, frankly, it might not. Because in the great, lumbering, riffy morass that is their sound, there’s room for multiple interpretations as well as largesse enough to accommodate the odd skyscraper, so take it as you will. Just because you might go into it with some idea of what’s coming doesn’t mean you won’t get flattened.

Bongripper on Facebook

Bongripper BigCartel store

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Destroyer of Light, Degradation Years

My general policy as regards “last” records is to never say never until everybody’s holograms have been deleted, but the seven songs and 39 minutes of Degradation Years represent an ending for Destroyer of Light just the same, and the Austin-based troupe end as they began, which is by not being the band people expected them to be. Their previous long-player, 2022’s Panic (review here), dug into atmospheric doom in engrossing fashion, and Degradation Years presents not-at-all-their-first pivot, with post-punk atmospherics and ’90s-alt melodies on “Waiting for the End” and heavy drift on “Perception of Time.” “Failure” is duly sad, where the shorter, riffier “Blind Faith” shreds and careens heading into its verse, and the nine-minute “Where I Cannot Follow” gives Pallbearer‘s emotive crux a look on the way to its airy tremolo finish. Guitarist/vocalist Steve Colca has a couple other nascent projects going, guitarist Keegan Kjeldsen and drummer Kelly Turner are in Slumbering Sun, and Mike Swarbrick who plays bass here is in Cortége, but Destroyer of Light always stood on their own, and they never stopped growing across their 12-year run. Job well done.

Destroyer of Light on Facebook

Destroyer of Light on Bandcamp

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Castle Rat, Into the Realm

If you take away the on-stage theatricality, the medieval/horror fetish play, and all the hype, what you’re left with on Castle Rat‘s first album, Into the Realm is a solid collection of raw, classic-styled doom rock able to account for the Doors-y guitar in the quiet strum of the gets-heavy-later “Cry for Me” as well as the shrieks of “Fresh Fur” and opener “Dagger Dragger,” the nod and chug of “Nightblood” and the proto-metal of “Feed the Dream” via three interludes spaced out across its brief 32-minute stretch. Of course, taking away the drama, the sex, and aesthetic cultistry is missing part of the point of the band in the first place, but what I’m saying is that Into the Realm has more going for it than the fact that the band are young and good looking, willing to writhe, and thus marketable. They could haunt Brooklyn basements for the next 15-20 years or go tour with Ghost tomorrow, I honestly have no clue about their ambitions or goals in that regard, but their songs present a strong stylistic vision in accord with their overarching persona, resonating with a fresh generational take and potential progression. That’s enough on its own to make Into the Realm one of the year’s most notable debuts.

Castle Rat on Instagram

King Volume Records store

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Temple of the Fuzz Witch, Apotheosis

With their third full-length and first for Ripple Music, Detroit trio Temple of the Fuzz Witch — guitarist/vocalist Noah Bruner (also synth), bassist Joe Peet and drummer Taylor Christian — follow their 2020 offering, Red Tide (review here), with a somewhat revamped imagining of who they are. Apotheosis — as high as you can get — introduces layers of harsh vocals and charred vibes amid the consuming lumber of its tonality, still cultish in atmosphere but heavier in its ritualizing and darker. The screams work, and songs like “Nephilim” benefit from Bruner‘s ability to shift from clean to harsh vocals there and across the nine-songer’s 39 minutes, and while there’s plenty of slog, a faster song like “Bow Down” stands out all the more from the grim, somehow-purple mist in which even the spacious midsection of “Raze” seems to reside. The bottom line is if you think you knew who they were or you judged them as a bong-metal tossoff because of their silly name, you’re already missing out. If you’re cool with that, fair enough. It’s not my job to sell you records anyway.

Temple of the Fuzz Witch on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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State of Non Return, White Ink

Among the final releases for Trepanation Recordings, White Ink is the years-in-the-making first LP from Bologna, Italy’s State of Non Return — and if you’re hearing a dogwhistle in their moniker for meditative fare because that’s also the name of an Om song, you’re neither entirely correct or incorrect. From the succession of the three circa-nine-minutes-each cuts “Catharsis,” “Vertigo” and “White Ink,” the trio harness a thoughtful take on brooding desert nod, with “Vertigo” boasting some more aggro-tinged shouts ahead of the chug in its middle building on the spoken word of the opener, and the intro to the title-track building into a roll of tempered distortion that offers due payoff in its sharp-edged leads and hypnotic repetitions, to the 15-minute finale “Pendulum” that offers due back and forth between minimal spaces and full-on voluminosity before taking off on an extended linear build to end, the focus is more on atmosphere than spiritual contemplation, and State of Non Return find individualism in moody contemplation and the tension-release of their heaviest moments. Some bands grow into their own sound over time. State of Non Return, who got together in 2016, seem to have spent at least some of that span of years since doing the legwork ahead of this release.

State of Non Return on Facebook

Trepanation Recordings on Bandcamp

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Thief, Bleed, Memory

Writing and recording as a solo artist under the banner of Thief — there’s a band for stage purposes — Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Dylan Neal (also Botanist) pulls back from the ’90s-attitudinal industrial and nü-metal flirtations of 2021’s The 16 Deaths of My Master (review here) and reroutes the purpose toward more emotive atmospheric ends. Sure, “Dead Coyote Dreams” still sneaks out of its house to smoke cigarettes at night, and that’s cool forever and you know it, but with an urgent beat behind it, “Cinderland” opens to a wash that is encompassing in ways Thief had little interest in being three years ago, despite working with largely similar elements blending electronica, synth, and organic instrumentation. The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — holds that Neal‘s father’s onset of dementia inspired the turn, and that’s certainly reason enough if you need a reason, but if there’s processing taking place over the 12 inclusions and 44 minutes that Bleed, Memory spans, along with its allusions to James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, etc., that does not at all make the work feel anymore lost than it’s intended to be in the post-techno of “Paramnesia” or the wub-and-shimmer of “To Whom it May Concern” that rounds out. I’ll allow that being of a certain age might make it more relatable.

Thief on Facebook

Prophecy Productions website

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Ravens, Ravens

New Jersey’s Ravens mark their first public offering with this seven-song self-titled debut, spacious in its vocal echo and ostensibly led by riffs though that doesn’t necessarily mean the guitar is foremost in the mix throughout. The guitar/drum duo of Zack Kurland (Green Dragon, ex-Sweet Diesel, etc.) and drummer Chris Daly (Texas is the Reason, Resurrection, etc.) emerges out of the trio Altered States with grounded rhythmic purpose beneath the atmospheric tones and vocal melodies, touching on pop in “Get On, Get On” while “New Speedway Boogie” struts with thicker tone and a less shoegazing intent than the likes of “To Whom You Were Born,” the languid “Miscommunication” and “Revolution 0,” though that two-minute piece ends with a Misfits-y vocal, so nothing is so black and white stylistically — a notion underscored as closer “Amen” builds from its All Them Witches-swaying meanderings to a full, driving wah-scorched wash to end off. Where they might be headed next, I have no idea, but if you can get on board with this one, the songs refuse to be sublimated to fit genre, and there are fewer more encouraging starts than that.

Ravens on Instagram

Ravens on Bandcamp

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Spacedrifter, When the Colors Fade

Each of the 10 songs on Spacedrifter‘s first full-length, When the Colors Fade, works from its own intention, whether it’s the frenetic MondoGenerator thrust of “(Radio Edit)” or the touch of boogie in opener “Dwell,” but grunge and desert rock are at the root of much the proceedings, as the earliest-QOTSA fuzz of “Buried in Stone” will attest. But the scope of the whole is richer in hearing than on paper, and shifts like the layered vocal melodies in “Have a Girl” or the loose bluesy swing of the penultimate “NFOB,” the band’s willingness to let a part breathe without dwelling too long on any single idea, results in a balance that speaks to the open sensibilities of turn-of-the-century era European heavy without being a retread of those bands either. Comprised of bassist/vocalist/producer Olle Söderberg, drummer/vocalist Isac Löfgren guitarist/vocalist Adam Hante and guitarist John Söderberg, Spacedrifter‘s songwriting feels and organic in its scope and how it communes with the time before the “rules” of various microgenres were set, and is low-key refreshing not like an album you’re gonna hear a ton of hyperbole about, but one that’s going to stay with you longer than its 39 minutes, especially after you let it sink in over a couple listens. So yeah, I’m saying don’t be surprised when it’s on my year-end debuts list, blah blah whatever, but also watch out for how their sound develops from here.

Spacedrifter on Facebook

Spacedrifter on Bandcamp

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Collyn McCoy, Night of the Bastard Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Assembled across varied movements of synthesizer ranging from half-a-minute to a bit under four minutes long, the score for the indie horror film Night of the Bastard finds L.A.’s Collyn McCoy (also of Circle of Sighs, bassist for Unida, etc.) performing under his experimental-and-then-some electronic alias Nyte Vypr, and if that doesn’t telegraph weirdness to come, well, you can just take my word for it that it should. I can’t claim to have seen the movie, which is reportedly available hither and yon in the clusterfuck that is the modern streamscape, but ’80s horror plays a big role in pieces like “Shards and Splinters” and the opening “Night of the Bastard” itself, while “If We Only Had Car Keys” and “Get Out” feel even more specifically John Carpenter in their beat and keyboard handclaps. Closer “The Sorceress” is pointedly terrifying, but “Turtle Feed” follows a drone and piano line to more peaceful ends that come across as far, far away from the foreboding soundscape of “Go Fuck Yourself.” Remember that part where I said it was going to get weird? It does, and it’s clearly supposed to, so mark it another win for McCoy‘s divergent CV.

Collyn McCoy website

Collyn McCoy on Bandcamp

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Misleading, Face the Psych

I hate to be that guy, but while Face the Psych is the third long-player from Portugal’s Misleading, it’s my first time hearing them, so I can’t help but feel like it’s worth noting that, in fact, they’re not that misleading at all. They tell you to face the psych and then, across seven cosmos-burning tracks and 54 minutes in an alternate dimension, you face it. Spoiler: it’s fucking rad. While largely avoiding the trap of oh-so-happening-right-now space metal, Misleading are perfectly willing to let themselves be carried where the flow of “Tutte le Nove Vite” takes them — church organ righteousness, bassy shuffle, jams that run in gravitational circles, and so on — and to shove and be shoved by the insistence of “Cheating Death” a short while later. The centerpiece “Spazio Nascoto” thickens up stonerized swing after a long intro of synth drone, and 12-minute capper “Egregore” feels like the entire song, not just the guitar and bass, has been put through the wah pedal. As likely to make you punchdrunk as entranced, willfully unhinged, and raw despite filling all the reaches of its mix and then some, it’s not so much misleading as leading-astray as you suddenly realize an hour later you’ve quit your job and dropped out of life, ne’er to be seen, heard from or hounded by debt collectors again. Congrats on that, by the way.

Misleading on Facebook

Misleading on Bandcamp

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Just a quick heads up to anyone not immediately in the borough’s sphere of influence as I am even way out here in the suburbs of my beloved Garden State, the proper pronunciation should be “Brooklyn New York,” three words, no comma. You don’t have to do a fake accent or make it cutesy, but that comma — which is correctly placed in the writing of Winter‘s impending live album, Live in Brooklyn, NY — is silent.

Between that and the fact that there’s a live release at all coming — Svart has it out April 19, like the header says — that’d probably be enough to get stoked on, but Winter‘s Stephan Flam also worked with Svart on the release of his dark experimental/conceptual outfit Göden, who yes, inherited a lot of Winter‘s pioneering extremity of doom, and it’s casually revealed below that a second Göden LP will be out this May. Considering we’re already starting to see release announcements for then, I’d expect word down the PR wire in the next couple weeks, since this will be first a month earlier.

In any case, a live Winter release from 2012 is probably the best thing one could hope for from them — I don’t know that a studio album would, could or should ever happen, but stranger things have — and a new Göden is sure to be far too weird for 99.9 percent of humans and all the more righteous for that. I look forward to hearing both the way one looks forward to plastic surgery — self-mutilation working toward a perceived good. They do that shit in stripmalls now. I feel like that alone makes a Winter live record necessary.

From the PR wire:

Svart Records are proud to release the first official live album from cult death doom band Winter!

In August and September of 2012, Winter participated in the “Power of the Riff East/West” series of concerts held in California and New York. After first playing the West Coast shows with bands like Pelican and Noothgrush among others, Winter returned to their hometown New York on September 2nd and played a show in Brooklyn’s Warsaw with their best line-up; Stephen Flam/Guitar, John Alman/Bass and vocals, Jim Jackson/Drums and original keyboardist Tony Pinnisi who played with the band first time since recording “Into Darkness” LP in 1989.

The rare appearance of this performance in Brooklyn, featuring all their classic tunes like “Servants of the Warsmen”, “Power and Might”, “Destiny, Eternal Frost” etc. was recorded, and is now presented here for all their fans. This isn’t any cheap nostalgia driven reunion cash out, but a real and raw deal. RISE!

Winter “Live in Brooklyn NY” vinyl, CD and t-shirts out 19.4.2024.

Winter’s spiritual successor Göden will release a new album on Svart Records in May 2024. More info on that will follow soon, so keep your eyes and ears open!

https://www.facebook.com/Winter.NY.official/
https://www.instagram.com/WINTER.ny.Official

www.facebook.com/svartrecords
https://www.instagram.com/svartrecords/
https://svartrecords.bandcamp.com/
www.svartrecords.com

Winter, “Eternal Frost” live at Power of the Riff East, Brooklyn, NY, 09.02.12

You’ll forgive, I hope. I know it hasn’t been that long since I closed out a week with Type O Negative, but it’s over a year, they’re an all-time band for me and I’m trying to connect to something and pull myself closer toward out of what I’ll generously call a persistent malaise as regards totality. Life is Killing Me is a surprisingly rousing record.

And not just in its trilogy let’s-be-Ramones-now metal-punkers “I Don’t Wanna Be Me,” “I Like Goils,” and “Angry Inch” cast across its sprawling, CD-era 15-song/74-minute runtime. By the time Type O Negative released this sixth album in 2003 — it would be their last for Roadrunner; their final LP was 2007’s Dead Again, on SPV — I thought they were done. When it first came out in September of my senior year of high school, I thought 1999’s World Coming Down (discussed here) was a huge letdown after 1996’s landmark October Rust (discussed here), and I guess I thought that between drugs, the shifting trends in metal of the day, and their own widely reputed misery, they probably wouldn’t do anything else.

Life is Killing Me was released 21 years ago. I was in college. The promo CD from Roadrunner came to me at WSOU — it came to everyone; Roadrunner was tight with the famed NJ-based college radio station; it made us feel important — and had an audio watermark I can still hear in my head over some of the songs because I listened to it so god damned much. “Type O Negative, Life is Killing Me. The new album, in stores this June” in a plainspoken woman’s voice. This was an anti-piracy measure that also just happened to, for many, ruin a given listening experience. There wasn’t a ton that was going to keep me away from hearing this record though, including that.

This was inarguably the most Beatles they ever were in their crucial Beatlesabbath pioneering goth metal/doom approach. Songs like “Todd’s Ship Gods (Above All Things),” “Nettie,” “(We Were) Electrocute,” closer “The Dream is Dead” and even the ladies-of-classic-television rundown in “How Could She?,” delivered with signature humor in Peter Steele‘s lyrics has a sense of nostalgia or looking back that, 20.5 years after its initial release, I find is a nostalgia I share for the tracks themselves. So be it. The sitar-and-tabla-inclusive “Less Than Zero.” The ahead-of-its-time healthcare commentary and playfully gloomy atmosphere of the title-track. Those songs tightened Type O Negative‘s songwriting approach to a degree that October Rust and World Coming Down could only hint toward, and took the loss of Steele‘s parents — specifically the subjects of “Todd’s Ship Gods  (Above All Things)” and “Nettie” — and found comfort in unpretentious pop hooks (sometimes also laughably pretentious) and affectingly sincere lyrics.

Bolstered by an emergent dynamic in their sound that found guitarist Kenny Hickey contributing more on vocals alongside Steele on his way to sharing more of the songwriting credits on Dead Again and the always stellar organ/keys and backing vocals from Josh Silver — of course the band was completed by drummer Johnny Kelly, but had a thing for drum machines in the studio until the last album — the emotionality of Life is Killing Me comes through mature and sincere even in its winking irony and willful mischief. And though one doesn’t always think of them as a catchy band, “…A Dish Best Served Coldly,” “I Don’t Wanna Be Me,” “Anesthesia” — fucking “Anesthesia”; there it is; the declaration “I don’t need love” before two songs before they cap with “Another lonely Valentine’s Day” in “The Dream is Dead” — as well as “(We Were) Electrocute” and “IYDKMIGHTKY (Gimme That),” among others, take on pop with a rare boldness for anything heavy.

Like a lot of what they did during their years together, which effectively ended with Steele‘s death in 2010, Life is Killing Me has aged better in sound than politically. “I Like Goils” comes off as a kind of weak troll in hindsight, even if it’s Steele laughing about being hit on by dudes after appearing in Playgirl that time, and their take on “Angry Inch” from the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch is only loving if you hear it with those ears. They courted controversy in a way that, now, is the provenance of genuine assholes, which perhaps the surviving former members of the band — Hickey and Kelly play together in EYE AM and Silvertomb, and Kelly has drummed for Danzig, plays in Patriarchs in Black, Quiet Riot, and A Pale Horse Named Death with prior Type O drummer Sal Abruscato, who adds vocals on “I Like Goils” here — would say he or they all were. Fair enough.

But I’ll tell you this. After listening to Life is Killing Me for over two decades now since it came out, I just this morning heard the organ “I Don’t Wanna Be Me” in a new way on my headphones than I’ve ever heard before. Just sounded a little different, but it’s still something to appreciate and something unexpected from a release with which I think I’m familiar. But that’s how it goes sometimes with an album. You live with it and you hear things differently because you’re different. No way I hear “Todd’s Ship Gods (Above All Things)” and “Life is Killing Me” and “The Dream is Dead” with the same ears I had when I was in my 20s, but as with the best of things, Life is Killing Me doesn’t evaporate the span of years but grows into something richer with them. An evolving relationship to the music. And if you’re nostalgic about an album, doesn’t that mean you’re still getting something from it?

So, if you want to call it an indulgence on my part to dig into this one again, fine. It’s what I needed this week and in my deepest, most honest self, I see value in connecting to the emotion as well as the craft, hooks, and so on. This was a formative band for me, and this was the record they did that taught me not to count bands out until they were actually done. I am better for it. And better for having dug in, so thank you.

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

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Dog slept in kid’s room again last night. It worked this time, which I think might mean that happens forever now. Only matters if she pees on the floor, chews the American Girl doll, or whathaveyou. Until then, it’s crisis-anticipation, which is surely the healthiest way to parent.

Hey, it’s worked for me for the last six years, except not really.

This week featured a couple profoundly shitty, overwhelming days. It was MLK on Monday, so no school. Then it snowed and Tuesday had off and Wednesday had a delay and by Wednesday I was just about ready for a cinderblock to the face. Yesterday after school was therapy, which as I understand it has led to just about no discussion of feelings, which The Pecan at age six will sort of acknowledge having but has no real vocabulary for expressing beyond getting mad — my fault — and which is winding down its corporate-appointed 10-session run having perhaps nearly built a rapport. Today The Patient Mrs. is going to Wherever The Hell for a school board training and she won’t be back until Sunday, which makes the weekend full-on on-duty. Then next week is another week.

There’s no break coming. Ever. That month, year, decade you feel like you need where you’re catatonic and you just sort of sit there and stare straight ahead until you have your Buddha moment isn’t coming. It’s never going to happen. It’s going to be a grind until it’s nothing. No meditation, not even the daily yoga challenge, is going to change it. In fact, they’re just more shit you’re obligated to in the day. More more more. How on earth can that be a solution when the problem is everything is too fucking much?

And that’s basically where I’m at. Everything is too much. Everything. I am overwhelmed all the time. It’s not just about music or oh I get so much email because I’m somebody blah blah. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about simple fucking tasks that humans do that I crumple before. Getting gas. Going to the grocery store. God damn. The Patient Mrs. and I took like 25 minutes to go to the hardware store yesterday and it felt like the ceiling was going to collapse on me. Safe spaces are hard to come by. Not-anxious quiet is hard to come by. And as always, the problem is in me, is me. I’ve wasted the better part of the last 30 years shoveling chemicals into my body looking for some kind of ‘answer’ to myself and I still get more out of listening to fucking Type O Negative than I’ve ever had from an antidepressant, anti-anxiety med, whatever, psilocybin notwithstanding.

I’m gonna leave it there. That says what I want to say about music, about the way a record, a band, just a song, can make your life better or more livable, or whatever it is. It can fill a space in you maybe you didn’t know was there.

Have a great and safe weekend. Watch your head, hydrate, stay warm or cool depending on where you live, and don’t forget to breathe. Back Monday.

FRM.

[So, about half an hour after I finished writing this, The Pecan took a spill off the side of the couch, not only landing on my computer, but overturning my full iced tea cup onto it as well. It is, of course, dead. While I try to recover data from it, I’ll be on Little Red, my tiny emergency backup Chromebook, but that’s something I wanted to mark as having happened because, well, it’ll probably be at least another week before the situation is resolved. Cheers.]

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