Refill #5: June

It's still 2023, right?

I've returned to befuddle your spam filter with a newsletter so long, it'll surely think there's no way a human wrote it.¹ The ungodly sprawl of a Plague Rages post is a nice return to normalcy because, in other news, my health has once again conspired to make sure this edition is as late as possible.² One step forward, three hacking coughs that sound like Tom Waits lost a hot sauce-chugging competition back. Same as it ever was.

So, in order to get the schedule back on track, the plan is to finish a truncated version of the months I've missed.³ Until then, please check out my recommendations for newsletters that update more frequently. There is a new one on the list: Warhead by Crucial Blast's Adam Allbright.

In other news, I feel like I've missed so much other news that covering it in this space is probably…not germane to why you're really here. In the words of Dana Gould, then, let's get on to our filthy business.

Artwork by Cam Smith

Everything I liked this month

ALBUM OF THE MONTH: Nithing - Agonal Hymns (New Standard Elite)
From: California, USA
Genre: brutal death metal

The mark of a good brutal death metal album is its memorability. Nearly five months after Nithing's full-length debut hit the streets, I still have total riff recall. That's no small thing. Despite containing more gonzo ideas than every version of Wormed hanging out together at a parallel universe reunion rager, Agonal Hymns is stuffed with memorable⁴ material. Despite being speedier than a cheetah that woke up late to work, Agonal Hymns's songs stick. This stuff should be a blur, but Matt Kilner, the sole soul behind this brutalizer, has a knack for finding hooks within the chaos. There are leads that sound like an alien radar pinging a planet for signs of life. There are extra-guttural growls that might as well be a Sarlacc mating call. Those elements have a catchy immediacy that is tougher to shake than off glitter. But Kilner can even dial up a slightly askew rhythm that will lodge itself in your melon for months. Still, while Agonal Hymns is highly memorable, the mark of a great brutal death metal album is hearing new stuff every time you spin it. In that case, Nithing's BDM is like running a metal detector over a busy beach. Every fresh survey surfaces a new point of interest.

The Bleeding - Monokrator (Redefining Darkness Records)
From: London, UK
Genre: death/thrash

If you only bought Redefining Darkness releases, I feel like you'd still amass a pretty good metal collection. The Bleeding's Monokrator, the quartet's third LP, is another winner from the Cleveland label. The UK crew does a fun version of thrash that's souped-up with a deathly intensity. It's a little too easy of a comparison, but think if Cannibal Corpse never changed lanes after Eaten Back to Life and only got faster. Plus, a touch of punkiness, a la early English Dogs or Onslaught, gives Monokrator a rollicking, free-wheeling liveliness. It's a fun combo that prioritizes the high speeds of its influences. "We all love Slayer, Kreator, Sepultura as well as Death, Cannibal Corpse and Pestilence," lead guitarist Tasos Tzimorotas said to Deadly Storm Zine. "I personally appreciate death metal more as a genre but I like the punk-rock foundation of early thrash. I think it's important to combine the two. You end up with something that has roots in Motörhead essentially." 

Body Stuff - Body Stuff 4 (The Chain)
From: New York, NY
Genre: metal / rock

Body Stuff 4 is one of the most original metal albums you will hear this year. The fourth (duh) installment in the Body Stuff oeuvre is such a delightfully idiosyncratic document of what its two members, Curran Reynolds (vocals) and Ryan Jones (instruments), find moving. That is to say, I don't think a fascinating fusion like "The Chains" is possible unless the players are open and honest about their musical interests. To wit, that one is like a stroke-of-midnight collaboration between The Boss in Suicide mode, Sisters of Mercy at its thuddiest, Cro-Mags being Cro-Mags, and a freestyle keyboardist charged with coloring in the negative space with sweet swells of synths. On the page, that looks impossible, and yet Body Stuff is able to bridge the gap because all of those things are a part of the members' personal musical tapestry. In other words, the connective tissue is their love of the material. Chasing trends would push them a few thousand miles away from that amalgamation, which is what makes Body Stuff 4 so interesting initially. That said, as intimated, the songwriting will keep you around for much longer. Built upon a loose concept brimming with apocalyptic undertones (I tend to interpret it as Night of the Comet but nukes), Body Stuff has a story to tell, and it's telling it with a unique voice.

Brutalism - Trisection Split (self-released)
From: Boise, ID
Genre: brutal death metal

Brutalism chips in three tracks for a three-way split with related Idaho entities. There's Barn, the progressive death metal quintet that counts Ian Dodd, Dante Chandler-Haas, and London Howell as members. And there's Texas Ketamine, a slammier five-piece with Dodd and Howell in the fold.⁵ Of the three, I like Brutalism the most as it hews closer to the BDM that turned early Unique Leader into a staple.

Crossed Hearts - Forced Perspective (Church Recordings)
From: Atlanta, GA
Genre: heavy metal / speed metal

The heart wants what it wants. That's why, between a load of goo and grind, you can reliably find me pitching you a speed metal album every newsletter.⁶ Atlanta's Crossed Hearts does a good take on the American variant, coming across like a hungry '80s band destined to debut on early Metal Blade. At its best, the riffs riff, Carlee Jackson wails, and the rhythm section locks into a sinister, streetwise strut. The easy comparison for Forced Perspective is probably something like Hellion if that band had more of a trad-minded thump. But when Crossed Hearts stomps the gas, it can pin you to your seat like modern speedsters. To that end, Crossed Hearts/Mystik tour, when?

GELD - Currency // Castration (Relapse Records)
From: Melbourne, Australia
Genre: hardcore

I'll allow it. I dug GELD's second album, 2020's Beyond the Floor, which was like GISM tumbling into d-beat delirium. Currency // Castration, the quartet's newest album after making the jump to Relapse, retains some of that tinnitus-inciting ferocity but is dressed in more of a psychedelic swirl. Perhaps those third-eye-prying hallucinogens were always there and I couldn't hear them through the noise. Whatever. It's audible now. And to be clear, the increased swirliness doesn't mean GELD has abandoned punk: "Fog of War" flexes a war-metal-esque desire to piledrive listeners with brutish simplicity. But even that song gets weird around the edges as a lysergic smear of sound drips into its nooks and crannies. Think if Gauze wore an LSD-soaked headband.

Genevieve - Akratic Parasitism (self-released)
From: Maryland, USA
Genre: black metal / avant-garde

Not to shirk my blurbing duties, but I went reasonably long on Akratic Parasitism in a bygone Black Market. (Look, I just want this newsletter out of my drafts; read the column for more thoughtful insights.) Still, I can give you the general tl;dr: Good album! I think I compared the Maryland avant-garde collective to Virus doing Maudlin the Well. Hell, knowing me, I might've even sneaked a Code comparison in there, too. Those bands will at least get you in the ballpark of this brain-buster of an album that delights in cryptic metaling. Every song is different, a trip unto itself, which is why I'm recommending you listen to Akratic Parasitism from top to bottom. But, if you only have a smoke break to jam some tunes, I think "Crushed" will provide the lay of the land. That one smashes together Ehnahre's approach to metalized modern classical with the esoteric stylings of the stranger practitioners from black metal's second wave. 

Godflesh - Purge (Avalanche Recordings)
From: Birmingham, UK
Genre: industrial metal

Welp, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong. At first blush, I thought Purge, Godflesh's ninth album and third since reforming in 2009, was an echo of past successes. Now, I think it's the best of the duo's comeback records. What changed? The key was giving Purge time to breathe. While the first four songs sound like they could've appeared on a lost EP recorded between Songs of Love and Hate and Us and Them, "Permission" kicks off an experimental stretch with a more intriguing dynamic, melding darkness and light. That track, an album highlight that makes for a formidable one-two with the Hymns-esque "The Father," recasts JK Broadrick's voice and guitar as hypnotic droney textures that provide a killer contrast to the dark, Scorn-esque hip hop-inflected breakbeats.⁷ Godflesh always flourished in the darkness, but songs like the near-eight-minute closer, "You Are the Judge the Jury and the Executioner," alternately one of the bleakest and prettiest dirges of the band's career, allow small shafts of light to shine down to help illuminate the way. 

Intranced - Rogue Warrior (self-released)
From: Los Angeles, CA
Genre: heavy metal

Classic metal pulses through Intranced's veins. Fittingly, the two-song single, Rogue Warrior, is even constructed like a classic single. The A-side: a poppier yet undeniably moody track that's like if an in-its-feelings Def Leppard kept doing High 'n' Dry while getting heavier. The B-side: a harder, sharper ripper that gleams with a moon-soaked lunacy. In both modes, James-Paul Luna sings his guts out and Fili Bibiano shreds like crazy. If you like trad, definitely try this.

Lightbreaker - The Annihilation of the Annealids (self-released)
From: Portland, OR
Genre: symphonic death metal

Here's another one that cracked the column recently, so forgive me for the truncated blurb. But, update: At least I can say that Lightbreaker sounds even better months later. Some albums are tethered to their outre elements. As soon as the weirdo luster wears off, so does a listener's enjoyment. That's not The Annihilation of the Annealids. Once you normalize the shock of hearing symphonic and operatic within the context of a brutal-leaning death metal album, these songs really start to shine. It's a testament to Leon del Muerte's songwriting. The Annihilation of the Annealids is one of those albums that's epic in sound and scope but doesn't skimp on the details, offering a dynamic rise and fall along with other barely perceptible but equally important songwriting scaffolding that provides Lightbreaker a solid foundation. What it builds on top of that foundation helps this album to really come alive. To get The Annihilation of the Annealids and Hammers of Misfortune's Overtaker mere months apart is a real treat.

Memorrhage - Memorrhage (Big Money Cybergrind)
From: Dallas, TX
Genre: nu metal

Memorrhage, the nu metal solo band of the frequently blurbed Garry Brents, does a throwback the right way. This is notable. After all, as Holiday Kirk, the architect of the Nu Metal Agenda and Crazy Ass Moments In Nu Metal History, has often said, nostalgia is a dead end. The big worry during the burgeoning nu metal renaissance is that nostalgia will only take the style so far because the past has an extremely short half-life in the present. That is to say, even though fresh nu metal fans can reap the benefits of streaming services carrying most of the style's recorded history, allowing them to reconstruct a timeline where no bad nu metal exists, there still has to be nowadays nu with its own point of view if the genre will prosper this decade. Anyway, I think that's why projects like Memorrhage and like-minded outfits such as Cheem, Vein.fm, Зло, and Marion have excelled. They're not using nu metal as a meme schematic or old-timey reenactment but as a jumping-off point.⁸ These creative artists have realized that nu metal isn't a stylistic restriction but another shade of paint on their palette. So, you get Memorrhage fusing Spineshank and Slipknot with, like, Nasum's "Shadows" and lightly skramzified aggro outfits a la Phoenix Bodies. In other words, it has the hallmarks of nu — the wikki wikki turntablism, jumpdafuckup bounce riffs, keening near-ballads — but the conglomeration of previously disparate sounds is new. It's not a throwback so much as it's a throwforward.

Oromet - Oromet (Transylvanian Recordings)
From: Sacramento, CA
Genre: doom

I like how much diversity there is under the "funeral doom" tag now. Oromet is slow, but it doesn't do a Skepticism on its self-titled full-length debut. Instead, the duo engages in a lush, atmo black-esque grandiosity. Sonically, Oromet takes the stardust timbres of Esoteric and turns them into something earthier. When you scale these three long songs constructed like the towering peak that adorns Oromet's cover, it's almost like you can feel the earthly elements: the wind hitting your face, the dirt under your nails, and the ache of your muscles. Still, this is funeral doom, and Oromet is lachrymose in that specifically funeral doom way that feels as good as a post-weeping reverie. "When the rising tide lifts their boats," singer Dan Aguilar growls on "Diluvium," "You and I will be left to drown with the rats."

Paroxysm Unit - Fragmentation // Stratagem (New Standard Elite)
From: Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia / USA / France
Genre: brutal death metal

First off, Paroxysm Unit: good name. It's like the top-secret social media battalion of the pettiest nation-state. Second, the international all-star BDM quartet containing members of Wombripper, Dispersed, Darkall Slaves, Servants of the Sword, and, well, Colin Marston has delivered on the promise of their two-song 2021 promo. Fragmentation // Stratagem is technical-leaning BDM that eschews the swingless clinicalism of the new-school widdlers for something much rawer and gooier. Yes, there are fittingly futuristic Marston runs, jazzy chords, and impossible structures that are like a god cheating at Jenga. Think if early Cephalic Carnage saw the light and re-routed its bonkers technical ability towards Disgorge. But, despite the intelligent nuttiness that could give a music teacher heart palpitations, a lot of the chugs are imbued with a, you bet, basement-dwelling scuzziness.⁹ Much like Defeated Sanity, when Paroxysm Unit lines up a slam, it does so with an untamed ferocity. In that way, Fragmentation // Stratagem answers the question: What if an entire MIT class lost its mind after contracting rabies? Crank the last track, the particularly unhinged "Degraded Into Digital Dust," and find out.

Project: Roenwolfe - Project: Roenwolfe (self-released)
From: Arizona, USA
Genre: progressive metal / thrash

I'm sad to report that Project: Roenwolfe appears to be no more. What an album to go out on, though. The band's trifecta-achieving third full-length is an unstoppable avalanche of sweet prog/power riffs. Thrashed up and ready to rip, these riffs give Project: Roenwolfe's anthems an edge. This is another one I blurbed previously, so I'll keep this one short-ish, but I'm compelled to note that these are the kind of riffs I'm looking for on a prog/power album. (This will become a theme in the next section.) Alicia Cordisco (guitars) and Leona Hayward (bass) find that ideal balance between shreddy licks and propulsive low end. Guest guitarist Acea Lashley unleashes scorching solos. Drummer Ernie Topran summons the spirit of a whole cavalry regiment with his kit. Patrick Hoyt Parris wails hookily and makes the sci-fi-infused political themes stick. Banger.

Pyöveli - Mega-Thrash Revolution (Witches Brew)
From: Valkeakoski, Finland
Genre: speed metal / thrash

I wrote the following about Pyöveli's previous album, 2019's No Speed Limits. Most of it still applies.

You're walking along a deserted road. You're tired. A sweet, Hitcher-ass muscle car pulls up alongside you. It skids to a stop, kicking up a cloud of dust. Even though it's stationary, its ancient engine lopes menacingly, foreshadowing its natural state of bolt-spitting speed. The passenger window rolls down in herky-jerky increments. You hear a voice from inside the car: "HoldonthecrankisSTICKAAAaaahhhgggggh." The window finally rolls all the way down. You see two men in the car. They look like brothers. They tell you to get into the car.

Do you:

• Start walking backward, plotting your escape?

• Get in the car?

You get in the car. You squeeze into the back. To make room, you push a pile of chains over to the next seat. You look down and see that the vinyl exterior has worn away. You sit on the ancient, stale foam. Wait, why are there chains in here? you begin to ask yourself before an exposed spring prods your undercarriage. The man in the passenger seat turns around and faces you. He wears a manic expression, like he's pissing into gale-force winds. "Snort this," he says. He hands you a bag of white powder.

Do you:

• Beat both men to death with the chains and run to safety?

• Snort the powder?

You snort the powder. Your vision goes black. When it returns, whatever buffer previously existed between you and reality has been removed. You are terrified. You look out the side window. Everything now looks like a pencil drawing. Maybe that's just Finland? you think before you realize that your heart is trying to give itself CPR. The driver looks at his brother in the front seat. "Thrash!" yells one. "Metal!" yells the other. The man who handed you the white powder plays a dive-bomb note on his guitar. Wait, where did he get a guitar? It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. You're no longer tired. You feel alive. Connected with the universe. What were once eternal mysteries are now suddenly graspable. If you only had the time, you could surely untangle them. With an animalistic, high-pitched scream, the driver drops the hammer and stomps the gas pedal to the floor. It dawns on you that there's no windshield right when the car crashes into a fucking tree.

This is what it's like to listen to Pyöveli, a Finnish duo staffed by T. Pyöveli N. (guitars, bass) and T. Metal N. (drums, vocals). These two battle vest-bedecked individuals are brothers. No Speed Limits, the band's fourth full-length, is so indisputably metal that it's above criticism. It would be like reviewing a steel beam after sneaking into a construction site. Sure, you might have some interesting takeaways, but everyone working there just thinks you're trespassing.

If there's anything different about Mega-Thrash Revolution!!!!, the perfect album title that is perfectly rendered in Comic Sans on the album cover, it's that T. Metal N. really needs you to hear his rototom fills. Other than that, this is the same speed metal psychosis as its predecessor, a car-crash kineticism held together by adrenaline and angel dust. What if a sentient Flying V guitar did meth? This.

Rainer Landfermann - Mehr Licht (self-released)
From: Bonn, Germany
Genre: avant-garde

And yet another record I've written about elsewhere. Mehr Licht is the ideal Rainer Landfermann intro for those unfamiliar with the German musician's solo work since it does so much across two songs that run a combined eight minutes and forty-five seconds. Yes, 2019's Mein Wort in deiner Dunkelheit is excellent, but I could understand how daunting the prospect of 10 tracks of avant-garde mayhem might feel as soon as the Bethlehem-esque "Langsam, hinters Licht" gives way to the howling death metal of "Kunstvoll." And that's one of the least jarring switch-ups. So, yeah, Mehr Licht's two tracks feel digestible enough, allowing a new listener to get their grounding, as much as someone can get their grounding with Rainer Landfermann. This is, after all, still a mix of heady extreme metal, taking death metal, black metal, and technical thrash and playing it like it's Romantic-era classical. I don't think Landfermann quite sees it like that, though. I think this is more about maximizing music's drama and emotional impact. You can certainly hear that drama in his voice, which no one else in metal possesses.

Thantifaxath - Hive Mind Narcosis (Dark Descent Records)
From: Toronto, Canada
Genre: black metal

To help alleviate the boredom of reading the same blurb over and over again, here's a show report. I caught Thantifaxath in the flesh. The most surprising thing was that, for an anonymous monk-robbed band I didn't previously think had a sense of humor, the trio had some gags. Now, as a punchline-respecter, I don't want to blow all of them. However, I can't help but point out that the night ended with an extended guitar drone that was unexpectedly curtailed by a tweaked version of Creed's "With Arms Wide Open," which made the post-grunge anthem sound like an extra demonic B-side from Today is the Day's Sadness Will Prevail. Pretty good. Of course, the music was the true highlight. Thantifaxath's take on the kind of twisted black metal that places it in a cohort with Krallice and Jute Gyte comes off very well in a live setting. I think that's because, as Metal Music Theory has made clear, the band can pull off some avant-garde sounds without spilling into dissonance. The sound was clear and discernible while also beguiling the senses by exploring the fringes of black metal. That created a fascinating push/pull that seemed to tickle the lizard brains of the venue's regular bar patrons, who dutifully started an ironic push pit that became a real push pit. (Also, shout out to the couple making out in the middle of the pit. I didn't have "What if we kissed in the middle of the Thantifaxath push pit?" on my bingo card.) Anyway, all of this raised the band's work in my estimation, giving me a clearer insight into what it's trying to accomplish. If they cruise through your town, you've got to go.

To Be Gentle - What Keeps Me Here (self-released)
From: Eugene, OR
Genre: screamo

To Be Gentle, back again. If you haven't been keeping up with Eve Beeker and friends, To Be Gentle is a band that falls somewhere between screamo and black metal. Sometimes it's more skramz. Sometimes it's more black metal. What Keeps Me Here, a release that, in the grand tradition of prolific recorders like Sadness and Trha, is already four releases old, falls more on the skramz side, reminding me of To Be Gentle's earlier work. It's slightly more concise, slightly more fiery, turning up the punk turbo boost on the To Be Gentle engine. It's also a great place for new listeners to start because it has all of the band's hallmarks, complete with Beeker's guitar-based ambient-ish excursions. 

Trichomoniasis - Makeshift Crematoria (New Standard Elite)
From: California, USA
Genre: brutal death metal

Shocker of all shockers, here's another one I've written about. (Imagine that. It's almost like I find a way to write about things I like.) Anyway, I was talking with a bud who believes that Trichomoniasis is the most innovative and creative of the ultra-ping turbo bands. I'm inclined to agree. What Hunter Petersen can do with a guitar never ceases to amaze. Like, this is a band I could see average guitar nerds checking out because Petersen's playing is fueled by a unique ingenuity. Sure, that G3-quality shreddosity is being meat-grindered into one of the gooiest brutal death/goregrind bands around. But Petersen's approach to exploring the outer reaches of sound will be fascinating to anyone who appreciates having their limits pushed. And, damn, will Makeshift Crematoria push your limits. Part of what makes it so gonzo is the unceasingly brutal performance by drummer Faustino, an all-out assault on the senses that's like someone firing a machine gun inside of a cement mixer. I could go on, but I have done. Suffice it to say, Makeshift Crematoria, one of two albums released this year by the duo, is Trichomoniasis's masterpiece, continually elevating the bar for extremity and strange sounds over every one of its 19 tracks.

Undulation - An Unhealthy Interest in Suffering (Grime Stone Records)
From: Seattle, WA
Genre: black metal / death metal

Forgive me for tapping out on this blurb, but I wrote a whole dang intro about this band, and we've reached the part of the newsletter where I'm running on fumes. An Unhealthy Interest in Suffering, a title that some might say doubles as a description of what it feels like to be a DIY extreme metal musician, is a great fusion of black and death metal, one that could be summed up as if Weakling integrated some tech-ish melodeath leads. Heck of a debut.

Unfurl - Ascension (self-released)
From: Pittsburgh, PA
Genre: sludge

For reasons that expose my biases, including my propensity to stereotype metal bands based on album covers, I was pretty sure Unfurl's Ascension would be a blackgaze album.¹⁰ As soon as I heard "Coiled Serpent" judding hard in a way that reminded me of The Blinding Light, I let out a sigh of relief. Alright. Cool. Let's mosh. But that's not the entire tale. Unfurl is sneakily eclectic. There is some blackgaze-ish material here. Heck, "Coiled Serpent" has a near-atmo-black bridge, that classic crescendo of sound and feeling swelling in equal measure. This commitment to variation continues across Ascension, as Unfurl sandwiches the juds between varying genres. The reason why that compositional process works is because the switch-ups are seamless. It's more of a song-first approach than the fate that befalls younger bands desperate to air their influences and bonafides. Unfurl does what it needs to do for the song and album, be it black metal, sludge, prog, post-everything, or more. To be clear, though, the juds take center stage, and those juds jud.

Check out my favorite metal albums of the year on RateYourMusic.

People Like ‘Em:

Stuff I'm on the fence about, mostly because I haven’t listened to it enough, but is still worth sharing

Cover by Michael Oliver Papadopoulos

OK. I'll warn you that some of the blurbs in this section may read meaner than I intended. That's what happens when I've been chipping away at this stupid newsletter for weeks. To that end, going forward, to preserve what little remains of my sanity, I am not going to cast such a wide net next edition. Yes, that means I might miss some releases I may fall in love with, but rounding up everything that has name recognition is way too laborious. So, for the real sickos out there, enjoy this all-hands-on-deck blowout for the last time. To make sorting through this slog easier, I'll be stealing a page from To the Teeth's book and adding the guitar emoji to the releases I think are worth your time.

Aodon - Portraits (Willowtip Records)
From: France
Genre: black metal

Aodon does a pretty by-the-numbers take on modern black metal, reminding me of Alcest if Neige felt the need to headline Wacken. The riffs are big, the emotions are bigger, but the results leave me cold. Portraits is one of those albums that might convince you you're psychic because you know precisely where every progression is going.¹¹ That said, credit goes to sole member M-kha for playing this stuff well. Chops always help this stuff to go down easier, and Aodon will impress those who appreciate shreddy skills.

Anubis Gate - Interference (No Dust Records)
From: Aalborg, Denmark
Genre: prog

It was cause for concern when the reviews called Interference a snore. But, like an unplanned nap, Interference's sleepiness creeps up on you. And it doesn't start that way. No, after the opener, "Emergence," you may think Anubis Gate's demise was exaggerated. Not great, but decent, and it feels like it's headed somewhere. Then, as you proceed to the unfortunately titled "Ignorance is Bliss," it hits you: Where are the riffs? Gone. A paucity of riffs. A dearth of riffs. It's a fate no band wants to face, least of all a prog band. What remains is like Queensryche half-assing it during a soundcheck, shaping some sounds into the shape of riffs that aren't actually riffs. If there's a silver lining, at least Anubis Gate doesn't suddenly start spouting QAnon lyrics, another scourge racing through its older, creakier power/prog peers.¹² But, yeah, I can't recommend Interference over Anubis Gate's early discography. That leads to a conundrum. For new listeners, Interference is either a great place to start because there's nowhere to go but up, or it stinks because, I don't know if I've mentioned this, WHERE ARE THE RIFFS?

Bloody Flag - Bloody Flag (Bunker Punks Discs & Tapes) 🎸
From: USA
Genre: punk

Bloody Flag does d-beat with the ear-piercing, metal-on-metal intensity of Disclose, Zyanose, Framtid, D-Clone, and the like. The song construction is simple, the sounds are loud, and through it all Bloody Flag barrels ahead with the unstoppable power of a giant rock in a landslide.

Bongzilla - Dab City (Heavy Psych Sounds)
From: Madison, WI
Genre: stoner

The reason why I'll be cutting this section down in future newsletters is because it's damn hard for me to form an opinion about bands like Bongzilla. I can't believe I signed up for this, so here we go: Bongzilla, if you can believe it, will turn 30 in a couple of years. That's fitting because, if you asked me when Bongzilla released Dab City within that 30-year run, I don't think I could tell you. Musically, most of these songs sound like castoffs from early Sleep or Weedeater. That's not necessarily a bad place to be for a stoner band. Lord knows the appeal of the style for many of the faithful is that a sizable portion of its practitioners never progress. And, when Dab City is wumming along in the background, it occasionally keys into some pleasingly smoky grooves. Then again…I don't know. I'm just not in the place in my life where I'm like, "Oh hell yeah, all of these songs are about weed!" Different tokes for different folks.

Burial Hordes - Ruins (Transcending Obscurity Records)
From: Greece
Genre: death metal

Burial Hordes brings to the table well-executed blackened death metal that's light on the frills and thrills. The easiest way I can explain my reaction to Ruins is that I think I'd like this more live than on record. In other words, I think the charge of a crowd would help get Burial Hordes' material across the line for me. And, again, for what it is, it's very competent. "Insubstantial" isn't insubstantial, reminding me of a goat festival version of Bolt Thrower. But I've borked my brain with brutal death metal. For the standard stuff to register, it needs to go extra hard. Burial Hordes does not. And its connection to a certain legend of the Greek death metal scene that has been MIA for years just makes me wish I were listening to a new Dead Congregation.

Cephalectomy - "The Deliberate Provenance of Inescapable Cataclysm"(self-released)
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Genre: death metal

I can't believe this band is back. Hello, Cephalectomy, one of the few outfits that heard early Kataklysm and was like, hell yeah, give me more of that. "The Deliberate Provenance of Inescapable Cataclysm," the band's first slice of new material in 14 years, is, as the title suggests, still shot-through with that Sylvain Houde strangeness, sounding like the unceasing inner monologue of a person on the edge. I don't know if the entirety of Cephalectomy's shtick will still play now that deathcore has spent the last decade doing the Dimmu-but-breakdowns symphonic thing, but I thought this song was fun, at least.

Church of Misery - Born Under a Mad Sign (Rise Above Records)
From: Tokyo, Japan
Genre: doom / stoner

Look, it's not like I craft prose gems on the regular, but Born Under a Mad Sign is a stupid title. Anyway, after closing in on 30 years of chronicling real-world killers across seven stoner/doom albums, you probably know by now if the Church of Misery formula is for you. Ultimately, I find COM's output to be hit or miss, although I'll admit that I haven't checked in since Houses of the Unholy.¹³ But, I mean, a BBQ setting could significantly improve my reaction. (Some discussion on the member changes should probably be in order if I could make sense of them. Original singer Kazuhiro Asaeda is back after 28 years? The guest guitarist is Yukito Okazaki from Eternal Elysium? I need, like, a soap opera flowchart. Until then, enjoy this irritatingly placed parenthetical.) The riffs boogie, Asaeda can sing, and, despite these songs being paeans to mass murderers, a weedy good-times feel pervades each track. Maybe I shouldn't take it so seriously. Then again, ironically, I'm burned out on stoner/doom.

Coffin Mulch - Spectral Intercession (Memento Mori) 🎸
From: Glasgow, Scotland
Genre: death metal

Trust in Memento Mori. The label snapped up two of my favorite death metal bands of recent years, Inanna and Conjureth, and thus, I'll check out anything it brings into its roster. Coffin Mulch is, indeed, another fun one, sounding as if Benediction was way more Swedeath. Sadly, I got sidetracked by other stuff this year, so I couldn't put in many listening reps. But what I've digested of this four-piece seems to fit the Memento Mori MO: It goes.

Deliriant Nerve - Deliriant Nerve (Mold Dominion) 🎸
From: Washington, D.C.
Genre: grind / powerviolence

After a spate of shorter plays, Deliriant Nerve delivers its first LP that clocks in at 17 minutes. Grind is gonna grind.¹⁴ The best stuff follows the general construction of "Double State Destruction," a track that's half grind, half powerviolence, and sprinkles in the kind of leads that wouldn't be out of place on a Rich Kids on LSD record. Basically, it's the grind that Encyclopaedia Metallum mods hate. To those sourpusses: It does pull off the trifecta, so maybe reconsider?

Dimmu Bongir - Hvis pipen tar oss (Bad Noise Records)
From: Stavanger, Norway
Genre: black metal

With an album title that translates to "If the Pipe Takes Us" and song titles like "Bongblåst," "Transylvanian Munchies," and "Pagan Rips," it's clear that black metal has finally gotten its Cannabis Corpse. And yet, Dimmu Bongir is...kind of catchy...and features better playing than you'd expect from a weedy piss-take. Like, Gahll and Hashiah didn't have to add that stately acoustic guitar on the title track. They didn't have to adorn the verses with ensorcelled synth arpeggios that are surprisingly hooky. But here we are. I can't tell you that this is actually good, mainly because my calibration for synth-assisted lo-fi black metal has been borked by Trha and the like, but I don't hate it. And for a band that should be nothing more than a cheap pot pun, that's something.

Divide and Dissolve - Systemic (Invada)
From: Melbourne, Australia
Genre: doom / post-metal

I'll be honest: I don't find Systemic as interesting as 2020's Gas Lit despite the doom duo crafting a much more varied collection of songs this time around. Systemic is faster, fiercer, and punkier, but the riffs don't hit me as hard, and when you're an instrumental band, you live and die by the riffs. Obviously, and this seems like a common refrain for this section of the newsletter, your mileage may vary, and Systemic is getting plaudits everywhere else, so what do I know. Still, apart from the songs featuring Takiaya Reed's engaging saxophone playing, such as "Indignation" and "Desire," this set hasn't clicked for me. It's one of those things I'll need to hear live before I make a final decision.

Eirð - A Luminous Cycle (self-released)
From: Lübeck,Germany
Genre: doom

This two-song EP introduces Gina Marjoram as the full-time vocalist. Marjoram is good. Still, I'm required to note that she doesn't quite have the out-there, This Mortal Coil charisma of Kristien Cools, the Splendidula singer who punched up Eirð's previous offering, 2022's A Voidchaser's Elegy. Be that as it may, Marjoram is a good fit for the gothier environs that Eirð seems to be heading towards. 

Eremit - Wearer of Numerous Forms (Fucking Kill Records) 🎸
From: Osnabrück, Germany
Genre: doom

I respect the chutzpah of releasing a three-song, two-hour-long album in the Spotify/TikTok era. "Conflicting Aspects of Reality," the hour-plus opener, has one of the more impressively low words-per-second rates in metal: a minuscule 0.067wps. That's a fine indication that we're in the crawling doom zone. And yes, I've described Eremit in the past as swinging slowly like Conan's ballsack — which doesn't really make sense, but when has that ever stopped me — but Wearer of Numerous Forms, the quartet's third full-length and final entry in this fantasy trilogy, takes that slow testicular swing to a new level. The riffs boom sludgily, the drums pound heavily, the growls growl, uh, growlily. And there are some fun dynamics, with long stretches of quiet and even longer stretches of trumpet-aided sonic destruction. But it doesn't quite work for me. I think these songs would crush live, with the sheer aural onslaught washing over you a la MBV's "You Made Me Realise." When I'm listening to it through average headphones while working on a spreadsheet, though? I don't think so. Eremit hints at a crescendo of riffs but never really gets there, and the subdued reveries aren't as dramatic or earned as Corrupted's peerless El Mundo Frio. Ultimately, I appreciate Wearer of Numerous Forms for existing, but I don't think I'm ever returning to it.

Fear and Filth - Blessed Be (self-released) 🎸
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Genre: metalcore / hardcore / grind

This is such a cop-out, but I have to be honest: I didn't log enough listens to know where I stand with Fear and Filth, a promising pummeler in the vein of the God City HM-2 stompers. "Storms of Desolation" is a core-adjacent blitzkrieg of buzzy battering, recommended to those who like a little fuzz on their cacophonous chugs.

Graf Orlock - End Credits (Vitriol Records) 🎸
From: Los Angeles, CA
Genre: grind

Graf Orlock's last reel. The LA "cinema" grinders never clicked with me, but I recognize that it employed movie clips better than, say, Killwhitneydead.¹⁵ That is to say, the band rose above that gimmick, writing fleshed-out songs that wryly commented on both movies and the reality outside the movie theaters. "After refusing to sign an autograph/ Baby Diego was fucking stabbed," goes some of the lyrics of "In The Court of the Crimson King," nodding at Children of Men but also a world that feels like it's increasingly heading in that direction. Farewell, dudes.

Hellwitch - Annihilational Intercention (Listenable Records) 🎸
From: Hollywood, Florida
Genre: death metal / thrash

Hellwitch's 1990 release, Syzygial Miscreancy, is an underappreciated slice of early tech-y death/thrash before tech meant tech.¹⁶ It's like Agent Steel changed its whole vibe after hearing Morbid Angel and then wanted to go head-to-head with Atheist. The charm is Pat Ranieri getting weird, shredding a variant of death that didn't find many acolytes and became a kvlt cul-de-sac. But that belies the whole Hellwitch tale. The band got rolling in 1984, meaning it was an elder statesman by the time it finally sorted out label deals. If Syzygial Miscreancy was released three years earlier, who knows where Hellwitch would be in the pantheon? But that's the thing. It missed that opportunity, so we tend to think of it as more of an underground entity, if not an also-ran. Anyway, whatever, I'm flapping my gums here. Hellwitch's newest, Annihilational Intercention, is solid, showcasing some of that critical weirdness of the band's salad days while demonstrating that experience equals cleaner compositions. I don't think it's as good as 2009's Omnipotent Convocation, which, I can't believe I'm typing this, might be the band's best record, but for a legendary death metal outfit many don't remember, the fact that it's still raging after nearly 40 years of bandom is impressive in and of itself.

Innumerable Forms - The Fall Down (Iron Lung Records)
From: Boston, MA
Genre: death/doom

A three-song EP from a band that never clicked with me despite its star power. Members of this austere, Winter-esque death/doomer have been in Iron Lung, Dead Language, Impalers, Iron Age, Power Trip, Hatred Surge, Mammoth Grinder, Sumerlands, Mind Eraser, Dream Unending, Magic Circle, Boston Strangler, and The Rival Mob, *deep breath* among others. I like many of those outfits, but Innumerable Forms always felt like it belied its name, sticking to the aforementioned Winter-esque formula. While The Fall Down, particularly the title track, is a competent, muscular take on straight-ahead death/doom, it doesn't offer me, a non-diehard, much to sink my teeth into.

Jag Panzer - The Hallowed (Atomic Fire Records)
From: Colorado Springs, CO
Genre: heavy metal

The Hallowed is a Jag Panzer album released in 2023. Everything you need to know to guide your purchase is contained within that sentence. Is it Ample Destruction? It is not. Is it Dissident Alliance? It is not. It is entirely solid heavy metal lightly buffed to shine with a modern sheen. I'm going to write this next part like you've actually listened to any of these albums: It's akin to anything this band has released since Harry Conklin came back into the fold. It's not a high, but it's not a low. And for a lot of people, that's enough.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation (KGLW)
From: Melbourne, Australia
Genre: stoner

Someone sent me a promo for this, so here you go. My interest in King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard has been minimal and continues to be so, but I appreciate that it's trying to play fast now.¹⁷ The drumming is also good. Anyone have a recommendation for something earlier? I realize this is a huge blind spot of mine, and I'd like to give this band a chance on something that isn't the self-consciously "metal" oddball in its discography. I kind of stopped with that kinda thing circa Goblin Cock.

Lipoma - Odes to Suffering (Grand Vomit Productions / Gurgling Gore) 🎸
From: New York, NY
Genre: goregrind / melodeath

Max Pierce's solo project combines goregrind and melodeath in a way that'll play well for anyone into Pharmacist and that band's spin-off group Anatomical Amusements. While this release did little for me, I can recognize the potential. Ultimately, I think there's something here if Pierce can take this in a heavier direction, like if Intestine Baalism had pitch-shifted gore vox.

Morkera - Aggravations (self-released) 🎸
From: Croatia
Genre: black metal

"Blind Obedience"? Rips. Nasty, mean black metal. Drives harder than Colin McRae when he was behind. "Torrid Host"? Kind of a snooze. That's been my relationship so far with Morkera: hit or miss. When this anonymous horde hits, it hits pretty hard. "Bethoweth" reminds me of the better Finnish black metallers, balancing a fetid, actively rotting necro-ness with a ceaseless propulsion. There's some excellent drumming throughout, too. But, as I said, not all of this lands for me. "Intercessors" is a song that's more interesting in theory, not quite realizing its concept as an off-kilter, mathy track in the spirit of, say, Non Opus Dei. It sounds...a little underwhelming, like it needed more time in the oven. In a more positive light, one could probably make a killer album out of Aggravations and last year's Entangled Excavations, though. 

None - Inevitable (Hypnotic Dirge Records) 🎸
From: Portland, OR
Genre: black metal

None has been one of those bands I've meant to check out ever since it debuted with 2017's None. It's appropriate, then, that I completely missed Inevitable when it was released. Inevitable...you might say. Thank youuuuuuu. Anyway, this kind of atmo-ized DSBM is extremely not my thing (it's a little too inert to hold my attention), but I can recognize that it's objectively good, and probably one of the better bands in the style.

Oculus - Of Temples and Vultures (Duplicate Records) 🎸
From: Switzerland / United States / Serbia
Genre: black metal

I'll admit that I'm pretty burned out on DsO-style black metal. I feel like I've heard every way an uncomfortably strident guitar can sound like a furious ghost at this point. To Oculus's credit, members Nero and Kozeljnik conjure some neat sounds out of their amps that are closer to the horrifying squall of Altrage than the usual Absinthe sippers. Still, drummer Honza Kapák is the highlight on this one for me, absolutely battering his kit with an array of high-intensity fills that smolder with a blackened spirit. That powerhouse stuff works much better for me than the typical sweat-less, perfect-drum-machine disaffection.

Olkoth - At the Eye of Chaos (Everlasting Spew Records) 🎸
From: Columbia, SC
Genre: death metal / black metal

Blasting, muscular, burnt-to-a-crisp death metal that reminds me of a less winkingly goofy Aeon or if Hate Eternal attempted a straight-ahead Vader album. At The Eye of Chaos is ultimately a solid spud but a touch faceless. "Professional" is the euphemism I'd use. Still, as a throw-it-on-album, you could do far worse than this one.

Óreiða - The Eternal (Debemur Morti Productions) 🎸
From: Iceland
Genre: black metal

Huh. I initially wrote off The Eternal because the first few minutes of "The Path" sounded like droney, lofi black metal nonsense. By the song's end, it takes on a "Procession of the Dead Clowns" vibe, primarily because of the hauntingly insistent repetition. The rest of the album follows suit, steadily wringing what it can out of mid-paced passages. At its best, it feels like trudging up a mountain right before you're treated to the view of a lifetime. At its worst, it's aural wallpaper. Thus, if you need a black metal album to do data entry to, this isn't a bad one.

Ossuary - Forsaken Offerings (self-released) 🎸
From: Madison, WI
Genre: death metal

Featuring two members of Jex Thoth, Ossuary is the classic OSDM-leaning side-project, a 'remember the '90s' way to blow off steam after the day job. Forsaken Offerings, a three-song EP of two originals and a Goatlord cover, has the air of friends getting together to bash out some death metal, complete with a scuzzy, practice-space-style recording. Ossuary fires off some riffs, though. And some of the subtly experimental stretches remind me of where Darkthrone might've headed if it had never discovered black metal.

Phlebotomized - Clouds of Confusion (Hammerheart Records)
From: Rozenburg, Netherlands
Genre: I don’t know, man

Welp, there's a song titled "Context Is for Kings (Stupidity and Mankind)." Lyrics? "Annoying figures/ Much as I despise/ Stupidity and mankind." Deep.

Pyramaze - Bloodlines (AFM Records)
From: Hjordkær, Denmark
Genre: power metal

I like the Lance King era of this band a fair bit. I have fond memories of Melancholy Beast and Legend of the Bone Carver, at least. Solid power metal. My initial exposure to Bloodlines, the band's seventh album, leaves me cold. It's not a disaster. Terje Harøy has a great voice and sells the hooks. For instance, "Fortress" works because Harøy goes harder than he needs to. But the production is heinous, favoring that ultra-compressed modern sound that turns all these bands into faceless soundalikes. Worse, the keyboards are putrid. It's 2023. What are we doing here?

Raven - All Hell's Breaking Loose (Silver Lining Music) 🎸
From: New York, USA
Genre: heavy metal / NWOBHM

Why is Raven re-energized? Why is Mike Heller, who I know best for his stint in Malignancy, playing drums for them? Why does his death metal style translate so well to the premier (read: only) speedy athletic rock band? Much like how magnets work or why I can't find a date, these are questions I can't answer. All Hell's Breaking Loose sounds pretty good, though, no matter the mysteries. I think I like it a bit more than its predecessor, 2020's Metal City. Does it touch the '80s stuff? It does not, but honestly, who is expecting that? Then again, here's another thing I didn't expect: The best album with John Gallagher on it this year is from Helms Deep.

Rană - Richtfeuer (Breath:Sun:Bone:Blood) 🎸
From: Hanover, Germany
Genre: black metal / crust

Neocrust-y black metal: the go-to style if you're in the market for a metal crescendo. Admittedly, this is not my area of expertise, so take it with a grain of salt when I say that Rană reminds me of other crusties in this space, such as Nux Vomica, Downfall of Gaia, and Morrow. The song that connected with me the most is the shortest on the album: "Flamura" has a bit of that Agrimonia near-melodeath sweep to it. Otherwise, I think Richtfeuer is an objectively well-composed version of a genre I don't have much interest in.

The River - A Hollow Full of Hope (Cavernous Records)
From: United Kingdom
Genre: doom

2006's Drawing Down the Sun is a doomer that never got its due. By applying the crushing, crunchy riffs of Cathedral or Electric Wizard to early The Gathering, the trio produced a neat synthesis of styles that helped its gothier inclinations to go down easier. I raved about it at the time in a review that appears to have vanished from the internet. Alas. Kids, save your clips. Anyway, fast forward many years, and The River is a much different band. Now a four-piece fronted by Jenny Newton, A Hollow Full of Hope is much closer to the band guitarist Christian Leitch drummed in: 40 Watt Sun. Once a grimy ear-destroyer, nowadays The River is gently aching and downtrodden, closer to a slowcore aural elegy. It's good, but not my thing. Bring me back to the electric-grid-frying riff feast that could be the first course at a concert headlined by With the Dead, please.

Sabot - Castration (self-released) 🎸
From: Saint Paul, MN
Genre: doom / death metal

Sabot kicks off Castration by head-faking like it will be a straight-up death metaller, launching into one of those unexpectedly quick blasts that old Esoteric used to do once an album. You know, when that lumbering behemoth sounded like it was whipping a team of oxen. "Spectral" sets the pace for the rest of the album: a slow-mo death/doom groove that, at its best, evokes Stomach Earth. Sure, there are deviations: "Gaze" briefly embarks on an Incantation-esque ripper. But, for the most part, this is slow, low, and punishing. Interestingly, my mileage varied depending on where and when I listened to Castration. It was a great workout buddy but a tedious officemate. Still, if you like death metal at a doom pace, and not in the teary gothic way, I think this is worth a spin.

Sacred Outcry - Towers of Gold (No Remorse Records) 🎸
From: Greece
Genre: power metal / heavy metal

Ugh. Everyone is going to hate me for this. Towers of Gold is an objectively good album that leaves me cold. The reason? It doesn't riff a riff I like. Now, I get it. If you're lucky enough to employ the vocal services of Daniel Heiman, you'd want to center his vocals, too. And Heiman, who has become something of a power metal mercenary as of late, gives a typically impassioned performance. But, speaking as a death metal dork, where are the riffs? This is my gripe with a lot of power metal (and prog metal and atmo black, if I'm being honest): this inclination of the composers to treat the guitars like a string section. And thus, there's some staccato chop and legato glide, and it all sounds fine as a supporting element, but it's never what I want. The riffs have to come first for me.

Saturnus - The Storm Within (Prophecy Productions) 🎸
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Genre: melodic death/doom

Months later, I wonder why I earmarked this for inclusion. The chances of me liking this were minimal. Did name recognition get me here? Saturnus has been one of the better bands in Euro melodic death/doom for what feels like forever. Paradise Belongs to You, its 1997 full-length debut, was one of those albums passed around like a litmus test: If you like that, there's a whole wing of the metal hall waiting for you. It's objectively great, featuring one of the more striking doom covers of the '90s. But, yeah. Keyboards, vaguely gothy in a velvet couch way: not into it. For what it's worth, The Storm Within sounds close to what I remember of the glory days of Saturnus, just with elevated production values. If this is your thing, I see it being very much your thing. 

Savage Grace - Sign of the Cross (Massacre Records)
From: Los Angeles, CA
Genre: power metal / speed metal

Against my better judgment, I happen to like Master of Disguise a lot. Classic speed metal. Just, uh, ignore the album art. And it's incredible that any Savage Grace release even exists given the band's history of member turnover. To date, 24 people have passed through this band, and only guitarist Chris Logue remains from the original run. Oh yes, Chris Logue. A 2005 Blabbermouth news item reported on Logue getting busted for allegedly practicing medicine without a license. It also contained this graf: "Authorities raided the center and Logue's apartment in Hollywood on Friday, seizing medical supplies and equipment, along with a cache of military-style weapons, thousands of rounds of high-powered rifle ammunition and hand grenades, officials said. All but one of the grenades was found to be inert. One had a live fuse and explosive residue." My man was ready to lob some grenades into the pit if this crowd didn't get moving. Goddamn. Your move, every mosh-callin' metalcore band. Additionally, Logue's Metallum page says he "[allegedly] runs a porn production company, and is currently using the Savage Grace website to attempt to recruit young women to supposedly keep him company."¹⁸ And a recent interview on Invisible Oranges detailed Logue fleeing California during the pandemic over vaccine fears. I bet this is only scratching the surface. Anyway, Logue has resurrected Savage Grace with a new band around him for the outfit's third full-length, Sign of the Cross. Sounds like a lower-tier version of modern Judas Priest. Not worth your time. What is worth your time is the following mystery: Why does the album cover feature the word "RELCIAK"? The hell does that mean? Wrong answers only.

Seeping Protoplasm - Exhale Extinction (Dismantle!)
From: Tokyo, Japan
Genre: death metal

We are hitting the point in the newsletter where it feels like I'm logging my 11th straight hour of brainless consumerism in a dead mall. Everything looks the same and my eyes are bleeding. OK. Wolf. Snap out of it. People need to know about death metal. This quartet is three members from Or∞Chi and Adam from Disrotted, Mortify, and Sick/Tired on vocals. The easiest way to explain Exhale Extinction's flavor of death metal is by pointing out that Seeping Protoplasm covers Jungle Rot's "Gorebag," which, sadly, is itself not a gory cover of ZZ Top's "Sleeping Bag." Jokes! Still got them, sort of. Anyway, Seeping Protoplasm is fun in the weekend warrior sense. I like it more than Torture Rack, at least.

Serotonin Leakage - AMT (self-released) 🎸
From: Pennsylvania, USA
Genre: death metal

Cool Breeze and Doc Dank return for another album that evolves the Serotonin Leakage concept. Once a goregrind band in the LDOH mold, Serotonin Leakage has grown into a long-form psychedelic blaster with new-age synth parts. When I wrote about "TMA-2" last year, I said, "Think if Sarpanitum was into early Katatonia." That generally still applies, but AMT feels a lot more black metal. The first track, "5-MeO-DMT," reminds me of early Aeternus, just with extremely barfy vox.

Silent Shepherd's Horn - Demo IV (self-released) 🎸
From: Kansas City, MO
Genre: black metal

Everything I've written previously this year about Silent Shepherd's Horn more or less holds for the band's fourth demo. The tl;dr recap: Reminds me of early USBM both in sound and experimentalism. If there's anything different about Demo IV, it's the quality. This two-song set makes the case as SSH's starting point because the 24-minute "Neither Blood Nor Blossom" is the project's best song so far. Starting with a section that feints at a Jute Gyte-esque wooziness, Silent Shepherd's Horn then moves into a repetitious groove. Sole member Ergtoth Grifton keeps piling on layer after layer until the song melts into a dark ambient drone. A guitar bubbles up from that puddle. Then, without you realizing it, it has faded back into DSBM. A few sad arpeggios and desperate screams weep and wail before the outro noise section. Cool.

Static Abyss - Aborted from Reality (Peaceville) 🎸
From: Oakland, CA
Genre: death metal

Greg Wilkinson plus Chris Reifert. Slightly spacier Autopsy. That was my initial takeaway. And then I got to "Cathedral Of Vomit." First, that title: It's like the proper name of every hockey arena in the nation following a beer special. Second, whew, what a tasty doomer of a death metal track, nailing that classic Autopsian slowdown with some extra celestial bells and whistles. Super neat. Naturally, Aborted From Reality, a pretty good pun now that I think about it, isn't all hits. But when it is working, it'll wallop you.

Stinking Lizaveta - Anthems and Phantoms (self-released) 🎸
From: Philadelphia, PA
Genre: doom / post-metal / stoner

Here's Stinking Lizaveta's first full-length in six years, and I, uh, forgot about it. That's the story of trying to cover music these days: there's so much of it that even points of interest get washed away by the deluge. Anyway, Anthems and Phantoms is typically solid work from the Philly trio set to turn 30 next year. That means Stinking Lizaveta has outlived most of the bands I considered peers: Gift Horse, The Fucking Champs, Karma to Burn, and so on. But the band always had its own vibe, exploring the edges of "doom jazz." Often, Anthems and Phantoms feels like something born out of Black Flag's The Process of Weeding Out, just with a tighter focus on salient riffs. Then you get something like the stunning "The Heart," a bluesier, psychier number that's like lying on your back in the middle of the desert and staring into the star-filled sky. 

Svrm - .​.​. а с​м​е​р​т​ь в​в​і​й​ш​л​а у т​е​б​е в​ж​е д​а​в​н​о (self-released) 🎸
From: Kharkiv, Ukraine
Genre: black metal

Buy it here

Ah, metal. Since the style is so album-centric, I tend to prioritize LPs over everything else. Thus, I lose some singles in the shuffle. Svrm has always been solid, whipping up a furious onslaught of trems. I don't remember the project being this pretty, though. The ambient break in "I" is one of the more stirringly beautiful things this project has done. "II" slathers on the sads with mournful piano. The speed comes soon enough, with lone member S. blasting off in an expected direction, but these brief moments of meditative melancholy definitely are affecting.

Swordwielder - Wielding Metal Massacre (Red Truth Productions) 🎸
From: Gothenburg, Sweden
Genre: crust / heavy metal

While it crapped up my process and made these newsletters longer (not to mention taking forever to finish), the whole reason I wanted to make more of an effort to listen to albums housed in this section was to unearth gems like Swordwielder mini LP. I'm having a blast spinning this record right now, which is like if Amebix or Anti-Cimex made the same jump to thrashier heavy metal that English Dogs did.¹⁹ Prime BBQ/party metal punk. The closer, "Envy the Dead," is the best of the bunch, taking a doomier approach while infusing the ripper with a fog of war atmosphere. "They try to drag you into battle – resist, defy, refuse," Sikas Larsson sings. "Not today, not tomorrow but your day will come/ Soon all that is left is the eternal war Fought on never ending battlefields/ Can we defend ourselves against the all-consuming warmachine?" 

Thanatomass - Hades (Living Temple Records)
From: Russia
Genre: black metal

I feel like I collected most of these picks during the late Triassic, so I don't remember what possessed me to give them the nod. Thanatomass is a Russian trio playing a warish take on slashing black metal. I'm not the biggest fan of this stuff, but Hades is necro enough for those who are.

Thulcandra - Hail the Abyss (Napalm Records)
From: Munich, Germany
Genre: melodic black metal

Now that Astrophobos is in a rut, Thulcandra is one of the better bigger Dissection-ites around. Obviously, the band can play, and listening to the guitar duo of Steffen Kummerer and Mariano Delastik shred stormily has its charms, but I'm way too picky about melo black for a lot of this material to work on me. I found some of the build-up bridges and choruses to be cloying. Your mileage may vary.

Torture Rack - Primeval Onslaught (20 Buck Spin)
From: Portland, OR
Genre: death metal

A song titled "Fucked By Death" shouldn't be this tedious. I officially have OSDM fatigue. Now, would I go see Torture Rack live and have a fabulous time? Yes. Of course. I'm not a snooty a-hole.

Trespass - Wolf at the Door (From the Vaults)
From: Sudbury, UK
Genre: heavy metal / NWOBHM

Yes, this is the same Trespass responsible for "One of These Days," a song beloved by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. Not much of that Trespass remains: The only original member is singer/guitarist Mark Sutcliffe. And while the material on Wolf at the Door doesn't touch the '80s stuff, it's a solid enough collection of hard-rockin' heavy metal. Granted, the riffs have a Twisted Sister simplicity, but some decent old-guy hooks in the choruses punch up the proceedings. Does the back half of this album hit a wall? Yes. But can you blame old people for wanting to get to bed early?

Tygers of Pan Tang - Bloodlines (Mighty Music)
From: Whitley Bay, UK
Genre: heavy metal / NWOBHM

What a weird ride it has been for Tygers of Pan Tang. If you don't listen past Spellbound, I don't blame you. There's only pain and suffering in that seven-album stretch between that one and 2012's Ambush. But, starting with that aforementioned return-to-form, Tygers got somewhat back on track in the quality department. Granted, the heavy metal they now play is far different from the NWOBHM associated with the band name. That said, it's totally competent Euro-style stuff. Bloodlines is basically a tamer version of 2019's Ritual, with big, anthemic choruses anchoring songs that will lay down the odd riff here and there. Do I like it? I do not. If you want this sound, reach back for Ritual. But it's perfectly cromulent, and that's a minor miracle for a metal outfit with Burning In the Shade in its discography.²⁰

Veiyadra - Amalgam in Chaos (Pathologically Explicit)
From: Tokyo, Japan
Genre: brutal death metal

I like how Veiyadra's highest-scoring similar artist on Encyclopaedia Metallum is Jenovavirus. Perhaps if you dialed the weirdness way down, that could get you close to this slammy, brutal death four-piece. To me, the more immediate point of comparison is something like Devourment by way of Vomit Remnants.

Victory Over the Sun - Dance You Monster to My Soft Song! (self-released) 🎸
From: Portland, OR
Genre: black metal

I might've written this 18 different times by this point, but another reason this newsletter is so incredibly late is that I've finally been forced to gather my thoughts regarding bands like Victory Over the Sun, an acclaimed experimental outfit that has been stuck on my to-do list for eons because there's only so much time in the day and I spend a lot of it listening to brutal death metal. So, here I go, finally engaging with the work of the absurdly talented Vivian Tylińska, who handles guitars, drums, vocals, synths, and accordion on Dance You Monster to My Soft Song!, Victory Over the Sun's fourth album. And, already, I can tell I'm out of my depth. Per Tylińska in a recent Ghost Cult Magazine interview, the album is titled after a painting by Paul Klee, the band derives its name from a 1913 Russian opera, and the song titles quote lines from a bevy of poems. OK! Well, I feel like an uncultured dolt. And for the first half of Dance, I felt rather rudderless, like I missing all of the points of interest, primarily because of my uncultured doltishness. But then there's "The Gold of Having Nothing," a glistening gem that was able to trepan through my thick, BDM-buttressed skull and pique my interest. Opening with a jangly arpeggio, the song then adds Oscar Abley's saxophone to connect the dots of the melody. The bassline is especially killer, like a strong undertow beneath the sparkling waves of the guitars. It's, like, early R.E.M. secretly laying down a session with The Waitresses that's helmed by Arthur Russell. "I really like the idea of those large, bright, shifting rhythmic cascades, and I think it pairs well with the energy that metal instrumentation can provide," Tylińska said to Ghost Cult. "I think the original title of the project file where I was putting together the ideas for 'The Gold of Having Nothing' was called 'yelloweyesripoff.rpp' if that sheds any light on how I was imagining the sound at the onset of writing as compared to where it ended up. As it evolved I wanted to examine that original rhythmic cell in several ways — as a full rhythm set against a backbeat, as a linear sequence of tuplets, and then as an evolving sequence, from which the original pattern emerged again. The Glass-y section was added in as one of the later creative choices, and deciding to play the beginning in a clean/post-punk-y way was something I did when recording." It's sick. For that song, at least, I get it. Hopefully, I'll be able to unlock the rest sometime soon.

Vile Ritual - Caverns of Occultic Hatred (Sentient Ruin Productions) 🎸
From: Chevy Chase, MD
Genre: death metal

I should like Vile Ritual. Sentient Ruin's write-up about the band says all the right things, and I've been following the label long enough to know that it's rarely prone to hyperbole. "...Vile Ritual unites the animalistic violence of bands like Archgoat and Von with the technical and compositional excellence of progressive and atmospheric-leaning death metal bands like The Chasm, Timeghoul, Incantation, Infester and Demilich to unleash a mind-devouring hallucination of mutated dark and occult death metal carnage." Cool. Sign me up. And there's something within that "psychedelic bestial death metal" that I find intriguing, like how the OSDM melts in the same way that your surroundings slowly do after ingesting an edible. Plus, the performance is solid: Liam McMahon can riff a good riff. Nonetheless, I can't connect to Caverns of Occultic Hatred. It might be the punky production, which I find to be flat. It might also be that I'm just...not that into war metal, so when Vile Ritual goes more Archgoat, I lose interest. But I have a feeling that this album is a slow burn, and, as a consequence of there being Too Much Music™, I don't have the time to let this one smolder.

Virgin Steele - The Passion of Dionysus (Steamhammer)
From: New York, NY
Genre: heavy metal

The 42-year-old heavy metal band's 17th album isn't its worst, which, at this point, is an achievement. Yes, it's 18 seconds away from being 80 minutes long. Yes, the Passion of Dionysus sounds like a '90s Casio keyboard demo. But songs, like the opener "The Gethsemane Effect," have sections resembling hooks, and David D. DeFeis tosses the odd riff our way. I'll take it. And there's something here if you can get past the uncanniness of the production and instrumentation. Heck, if you enjoy luxuriating in the antiseptic strangeness of outsider metal, you might even love this oddball. Finally, DeFeis sings, "Can't you stay awake for one…one fucking hour!!!??? Bastards! Motherfucker," which is basically what I say to cats all the time. Not good. But good if you run the Catatonic Youths accounts.

Vulture Industries - Ghosts from the Past (Karisma Records)
From: Bergen, Norway
Genre: prog

Vulture Industries: a band I don't think I've consciously listened to. That is not surprising. There's a lot of music, I write again and again. And yet, despite never hearing it, in my infinite idiotiness, I filed away Vulture Industries in my head as "we have Solefald at home." How the hell did I even get there? Maybe the older works are closer to that comparison, but Ghosts from the Past sure ain't that, framing its rock with a modern prog frame in the Inside Out sense. RYM users have also deemed Ghosts from the Past to be Vulture Industries' worst album, so I should check out The Tower to give this quintet a fairer shake.

Wormreign - Abyssus (Bál Records)
From: Ontario, Canada
Genre: black metal / death metal

"Dissonant, chaotic black metal from Northern Canada," goes the Bandcamp bio, and I see no reason to argue. Abyssus opens with two instrumental tracks, a good fake-out highlighting the quartet's strengths: blasting and shredding some complicated blackened death riffs. When the vocals surface on tracks like "Chao Doctrina," you wish they'd recede into the Northern Canadian forest. The rasping yells are fine but less remarkable than the guitars.

Yakuza - Sutra (Svart)
From: Chicago, IL
Genre: post-metal / post-hardcore

Nope. Not my thing. Half of Sutra sounds like a Baroness-curious post-hardcore band that would've pitched to Equal Visions circa 2005, and the other half is experimental atmo sludge a la The Atlas Moth. Also, the clean vocals sound flat, which is never a good word to read in a blurb that just name-checked the styles mentioned above. I had to dig around my garage for my copy of Samsara to ensure the band hadn't always sounded like this. It hasn't. And while Sutra has some interesting ideas here and there, I thought this was, at best, an underwhelming effort and, at worst, a reminder of why I burned out on this side of post-metal 15 years ago. Bruce Lamont's sax isn't enough to save this.

How’d I Miss This?:

Stuff that I missed

Noctoran - The Curses We Bear Eternal (self-released)
From: Olympia, WA
Genre: black metal

It's a little rich saying I "missed" something in a newsletter this late. But, hey, let's pretend. Noctoran! You'll be seeing this name at least two more times in upcoming editions, provided I live long enough to write them (ETA: roughly the heat death of the universe). Anyway, this solo project from N.Excelsia popped up out of the blue and reminded me of Mick Barr's Beastlor. That's not a rando observation. Spy the Bandcamp liner notes for The Curses We Bear Eternal: "thanks to mick barr for encouraging me to 'get back to the axe'. :)" And N.Excelsia's axe work is fascinating across these four tracks, taking the stinging trems of Barr's black metal and layering them like sheets of sound until they resemble the feverish hallucinations of Starcave Nebula. Many people will find this impenetrable, but if you listen long enough, you start to notice neat details, like how the bass lines rock back and forth like a ship on a roiling sea. To that end, the construction of Thy Curses We Bear Eternal, a tapestry of sound approach, reminds me more of later Nurse With Wound than straight-up black metal. But, of course, Noctoran is very black metal, every bit as malevolently buzzing and blastingly irrepressible as anything in the second wave. Dope.

Bandcamp Hauls:

Stuff I bought that doesn't fit into the above sections

Art and layout by Michael Rekevics

Adi Oasis - Lotus Glow (Unity Records)
From: New York
Genre: R&B / funk

Prince would've loved Lotus Glow. That's the highest praise I can offer this solo effort from Adi Oasis, a talented bassist who makes nifty amalgamations of funk, R&B, and rock that remind me of a flirtier modern update of prime The Spinners. (The closer comparison is probably, like, Anderson .Paak or Solange's glorious A Seat at the Table, but I know what I know. Whatever. Fight me at the park while Art Laboe reruns play.) The highlights are when Oasis and friends find a groove and ride it like the most experienced studio band in the land. But the reason those excursions go is that the bones of these tracks are so sturdy, especially the infectious bounce of "Naked" featuring Leven Kali and the cosmic "FourSixty" with Aaron Taylor.

The Ironsides - Changing Light (Colemine Records)
From: San Francisco, CA
Genre: soul / jazz

If you've been fiending for songs that sound like David Axelrod playing a bunch of lost Lalo Schifrin scores, here's your album. There's something undeniably cinematic about Changing Light, this trio's debut full-length. It's very late '60s, early '70s, cracking open those classic jazz-funk opening themes and mapping their DNA. "We were getting deep into David Axelrod records and film composers like Piero Piccioni," member Joe Ramey said to The Big Takeover. "There's a whole list of Italian composers that we dig whose names we can't pronounce. But, even like the Savage Planet stuff and some of the French stuff too. That cinematic turn happened at a time when we were getting ready to start this thing with Gene Washington, who was a straight-up soul singer from California." What's impressive to me is how reverently The Ironsides recapture the era, complete with perfect-sounding punchy snares and in-the-next-room swells of strings. If you didn't know this was a new album, you'd think it was the genuine article. Of course, vibe only takes a band so far. The songs, especially the moodier numbers, are excellent, such as the achingly gorgeous "Shades of Silver."

Jeffrey Silverstein - Western Sky Music (Arrowhawk Records)
From: Portland, OR
Genre: country / rock

The knock on a lot of so-called "cosmic country" is that it's more vibe than music. You know, it sounds like a picture of a night sky taken in the middle of the desert: streaks of pedal steel shooting stars, whole-heavens bass lines, windily whispered invocations, that whole deal. Western Sky Music, Jeffrey Silverstein's newest album, has some of those elements. At its best, the band Silverstein has assembled sinks into take-it-easy grooves that evoke images of wide-open vistas. "Chet," with William Tyler, is a shimmery, panoramic shot of a wheat field bathed in sun and swaying in the breeze. But this is key: it's a song, too, featuring a killer bridge that sounds straight out of the masterful country playbook of how-the-heck-did-y'all-land-on-that miraculous composing. That's the most impressive thing about Western Sky Music: the songs. For my money, the best song here is "Clear Cut," a gorgeous acoustic number with a riff that sounds like raindrops dripping off a roof overhang. At long last, it's a worthy successor to Steve Gunn's Time Off, one of my favorite albums of the last few years.

KNOWER - KNOWER FOREVER (self-released)
From: Los Angeles, CA
Genre: pop

What would Knower become after its two constant members, Louis Cole and Genevieve Artadi, stretched out in excitingly experimental directions in their respective solo works? That was the question for me going into KNOWER FOREVER, the duo's fifth full-length and first since 2016's Life. Naturally, the two aim for the middle and grows up a little bit. Well, a little bit. "Yeah, Mount Rushymore has some tits," Artadi sings with a Prince-esque squeak on "I'm the President," "I heard you been talking shit/Let's see where that airstrike hits/ Still, still learning these nukey codes/ Ignoring those deep state chodes/ My TR-3B flies low." I mean, this is the same group that released "Butts Tits Money" and "The Government Knows." No surprises there. But some of the material here hews closer to the "Live Band sesh" versions of "Overtime" and "Time Traveler" that really broke the group, pushing them past the electropop meme-y mayhem of its earlier material. "Ride the Dolphin," for instance, feels like a composite of Cole's Quality Over Opinion and Artadi's Forever Forever, just with an unselfconscious bedroom-style production. That makes Knower Forever a pretty easy-going album, freer of the art pop idiosyncrasies these two tend to mine, and thus a natural starting point for people curious about what's happening in the quirkier side of LA's jazz-funk music scene.

Motorbike - Motorbike (Feel It Records)
From: Cincinnati, OH
Genre: rock

I didn't think a pure rock record would be one of my favorite releases of the year in 2023. Motorbike's self-titled debut does kick off with the trifecta, though, so maybe they were gunning for me. Anyway, this Cincinnati quintet contains members of Vacation, Tweens, Pale Angels, and The Drin, the latter of which has been making a lot of noise as a post-punker in the spirit of Swell Maps. According to singer Jamie Morrison in an interview with Paperface Zine, Motorbike got rolling because everyone played together in different groups anyway. The inciting incident that brought them under one roof was bassist Jerome Westerkamp dumping his bike. Inspiration comes from the strangest places sometimes.²¹ "The only vision in mine was to be a band that Bon Scott could've joined," Morrison said, whose Welsch accent is a feature of most of these songs. To my ears, these songs are less in the AC/DC mold and more MC5, just tinged with a touch of psych around the edges. It's the furious, garage-bound stomp that The Men have been trying to recapture since Open Your Heart.

Naci Oğuz - Kirpi İkilemi (self-released)
From: Istanbul, Türkiye
Genre: prog / fusion

Naci Oğuz is a guitarist who composes dense songs that fall somewhere between fusion and prog. Kirpi İkilemi, "the Hedgehog Dilemma," is, per the Bandcamp liner notes, "based on the perceived feelings of alienation that bring about a need for deciphering the dichotomy innate in social interactions." Some of these songs are meant to evoke the bloom of hidden feelings, and the spare-starting compositions that grow in sound and stature transmit those feelings well.²² Still, even if the theme doesn't land, Oğuz's playing and songwriting are pretty engaging, reminding me a bit of Allan Holdsworth's quieter material. The Turkish folk elements also add a nice earthiness to the music. All told, Kirpi İkilemi is a great album to sink into while taking a walk.²³

Sebby Kowal - Formations (Lontano Series)
From: Poland
Genre: ambient

Another fine entry from Lontano Series, one of the best labels releasing ambient, modern classical, and new age from around the world. Poland's Sebby Kowal does a naturalistic take on fuzzy ambient smears, adding snippets of underlying field recordings to make you feel like you're strolling through the wilderness.

Tenhi - Valkama (Prophecy Productions)
From: Finland
Genre: folk

One of the lone benefits of taking so long to write this newsletter is that Tenhi makes more sense as a heart-warmer in the fall/winter than it does as a June release. The Finnish band's first record in 12 years again evolves its all-enveloping dark folk, giving its life-and-death-in-the-middle-of-nature sound a chamber-esque fullness. This approach works best on songs like the title track, which layers a wonderfully stark melody within warm tones. It has that fire-in-a-cabin feel, and that might make Valkama a more accessible first album for new listeners. Ultimately, I prefer Tenhi's starker works, but it's hard to deny some of these hooks, especially as the air outside turns cold. Anyway, turns out this cold world caught up with Tenhi, too. In an interview with It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine, Tenhi founder Tyko Saarikko said Valkama was initially developed as a concept album about "a fairytale with settings in a worn torn village." The band chose a more abstract theme as real war waged in Europe. But Tenhi's strength is that its melodies are anything but abstract, aiming straight for the human heart.

Weegee - Primitive Thrill (self-released)
From: Brooklyn, NY
Genre: rock / no-wave / punk

I'm perplexed by why this band isn't massive. To my ears, the NYC quartet that has Michael Rekevics of Yellow Eyes, Fell Voices, and Ruin Lust in the ranks sounds like '80s Sonic Youth made a u-turn and decided to be The Gun Club and/or The Cramps while adopting a stray howling sax player along the way. This is no-wave that hammers away at you with a greasy, gut-bucket rock groove. As the title entails, this is primal stuff. Thus, given the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night primality of Primitive Thrill, I feel a little guilty dropping this exceedingly overwrought, niche comparison into your lap. Here it goes anyway: Julie Congo sings and plays guitar like the uninhibited id of the character Dana Schechter inhabited in Bee & Flower. Listen to how Congo navigates "Bad Feeling," sounding detached yet all too present as those bad feelings swirl around them. Adam Kastin's performance is equally intriguing, playing up a relaxed, seen-it-all sensibility while the seedy debauchery that might make Lsdxoxo blush grinds along just outside the frame. Rules. Ultimately, Primitive Thrill is scuzzy and oh-so-catchy, and if you want a transmission from the darker side of life, much like the snaps from Weegee, the photographer, you've got to pick this up.

Follow me on Bandcamp @wrambatz.

News & Notes:

• Ugh. Well, it's finally here. You may have noticed I cut some sections. This newsletter is long enough as it is. You can once again find my Substack recommendations here. Support those who actually publish stuff on time.

• You can also find a whole other newsletter from yours truly that updates weekly(!) here.

• I had a section about Bandcamp that I cut for no longer being relevant. My general thoughts are that the sale and union busting suck. Follow Bandcamp United for up-to-the-minute details.

• The plan is to record exactly one Plague Rages podcast this year. I'm just waiting to wrap year-end garbage.

• Honestly, so much has happened between when I started this newsletter and finally published it that I don't even remember what's pertinent anymore. It's like being at Costco without a shopping list. I guess we'll close it down there. Thanks for reading. AOTY is up next.

---

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1. Welcome to the super secret director's commentary track for this newsletter where I'll dunk on all the stupid things I wrote months ago. I mean, christ, this is a mess.

2. I wrote this post-COVID. I think I've been sick two other times since then. It remains relevant. Hooray for getting older and having a trash immune system!

3. lol, no. The next post will be the AOTY blowout.

4. How many times can I cram "memorable" into a blurb? Does your liver dare to find out if you turn it into a drinking game?

5. Texas Ketamine has since signed to Maggot Stomp.

6. I probably compared those speed metal bands to Abattoir, too. A tradition unlike any other!

7. Bleakbeats? Is that a thing?

8. Not that nu metal has a uniform sound. Its history doesn't cleave along the lines of regionalism since it was continually propositioned as a global pop genre. It doesn't have the same hang-ups as, say, second-wave Norwegian black metal. A few stylistic markers imparted by genre forebears aside, it's more of a "know it when you hear it" affair. I digress!

9. Yes, I'm going to update the glossary at some point.

10. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Look, I'm trying to understand what y'all hear in blackgaze albums. We're getting there. Slowly.

11. lol, I didn't mean to be this mean! Goddamn, I am an asshole.

12. I'm still miffed I got burned by Zero Hour and the fact I had to research that derp to truly crack the code.

13. Fenriz needs to set up an album/song titling service. Yo, Fenriz, fix this band.

14. Shout out to whoever uploaded this punky blaster to Bandcamp with the tag "Britpop."

15. Somehow Killwhitneydead is in Encyclopadia Metallum while Graf Orlock is not.

16. I forget why it didn't make the Travis Tate list. I clearly let you down, TT.

17. I've written this band off as Pharaoh Overlord but popular. The first few Pharaoh Overlord albums are good, though.

18. I had to stick the allegedly in there because I don't need grenades thrown at my head, thanks.

19. Two English Dogs mentions. Please cash your betting tickets.

20. Chronic contrarian that I am, I actually think "The First (The Only One)" is an OK pop confection.

21. Like Jamey Jasta said, some scars are meant to be worn with pride, I guess.

22. I don't know what this means, but it's late, so just go with it.

23. Put that sales pitch on the sticker.