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Bob: (I predict that Tommy hates ALLLL of Bob's assignments... Even the ones he didn't do. Like...) Amarok. Resilience. I've been a long-time fan of Amarok with a number of releases on vinyl in the collection, so this was in my bandcamp wishlist until I decided to catch the Pittsburgh show on July 25th and buy it there. What sets Amarok apart from almost all other doom metal acts is that they're doom in sound only. The album is called Resilience for a reason. Listen and be inspired. 9/10 Tomarum. Ash in Realms of Stone Icons. Of COURSE this was mastered by Colin Marston, the most prolific man in black metal this side of Markov Soroka. Also, Mariusz Lewandowski (RIP) is the artist that Bob was talking about whose art graces the cover, and he's not wrong. Mariusz had a very distinct style, instantly recognizable, and it's as much a fingerprint on an album as a producer's name can be. This is progressive, blackened perfection. (That fretless bass alone is awesome enough.) 8/10 Dödsrit. Nocturnal Will. With more focus on riffage than tonnage, this is more akin to extreme power metal than standard black metal. Like what Deafheaven would sound like after coming off of a tour with Demons & Wizards. There's nothing to hate here, and I love how much time they spend JUST playing music, but I have to be in the mood for such... uplifting, soaring guitars. I can SEE their big grins while they play, and I can't not roll my eyes at that, even if I'm also grinning when I do. 6.5/10 Konvent. Call Down the Sun. I listened to the whole thing twice and never once believed that was a female vocalist. Fucking brutal. Stellar on all aspects. This is so good that I forgive Sweden for what they allowed In Flames to do. 7.5/10 Ron: Driltusk. Headwork / Promo 2023. Headwork: I needed to listen to it twice because I needed to. It was too short, and it was PERFECT for what I needed after all of Bob's homework and four episodes of Simpsons, Season Two. Fifty-nine dimes and two nickels is six bucks worth of a miserable specimen. The preponderance of dissonance... and this is dissonant as all shit. I love it. Why isn't this a flex-disc? Promo 2023: What a gnarled and uncomfortable opening. Talk about a litmus test for the unprepared. That was a stellar live recording. I need to watch for them to show up on flyers. 9/10 Mountain Shadow. Mountain Shadow. Already a huge fan of all that Bariann has been doing on a weekly basis with Fiadh Productions, this release had already come across my radar with its acoustic/black/folk Appalachian metal. Like if Agalloch had been from Virginia instead of the PNW. One third of this group is the dude who releases stuff under the moniker Robes of Snow, which is another stellar Pennsylvanian black/folk metal project to look at if you dig Mountain Snow. 8/10 Seriously, no notes. Dennis: Raanan Hershberg. Brave. Doctors' scales do be silly. I don't think I've ever laughed out loud at anything he's ever said, but I love watching him, and he's an undeniably gifted joke writer. 7/10 Insect Inside. Into Impending Apotheosis. Well, that was quite an intro. So there's actually only about 9 minutes of slam instead of 10.5. Ten-four, good buddy. I wanted it to last longer. 6.5/10 Tommy: Sam Tallent. Wide World Season 1. "Navigate the labyrinthine alleyways of culture, savoring every morsel from humble street vendors to the finest culinary temples. Join Tallent as he dances on the knife's edge of jest and feast, unearthing the profound in the ordinary, one comedic riff and gastronomic delight at a time." Sam is probably on my Rushmore, honestly. His worldview is so deliciously cynical that he takes nothing seriously besides enjoying the moment. He writes to make himself laugh. These videos are vignettes so bizarrely edited together and sprinkled with gags that they're impossible not to laugh at and want to watch again. I'll likely watch these again sometime when I'm 200 mg of indica deep. "Baskethead! Baskethead! Fill my head up with consumer goods!" The ass slaps, the old man just randomly edited into shots, Jake's ridiculously shaved dome, "Can you imagine?!" As if it wasn't already gonna happen, pretending a fake sword is a phone is why Dennis will give this a score of big numbers out of ten and it will not be exaggerated or incorrect. "I've had a beer and a half, I'm gonna let you know how I feel." 9/10 Triac. Always Meant to Hurt You. Hilarious album cover? Check. Scathing, throat-shredding vocals? Check. Big, fat, chainsaw guitar tone? Fucking check. Neck-destroying rhythm section? Perfect production? Zero fat? No notes? Check, checkitty, check-check. 9/10

I’m pretty sure Last Week Tonight did an episode about how much fuggen those fuggen athletes do in the fuggen OV. It’s a whole fuggen thing. Wish you guys were following the Amarok/Mizmor tour to Pittsburgh the next night, that's where I'll be in the crowd. Izzit Yuros?!... There's a Rifles at Recess (stylized as RxAxRx) out of Landsdale that released one demo in 2016. It's grindcore with fake drums but real song titles. "Sandy Hook Hoedown", "Virginia Tec-9", so on... It's a retching, squealing, fun nearly five minutes. Beard Without a Mustache. Miraculous Fatality. These fellas DO have real drums. So real the guitars are barely existent. Only one real proper release, they're less grind and more extreme noise. Like Chat Pile. I loved its wildly imbalanced mix, honestly. Teddy Bear Autopsy's sole release from 2016, called Bearevenge, has one of the best album covers and lyrics. Twenty minutes is long enough to wear thin, but the gimmick is fun. Big Baby Satan calling themselves doom with not a single song reaching the three-minute mark is baffling. Their sole release is on Spotify for some reason, and it's pretty terrible. Evan: Boyd Rice & Fiends. Wolf Pact. I'd forgotten he said it was spoken word, until track two continued the whole vibe of what easily could've been track one's "it's just an intro" misdirect. Now I need to also bring up the lyrics somewhere, because I need to really follow this story... ...That was awesome. This would've been awesome just as an instrumental album, too. Transcendent a couple of hours into the right dosage. That this is from over twenty years ago is proof positive that it's timeless. It could've come out in the 60s. Or last month. 9/10 Surprisingly, I could only find Funeral Parade's sole output on the internet archive. The demo, terribly ripped. Fine for what it was, angular and in love with Britain. I didn't hate it, and some musical elements had me nodding my head a little, even, like the beginning of "Eyes of Madmen", but it was mostly a "meh", and I'll never listen to it again. 4/10 Mike: Barrage. S/T. Never would've guessed they were a bunch of hardcore frogs if Mike hadn't said as much, and I didn't look at song titles. It wasn't until the halfway point, "Meute", that I found the sound for me. Album's gotta huge ass, I'm sayin'. They really loaded up the trunk, as it were. Not much up front, but that tail really slammed, left some marks, per se. If I liked punk, this would be a new favorite, because this is really GOOD punk. 5.5/10 Fissure. Soledad. I bought the flexi-disc. And the cassette of Stagnant. I should always end the homework with powerful violence. 8.5/10

Top 5 Episodes for me in no particular order: Marge Be Not Proud, Homer at the Bat, Fear of Flying, Homer's Enemy, and Mountain of Madness

The concept of an entire episode about a show I know nothing about and have seen only a handful of times is a recipe for a snooze, but much like house parties where, by 4 AM, the beer pong table has dried up and become surrounded in discussion by old footballers about footballing, a thing about which I know the smallest of modicums more than the Simpsons... I'm just enjoying watching people reminisce about a thing they love. This was fun. And I actually kinda love the increasingly more off-kilter camera.

Larry: Floorpunch. Fast Times at the Jersey Shore. Sixteen hardcore pedigree hollerins in twenty minutes. Vocals are sometimes backed by the gang, sometimes sweet and friendly, sometimes chest-beating, but either way, they're always just barking juvenile anthems for the butthurt. He's always front and center, but when he shuts up for a second and lets the band jump around, they're pretty decent. 2/10 Velocity Girl. Copacetic. I love her voice on this opening track. That distortion is speaker destroying, but I dig their sensibilities. Some of these are better than others ("Lisa Librarian" was hard not to skip...), but they've all got plenty of that early 90s fuzz, even in the gentler bits. When he hits that kit, he really fucken hits it. But he's only hitting it juuuust the right amount. When they let her come forward in the mix, it's pleasing. A welcome reprieve from the wall of noise. "Here Comes" quietude was a standout, as was "A Chang" with its squalling noise, big-ass bass, and tense instrumental interludes. I liked this a lot more than Floorpunch, that's for sure. 6/10 Matt: Archers of Loaf. Icky Metal. Cool band photo. "You and Me" started with some potential for being moody, but then the indie rock pedigree came crashing in, almost ruining it. Then I realized that forth then back is probably what's gonna make it my favorite song on the album. Nope. "Sick File" and "Toast" turned out to be the high point. 6/10 Frank Black and the Catholics. Eponymous. I'm not a Frank Black fan. It's actually the guitar tone and work that makes this sorta listenable. That said, swaggery lumberer "Dog Gone" was pretty great. "King and Queen of Siam" had some Queens of the Stone Age energy to it, too. "Six Sixty Six" and "Steak 'N' Sabre" gave me solo Jack White vibes, which is fine, I s'pose. 4/10 Mike: Thou. Umbilical. I pre-ordered this, and I do not know how many times I've listened. It'll be in my Best Of list for the year, for sure. REPEAT ALL turned on. 9/10 Mojave 3. Excuses for Travelers. If opening, twangy shuffler, "In Love with a View", is any indication of what this is gonna be, I'm on board. Fuck the view, by the end of "My Life in Art", I was in love with this. Will definitely listen to this again and look at what else they've done. We could all use more hangover music. We could all use GOOD Dylan. 8/10 Dennis: Pat Burtscher. Patty Cakes. "I'm no longer chasing my dreams, I'm just walking after them." (I feel like maybe this has been assigned before? Or at least mentioned, which by now we all know is all it takes for me to just add it to the homework... His slur, his accent, his delivery, the very loud woman. It's all familiar. Anyway...) I wish this was filmed, because this is a very good time that could be very gooder. (The Cortisol bit solidified it--I've for sure reviewed this before.) I checked my browser history and found that I listened to this on May 4th. Relisten because I remember liking it a lot. 7/10 Black Flag. My War. I've never in all my decades listened to Black Flag. I've never been huge into 80s music, much less punk, so... Hey ho here we go! I'd call this dadpunk. They're on every oldhead's Rushmore. It's all right. It's noisy and loud and mad. The guitarist is clearly the star. I CAN appreciate what they laid down for other bands to pick up years later, though. (I think every sludge/stoner/doom band has ripped off "Nothing Left Inside". Chicago sludgelords, Disrotted, even did a twenty-minute cover of it for Cvlt Nation...) 4/10 Tommy: Louis CK live stand up - Thats why its hard to start dating (RARE). Like the comments pointed out, this is lifted from his Louie show. You can clearly hear it in some of the cuts. Still nice to have it all together, though. Louis CK is probably the only one of the all-time greats that I actually list as a favorite. Burr, Carlin, Attell, Chappelle, Pryor... sure, sure, sure. But there are numerous comics I love more than all of them... except CK. If it was actually rare, it'd be a 9/10... Lush. Spooky. Vocal effects are occasionally a little off-putting, but that left of normal discordant thing they're doing is running through the whole package, innit? It's askew and jangly. Like the tape is getting worn out. It's an interesting choice and I honestly don't hate it when they push her back in the mix a little. This is very British shoegazy. This week is heavy on the early 90s shit, huh? 5/10

Bill: One of Nine. Eternal Sorcery. This is DEEP up inside one of my favorite alleys. I love every aspect of this tremolo fest peppered with the doom-tinged flavorings of pagan/Viking black metal. Wolves in the Throne Room comes to mind. Def Leppard. High 'N' Dry. I had Leppard's best of album growing up. It never inspired me to dig into their albums proper, nor did it take long for me to outgrow it. I've never been able to divorce any of these hairspray metal bands from the high school party, poppy, melody-worship that they espouse and pander to. So... I spent my time with this perpetually rolling my eyes and checking how much was left. Greg: Terminal Nation. Echoes of the Devil's Den. The album opener and title track is a recipe for a helluva good time, so why they felt the need to hammer almost half of the rest of the album with needless guest vocalists is beyond me. Folks, if it ain't broke... Other than that, this is all swell and fine and very enjoyable. Do not be misled by my usage of such nonchalant terms as swell and fine--it really is very swelling and aged wine fine. Promise. Sloan. Smeared. Poppiest of the grunge-pop. Man, the early 90s were still sucking as hard as possible on the dumbest parts of the previous decade, huh. This is better than the Leppard album but still isn't great. A handful of moments that show a little more play in their playing doesn't make up for everything else around them. Marc: Stingray. Feeding Time. Love that guitar tone, but hardcore hollerin' will never not test my patience. (Sometimes exposure therapy just plain doesn't work.) Musically, this is perfectly fine. I'm just not feeling his voice--that thick-necked, tattooed and sweaty, British punk machismo. It sounds like missing teeth. In My Eyes. The Difference Between. I shouldn't've listened to this immediately after Stingray. Well... unless I was listening to this to show myself that Stingray's vocals weren't all that bad, after all. In that case, well done, bruv, 'cause this is that punk vocal style that's... not spoken, not hollered, just spit. Spitten word instead of spoken, let's say. If it's fast enough, he's basically rapping--spittin' bars instead of words. Again, the music isn't terrible. But when it's a vehicle for such unenjoyable vocals, it's hard to enjoy. Also, there's something unsettling about the eyes on the album cover. Irises too yellow, whites too white. I rolled my eyes at the 90s album trope of the hidden track buried at the end of a bunch of silence. I'm so glad that's a practice that isn't followed much anymore. Caroline Polachek. Desire, I Want to Turn into You. Los Angeles is incapable of squelching out a musical act that ISN'T completely clicks and beeps bubblegum fluff. I've decided. I now hate all things LA more than I used to hate all things punk. In a different mood, I might call this fluffier Lady Gaga or whichever other overproduced pop idol makes more sense, and I might actually enjoy a song or two. But now's not the time and this isn't the mood. On to the comedy! Lemon Party Podcast. Indian Incels with Mike Recine. Fun buncha dudes, but the best part was the unending seventeen-second loop from Swift’s “Delicate” music video. The whole pod was the best part, I’m sayin’. Taylor was the best part I’m saying. Best part, I’m saying, is that “Taylor Swift” sounds like the name of a superhero who’s just a really fast boy. Feckin Taylor be quick, bruv. Are these brothers ACTUALLY Christians? Or used to be? Because they have some fairly deep knowledge of Bible stories and indoctrinated guilt. Oh, nevermind, they just answered that… Like, for a bunch of minutes. Anyway, all Swifting aside, I appreciate the organic flow of the ridiculous conversation. No one’s on their phone, there’s no Young Jamie, there are no ads-it’s a poor podcast just being funny and fun for 80 minutes of Taylor committing pharmaceutical blackface. Kevin Banner. Heavy Favourite. Wait, did Bill Hader eat Tom Segura? Totally looks like Bill ate Tom. “Not all asphyxiation needs to be erotic. Spread it around your day.” After that and dropping one of his tubdogs during an earthquake, I’m really looking forward to the next half hour and even moreso hoping this isn’t front-loaded, because these are killers so far. “Let me back in, I forgot I hate to finish sentences.” Holdin strong! I laughed just as strongly as that one lady did at his “Bavarian cream pie” joke. Great closing story, so will for sure look forward to whatever comes next from Heavy Kevvy.

HUZZAH! Let's take a moment in celebration of the event that is my finally reaching where it all began for me: EPISODE 54. Took me eight months to watch all but the first three episodes and a few of the Patreon eps. Izzit Yuro?! Gravy Guy isn't actually all that terrible, but he shouldn't be a one-man-band. He should be a guitarist in an actual band. Black Black Black were unlistenable. Burn the Yeti is meh at best. Female-fronted riff worship that hasn't bothered to pay any attention to a single aspect of their sound other than those two elements. Regular Half Bearded Boar have one two-song EP from 2016 on bandcamp. It's... barely all right. Cover art tiddy made up for it, though. Feces on Display is the best of what I listened to and it's nothing to write home about. Pig squeals, pig snorts, programmed drums... Joe Bartnick. A Killing in Chicago. (Not sure when, but I remember reviewing this as homework before.) "If there's a slice of pizza in my fridge, I can't sleep." Rob Stant. Bobby Boy. I appreciate any comic who traps an audience into applauding relatively terrible things. I do wish that that trend lasted the whole show, though, and wasn't just the first two jokes. Some of these missed more than they hit, but this was a fairly solid half hour. I've seen way worse, Bobby Boy, which you're well aware of, as exemplified by the end credits montage of your best buzzed head bombs. Django Gold. Bag of Tricks. (Also a reassigned special.) Young Letterman mushed together with the sarcasm emoji, current Tim Robbins, and a two-pack-a-day Norm Macdonald. Which means he's a real treat of an experience, this Jew from the tribe of Seth Rogan, with his hilarious observances, reductions, points of view, and Oxford commas. Paranoid. Satyagraha. Vocal effects are a little off-putting, otherwise no notes. (Strangely, I had to find the album closer on a V/A comp released the previous year.) Cable. Gutter Queen. As an old fan of Hydra Head, Cable, especially this early shit, is an experience in sonic recall like few others. The first band that occasionally did this polyp-forming, shriek-talk, vocal delivery that I really got into, and against which I measure all others. (While this has a bunch of truly great moments, Pigs Never Fly took those moments and stretched them to the nth, solidifying that album as my favorite Cable release.)

Matt: Great Falls. Objects Without Pain. Neurot pushed this pretty hard when it came out and very silly reasons I can't think of (the album cover, the terminology, the tag "noise rock") all whittled away at my interest. Now! Now? After the wild amount of exposure I've had to new genres of musical art, of sonic warfare, of audible chaos barely contained, by doing the homework of this very podcast, "NOISE ROCK" is an instant earboner. Now, noise rock is almost more exciting to me than any of the "post-"s, any of the metals. Now, this is all of my jam. Opening with a nine-minute baptism by fire is a whole vibe. Second track, "Trap Feeding", sounds like it was lifted from my loner's manifesto. I love the "album" approach to it. One song becomes the next. If you're not paying attention, you'll just experience the voyage. Early Cable did this pretty well, too, if I recall. Man, this is heavy. Maybe it's because I'm following along lyrically, but this is just a series of domestic failures expressed with knife-knuckled gut-punches. What a tortured existence, expressed via sonic torture. I feel every word he's screaming, every trauma-filled beat per minute. Why did I ever pass on this?! This is the exception that proves the rule about Seattle sounds, because nothing else from the Pacific Northwest sounds like this. If I'm wrong, DO tell me, because the more of this kinda shit in my life, the better. Realize. Machine Violence. It wasn't until those Godflesh vocals showed up at the tail end of opener, "Alone Against Flames", that I really heard it. But now I can't unhear it. This is Godflesh with more realer instruments. Oh, and then the second track comes in with the 'Flesh hanging right off of it. But hardcore vocals? This is wild. I don't hate it, but I'm not sure if I love it. Let's see how I feel at the end... Wull... Halfway through, I'm loving how huge--fuck, MASSIVE--, how loud--fuck, DEAFENING--this thing sounds. I'm not sure I miss Godflesh enough to need this in rotation...? But if they develop this a sound a bit more, maybe find a way to continue to tip their hat to Godflesh without literally wearing Justin's and BC's hats? I think that's when I'll write home about them. Was that the first acoustic-dustrial outro? Larry: Patton Oswalt. Feels Kind of Patton. Patton is on my Rushmore. 'Nuff said. Kidding--I'll do an actual review. I haven't tapped into classic Oz for a long, long time. Some of his bits I know verbatim. He didn't really lose his crown until he became a father and a widower, but for fifteen years, he was flawless. That said, I've never listened to this. I'm a visual kinda fella. Oh, he recycled some--nay, a LOT--of this on forthcoming filmed specials. Huh. The early Aughts were an interesti--oh, bullroar, current comics do this too. Get over it. I mostly appreciate that the Hard R was still free game for mainstream consumption without it being a raised eyebrow. Hearing him talk about "what he'd do if he was a father" knowing that he becomes a single father by sad sack means... is bittersweet. "Every time you eat a steak, a hippie's hackysack goes down the gutter." (I'd forgotten that TiVo was even a thing. What a world.) Jana Horn. The Window is the Dream. If Robyn from BigIBrave didn't holler so much and her guitar didn't holler so much and the drummer would sit down and relax, I think they'd sound like this. So I kinda love it. I'm only on track four, and it's already in my bandcamp cart, which is noteworthy only because whispery female vocals are to me what whispery male vocals are to Dennis. Just stop. Sing or shut up. But somehow the music here outshines the annoying vocals. By the last third of the album, they weren't annoying at all and almost my favorite part. Can't explain it fully, but I love this. The Beths. Future Me Hates Me. Larold loves these croony gals, huh? After Jana, I'm kinda burned out, honestly. I should probably come back to this, because right now, this talk-otone pop rock is hurtling past annoying to outright maddening. Oh fuck, a solo. (Okay, not even two and a half minutes deep and I'm out. Hit me, Rob!) Dennis: Robby Slowik. Life Is Too Long. Okay, so the album is actually called Live Near Carnegie Hall. "Life Is Too Long" is just one of the tracks. Here we go... The male #metoo was amusing. As someone born and raised in a strict Baptist home, the religious material was written for me. The national anthem and school shooting bits that followed were just as good. This guy's good. I'm glad I've never heard of him before--means I've got a lot or a little of back catalogue with which to get my fingers dusty. I don't even hate his nasal/closed throat "hn-hn" he does when he laughs at himself. Derek and Steve, the pandas. I wish this had been filmed, and that is a spectacular special title. That relationships bit is too true to be funny, and it should've been his closer. (All right, Multiple Bethany's, let's see what you can do in the second track... No. Nope. I don't think I'm going to be able to stomach anywhere near a whole five minutes of this. Her fucking voice is absolutely atrocious. That fucking guitar tone is absolutely atrocious. I'm already being pushed by having to hear pop, but pop rock, pop punk, power pop, poppy pop, plop plop, flush this turd. Lookit that, I made it into track four. Fuck my life, this is beyond unbearable. Calling it. 0/10) Rottrevore. Iniquitous. Slamming death 101, which also means it's pretty basic. Nothing new=nothing necessary. It's fine. The Melvins. Houdini. I've actually never sat down with The Melvins. By the time my ears were tuned enough to their frequency, I'd already found my mammoth riffage itch being more than scratched by rifflords, Earthless. This is still great, though. (And I get why Japan's Boris love them so. Their split with The Melvins was just released a week ago, on June 14th.) I bet Tommy hated my favorite track of the first half "Hag Me"'s plodding snoozeriff lurch as much as I hated the meandering weirdness of the first two tracks of the second half. "Sky Pup" plays like a lesser version of the worst Primus live jam... and I love Primus live jams. But I dunno, this was a pass. Sultan Buzzo just annoyed me. I think it's the edible having its fun, but "Pearl Bomb" took so long to give any indication of forward momentum that I forgot I was even listening to something. Normally, I'd love that shit, but right now the drugs are making me hear whole horror stories in the oddities and dark silences that the tail end of the album has adopted, full tilt. This is like falling asleep to the end of Neurosis' Enemy of the Sun or NIN's Further Down the Spiral. Or far worse, Negura Bunget's Inarborat Kosmos EP. Tommy: Pain of Truth. Not Through Blood. Moshcall pedigree cords, in vocal and in guitar... Too bad these lyrics are hilarious and I can understand every word. Sometimes mumblecore is better. I'm only in the first verse of "Actin' Up", and this isn't as annoying as The Beths, but it's gotdamned close. Hardcore is just so juvenile it's childish. The chest-beating, gorilla-dumb posturing is laughable, and that makes the music also impossible to take seriously. It's one reason why my favorite genres of metal are either instrumental or the vocals are unintelligible, so the silliness of the lyrics is kept a secret. Because this has stopped being funny and become just gross. The Beaches. Blame My Ex. "The paramore of chaotic rock", according to their Spotify, so this will be interesting... Or not. It had its moody moments ("My Body ft Your Lips", "If A Tree Falls"), but not enough to keep me really interested. (While searching for The Bleaches--yay, typos!--I found a band called exactly that and, since I never know how to pull a needle out of my arm, listened to that too.) The Bleachés. Easter Island. Opens with waves gently breaking on the surf and a plucky guitar (ukulele?), builds with basic percussion, warbling keys, and... no vocals? I'm sure it won't be, but I'd love this to be instrumental. I didn't HATE them when they did show up. But the harmonica that opened track three made me wish even more that no one would ruin the vibe. But that said... they didn't. "Dive", track three, the longest on the EP at five minutes, is pretty fucking flawless. Do recommend.

Epitomectomy. Incoherent Mumbling of the Dead. Yikes. That album cover is a LOT. REEEE REEREEREE REEEEEE. Love all of this almost as much as my mom would hate it. "GET YOUR HAND OFF MY PENIS!" Cherubs. Heroin Man. The darkest thing about this massive, noisy, and frantically mad album is possibly the cover photo. If that's NOT a picture of the dude they're bellowing about, I don't want to know. I choose my own reality. The walls-of-distortion album closer is by far my favorite, of course. Soul Swallower. Devoured. Punky hardcore with some of the greatest, explosive grind sprinkled throughout. As with Cherubs, the album closer is where they hammer in all my cheat codes. Rachel Feinstein. Big Guy. Hotter Gina Gershon being more Gina than Gershon. Her impression of her husband sounds like she’s married to Vos and I can’t unsee it in my mind. She’s just telling me stories, not so many jokes, which puts her in the same camp as Iliza and Nikki. Gary Vider. It Could Be Worse. This guy is SO deadpan, he might actually be dead. "I wanted to tell my wife how uncomfortable I was, but she was busy." I smiled at that one. "Let me talk to them. These kids are disgusting." A lot of fun left-field punches, ala Jeselnik, and I love it. The outfit is a little off and I wonder if it's on purpose. Shirt has a weird collar, and the tie is too long. It's JUST off enough to be barely noticeable. I'm a huge fan of subtlety, though, so I hope that's what he was going for here. Or maybe I'm a fashion idiot, and that's just how collars and ties be nowadays. "It could be worse--it could be really hot outside."

First of all, Larry was on one this time. He made me laugh out loud a couple of times. Izzit Yuro?! G.U.L.A.G. 1937. I couldn’t find their one release, but the sole fella is in another band called Slytherin, and they’ve got a handful of releases to listen at. (HogPotter-themed metal is a new idea to me, but sure. Show me what you’ve got.) So… Tales of Hogsmeade Village. Symphonic black metal that is so heavy on the keys that it sometimes slips into whole passages of straight up dungeon synth. I really wish they shared the lyrics, because I’m willing to bet that they’re hilarious. Rectal Pus Bakery. Rise of the Rotten. Seven minutes of toilet slam. (AKA: A perfect soundtrack to Making A Midnight BLT.) Happy Fun Times. Finite Eternity. Fully earning that “drone” genre title, this is over 80 minutes of precisely what you think it is. sunnO))) worship by way of tape loop deterioration noise, actually really great as background for reading or video games. Depending on what you read or play, of course. Baphomet’s Cunt. A Lecherous God. Typical pagan folk metal intro. Percussive and evocative of rituals in the woods. Then it’s the album proper of typical pagan folk metal. Soaring guitars, growled and clean vocals, constant doubles on the kick. Big interludes here and there. Executioner’s drum here and there. It’s actually not terrible. I’ve heard far worse pagan metal. Penguin on Fire. Casket Builder. Pretty good. Would be infinitely better if they had real drums. Basic Torture Procedure. Screams of Dissolution. Vocals could actually be brought forward to help cover up that soupy-ass drum sound. Guitar tone is also flimsy as a wet noodle, which is too bad, because the riffs actually aren’t half bad. Take the Trash Out had a handful of metalcore songs on Reverb Nation. Think early-Aughts Killswitch or Shadows Fall or even Acacia Strain’s first album. Pretty terrible, really, and highly listenable. So bad it’s good, sorta like. Nursing Home Pantyraid. “The Rawk Biter” is the only song I could find, and it wasn’t too spectacular. Mike: Suffer On Acid. Spiral of Silence. (I see that album cover and only hear Pacino...) "She's gotta... GREAT ASS!!" Mostly stellar, the hollering is a weakness, as is the occasional solo. But mostly stellar. Lo-Priestess. How'd Your Bones Break? Being almost half an hour long stretches that "EP" categorization a bit. Mellow jazz in parts, singer-songwriter, coffeehouse/acoustic pop rock in others. This is perfect for late-night, post-show drives, just like Hagab the Grasshopper. But should follow it. Berk: Queens of the Stone Age. In Times New Roman. I saw Homme & Co. open for NIN in Aught-Five and they were far more enjoyable than I anticipated. Mostly because I'd never given them a fair shake. The Elvis metal that I'd heard on the radio up to then had never really tickled me. But seeing what they did with those same radio hits really won me over. They turned them into long, fucked up jams, and that's kinda the best way to treat songs artists and audiences are tired of. While I've yet to visit their earlier catalog, I really dig "...Like Clockwork" and also didn't hate "Villains". I honestly keep a pretty loose finger on the pulse of QotSA activity, so this didn't register on my radar when it came out. I'm glad to dig into their Bowie-esque, big-band bombast. I don't know anything else that sounds as unique as these guys, and that's beyond commendable. A+ Greg Puciato. Child Soldier: Creator of God. Shoegaze indie rock with whispery vocals? I wonder how Dennis felt about this. Second track introduces an electronic element that was completely missing from the album opener. This sounds like an Orgy B-side, nay rarity, something even they would've left on the floor. If it was strictly the music, it'd be a lot better. I don't usually mind whispered vocals at all, but somehow this makes me understand why Dennis is such a hater. Wait, this just smash cut to being industrial noise/power electronics. This is only the second track. How schizophrenic IS this album?! Okay, now we've got yet another completely different personality. This is one wild ride. (Also, I can tell I'm going to be exhausted by time it's over. Thank god Stanhope is after this.) I dunno what to think about this. What I KNOW is that this should've been about three different EPs, one for each genre presented here. Oop! Now we got some big, doomy noise rock? What the actual fuck, Greg. Pick a gotdamn lane. Vocals just made this sound like current (read: garbage) era In Flames. Jordan, you a real wild card. "You Know I Do" is what the whole album should've sounded like. Then I think that "Evacuation" is what the whole thing should've sounded like. I usually love roller coasters, but my head hurts. Walsh: Doug Stanhope. Beer Hall Putsch. "I have a problem? No, lady, I have a solution." This thing is nothing but quotable. I don't even know how many times I've seen this. It never gets old. Whenever I want to introduce people to Doug, I show them the breast cancer ruining football bit. If they don't laugh, we won't be friends. Lovechild. In Heaven, Everything Is Fine. For how short this song is, they really spent some time leaning a guitar against a stack before kicking it off. Puuuunk punkitty punkpunk. But this is ferocious and not at all pop, so I don't hate it. It's a decade old and all the links are dead, so I guess that answers how they're doing now. Dennis: Ryan Long. Nannette 2. This is the second Long assignment we've had here. Sober, hotter Bam with his Ville Valo jeans and serial killer stares, telling edgelord jokes as if he's not, just letting the groans wash over him. Nothing but love for Ryan. "Men are better than seventy-one genders! Boys! Boys! Boys! Pew pew pew!" The almost abstract super-close-up cut-aways of the audience, the room, etc. are actually pretty effective. At first, I was like, "What're you doing? This isn't your film school senior thesis", but by the end I'd really appreciated them. Kusaru. Putrefaction Ritual. The recommended records at the bottom of this release (Worm, Spectral Voice, Fossilization, etc.) tell you all you need to know before hitting play. But hitting play, you wanna. Blackened doom, Discolor, liquefy, bloat... Collapse indeed, it's so good. What's to hate here? Headphones on, lights off, just take a quick nap. I bought the cassette. Tommy: Gus Tate. Top Gus. I’m a quarter of the way through this and beginning to think it’s a stay-at-home-dad concept special. He listened to every syllable of “write what you know”. Oh, okay, here we go… “Women don’t want me FOR my body, they just want my body.” “Get outta here, you kids with your tight little nutsacks!” That was great, I liked him a lot. Them Are Us Too. Remain. Deceptively seeming to be simple dreampop, there's actually a lot going on. Digital beats, washes of synth, ethereal vocals, bridges of keys and guitar drone way in the way back. (I guess she's dead now? Anyway...) The electronic presentation of what sounds like a mashup of Medicine and Vangelis that permeates this whole menacing, noisy album is really quite enjoyable.

Izzit Yuro: Crusty Old Toad. Serpent's Tongue EP & Nefarious Occurrence. Hilariously misogynistic lyrics over basic heavy metal? Pass. The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Every Man for Himself and God Against All. With no proper song titles (they're just "part"s), that pretty much says it all, I suppose... Okay, I dig it a TON of a lot. They had me from the start for being instrumental. They had me at the end for everything that followed. A perfect blend of chill and fury. This is available on vinyl too? Hell, yes. (I also found Hagab the Grasshopper while searching for these Heavy Liar fellas. It's a one-woman-and-a-guitar folk outfit, and I admit to loving this kinda thing after a night of rockin hard. It falls somewhere after the Inside Llewyn Davis or The Broken Circle Breakdown soundtracks but before Hangover Music Vol. 6.) User Joined Your Channel. The Discord Album. Each track is fifty-five seconds long. There are only six of them. It's... everything... is...? ...are programmed, it sounds. Is this AI? This must be AI. Is the other release better? Oh, it's just a song. And no. Deathshroom 778. Black Void Evocation. A collection of two demos, one over twenty years old now. More programmed percussion. A blown amp? It sounds like a bug zapper that gets a really BIG bug and cooks it for two minutes straight... Oh, there's a Nintendo interlude for absolutely no reason, thematically or otherwise. What an odd choice. There it is again. Okay, this is just dumb. Skipping a few songs, to the back half, the older demo. More of the same, not surprisingly, but at least the programmed drums have some semblance of a dynamic. Let's see if the GameCube homescreen makes an appearance here too... It didn't. But they also have a release from just a few years ago... let's see which of those elements made it to the current decade... Ooookay, it was the Nintendo. This is sub-par dirty techno mooshed with black metal vocals and occasionaly musical interludes. But mostly just terrible. The Kids Taught Us Japanese. Battletoads. Three songs in two and a half minutes. First one's instrumental, but not in an intro sorta way. This is stellar. Doesn't sound programmed at all, even though it's one Finnish dude. Latest release, De Mysteriis Dom Bufonidae from 2023, is a bit longer, at about ten minutes. Much darker and more dissonant, grindy even, but it's also groovy and just damned excellent. Nuclear Flatulence. Split You Apart (w/ Sejofreti). 2015 grinding d-beat, with thin production muddled by the low-fi, fuzz worship. Some random hollered vocals (not a sample?) interjected for an added terrible element. Let's see what the latest sounds like... Out for Blood EP. Pretty much more of the same. Meh.

Breach. Venom. Okay, yeah. Y'all weren't kidding. That opening is fucking awesome. I don't hate any of this. It actually does sound fresher than its 1999 release date, legitimately earning its "progressive metalcore" tag on the YT vid. Well done. It wasn't until "Hell Is My Witness" that I realized that "Black Sabbath" had been instrumental. Swoon. All Out War. Celestial Rot. Can there be rot that is celestial? Asking for a friend. Anyway, this is checking a bunch of boxes, none of them outside of my fanzone. Wait, these guys formed in '91? and they sound like this even now? Fuck yeah, grandpa, careful getting off the stage. Molder. Engrossed in Decay. These guys are from Illinois, and this is from 2022, so that can't be Kevin from Brutal Truth on the mic, but gotdamn, does that sound like him. (If he wasn't pushing 60 at the time of recording...) Okay, so... knowing that, this is for sure a love letter TO Brutal Truth. A groovy-as-hell love letter full of--oh hey, they'll be around in August. These guys at KFN in August? I could use a sweaty heat stroke this summer. Let's get fucked. Star Funeral. In the Dark. If this had literally zero drums and she was a little lower in the mix, this would be amazing. Instead... Jared Freid. 37 & Single. “Ribbon dancing with a long receipt” was a funny visual. He’s a funny visual. As if Andrew Schultz and Sam Morril ran at each other like mountain goats, colliding skulls with enough force to become one. Sam Schultz. It’s why he doesn't have a neck. Spotlight operator seemed to be hungover, maybe? Crowd seemed to’ve been sat according to gender and level of hotness, maybe? Or is this guy some alternate reality Matt Rife who just naturally draws young women? I know Dennis really loves his wheezy laughing at his own punches. With how unmopped sweaty he is, the black tee was smart. His voice is weirdly high and crackly like he’s on one edge of puberty. Sometimes it sounds like he’s meowing through a sentence. (Nathan Macintosh isn’t annoying with his voice, because it’s so extreme it’s hilarious.) He’s got decent premises, I’ll give him that. It’s just his Old Jewish Woman delivery that makes him hard to really enjoy. The nighttime eaters bit was good enough that I actually forgot he’s annoying, but this is definitely one of those specials that has no business being on Netflix. Tony Hinchcliffe. Making Friends. So glad there are imbedded captions. “The movie you’re gonna love whether you like it or not.” This is actually the first of Tony’s standup I’ve watched. I hate his personality and voice. Two big strikes. But I’m glad to be finally watching what makes him the greatest of the edgelords. “When they eat pussy, they chew.” When he walked the whole family, I was grinning like a moron. That was awesome. That is CLEARLY his favorite part of his entire job. His whole face had a boner. Handled the whole moment perfectly, especially when Mom approached him. Fearless. Now I get it. Also, that closing story was all news to me. Kewl.

I'm only thirteen minutes in, and I'm so excited for the next three hours. Watching these old eps, discovering moments that have become lore (the Garfield banner, right now the crocks, etc.) have an extra element of sweetness to them. And what a lineup at the table. Legends, all.

Izzit Yuro: Boy Gore. (Two bandcamp pages, for whatever reason, so firstly...) Gore All the Time!!!... One of the six songs is a Mortician cover and there are horror movie samples throughout. What's not to love? The Whole Gorey Story... This guy feckin LOVES ellipses. Both albums, every single song title... all ending in an ellipsis. Really loves the idea of holding a thought, it seems. Anyway, this is a twenty-four track compilation of sorts, it would seem. Production is a lot lower-fi than the other one. This sounds completely different, actually. I liked the first one, this one sounds terrible. The drum programming is atrocious, the vocals are atrocious... Pass. Get Rich or Die Asshole. One Frenchmen with pretty great production, decent vocals and riffs. Did not disappoint. I listened to both EPs that he's got on bandcamp. Liquid Shit. Pillars of Shit. This is definitely all about blown out speakers and screaming through a monitor. That said, it's a good time. Recommended. Lord Bootyquake is a rabbithole, lemmetellya. A one-woman operation whose metallum page is massive, she runs a label out of Newark, DE. Give her a dive. Homework! Shitgrinder. Eternal Death. No notes. This is awesome. Groovy, grindy, nonstop fun. Shitgrinder. Same same same. (There's also another ShitGrinder page on bandcamp with zero info but the tags "kids, *orn groove, psycho jazz, turbo grind, weird shit" and blurbs like "Funhouse magic...?" and "Energy Drink". It was released a couple of months before Shitgrinder's 2014 demo and consists of five tracks that are indeed all of their tags combined.) Immortality. I Think Therefore I Am. I would've loved to listen to this, but it was impossible to find. Nothing on RUclips, Spotify, bandcamp. Anywhere. All I got was info ABOUT the release on websites that only offer info, like Metallum, discogs, metason, etc. Naming your band and titling your album such common words and complete fucking phrases is the best way to bury your content at the bottom of the Internet ocean, dummies. How did Sean ever find this? Even the label that released this is lost to the ether. I found someone selling a t-shirt, even! But no way to listen to it. . . Okay, after I calmed down and got high, I gave the Interwebs another chance and I searched using ALL the info I had on the release. Like, everything. Quotation marks everydamnwhere. The text window was brimming. I eventually found a link (buried in the comments of an old, old reddit thread) to a RUclips playlist. Jesus Christ, this fucking EP had better completely change my life. . . Welp. My life remains unchanged. Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou. May Our Chambers Be Full. This isn't just Thou with Emma featured on vocals, nor is it just Emma's doomfolk with Thou sludge-grunging around behind her melody. This is how collaborations SHOULD sound--equal parts of both parties. They toured this album quite a bit, often playing acoustic sets, and I never got to witness it, but I can only imagine how amazing that was. Tripping Daisy. I Am an Elastic Firecracker. Weirdo pop rock. I don't really mind this, but I don't really like it either. While the guitar licks are undeniable, if I'd heard this when it came out, I would've hated it. It'd've offered nothing to my teenage goth/industrial metal ears. Now? Aside from a few ("Motivation", "Trip Along", "Prick"), these still aren't really for me. Daniel Tosh. People Pleaser. It streams nowhere without being rented, so I watched what seemed to be a chopped & screwed version on Dailymotion. (Playing it at 1.25 speed helped.) I love Tosh and always have. I own (I think) all the DVD collections of Tosh.0, and his podcast is one of the few weekly pods that I actually keep up with. It'll be fun to revisit some younger Tosh material. (Oh, good, it's censored...) I love seeing comedy from standups who've become the people they used to lambast. Married father of two used to shit all over people with families and kids? I'm happy. The pedophilia bit would be sooo much better if he had a daughter now instead of two boys. " Bric-à-brac" needs to make its way back into the social lexicon. "Load of darkies." I need to adopt that one. Todd Barry. Domestic Shorthair. I think this is my third or fourth viewing of this. Todd's such a unique voice. (And has a unique voice.) This is definitely a crowd of people who are either really cool or are really familiar with Todd, because they're being very generous with what, to most casual comedy fans, is just too odd to be funny. My stepfather, for example, would be waiting for a reason to laugh at the whispered Italian dressing bit. Actually, both of my fathers would. I can't imagine anyone but Odd Todd making that conversation work that well for that long. Maybe Izzard back in his ("her" now, I believe) heyday. I don't know what a hedge fund manager is either. "Classic flim-flam." "Where does a kitty learn that word?" Odd Todd ramping up the oddness with a needless laser pointer to close? Only you, Barry.

Eucalyptus…… you can lick this

You’re a band

The 22nd Amendment prohibits a person from being elected more than twice to the presidency, consecutive or not. Trump would have to be reelected for a third term in 2028 to serve two consecutively, and that can't happen. He can pontificate all he wants about it (and he did while in office) but unless some Constitutional changes are made, it's just more Trump noise. Clark Beavis reminds me of that Jodie Foster/Mel Gibson gem, The Beaver. Highly recommended. You're welcome and I'm sorry and you're welcome. Sorry. But really, watch it. Too prove I am also of Dennis' generation, I can also divulge that the Disney Afternoon's Tale Spin cartoon featured King Louie as a club owner and Shere Khan as a businessman. Izzit Yuro? Voodoo Bong. Ritual CVIII. I don't hate this. Actually, I mostly love this. Weakest aspect is the vocals (sometimes too shrieky, sometimes gang), but there are a couple of moments that are fucking undeniable and I make the stank face at a riff that comes in in just the perfectest of ways. The music is so solid that even though the vocals almost break instead of make this, there isn't a skippable song on the album. Parasite Hilton. Perverse Dreams from a Rotting Mind. Calling this grindcore is mostly accurate. Calling this decent is 100% accurate. "Miss Misogyny" has some twangy guitar, even. I definitely fuck with Colorado. Denver produces some really great acts. I mean, every single one of them has Ethan Lee McCarthy in them, but whatever. He can do anything. Pallbearer. Mind Burns Alive. I haven't listened to anything by Pallbearer in ten years. I guess whenever I needed this particular fix, I just listened to Sorrow. Or Foundations... I didn't revisit either of those before putting this on, going in as fresh as possible. I remember them being a lot doomier than this. This is prettily anthemic in its downtuned amble. Sadboi ballads ala North Carolina's Bask just coming off of a tour with My Dying Bride. I like it quite a bit, even the solos, probably because they're played so slowly that they hardly register as a solo. They certainly know to ramp everything up on the way out, though. If not in tempo, definitely in distortion and hugeness of noisewalls. Torsion. Suspended in Darkness. Wonderful. I'm a huge fan of massive albums, but this is just the right length for what it is. I've come around to the power of a really solid EP. Just a killer good time. Loud Night. Mindnumbing Pleasure. Okay, so... thrash? Just good ol' speed? This has NASCAR written all over it. Tailgating with frumpy moms showing off tattooed muffintops. Backwards caps and chewing tobacco. The playlist that has this on it also has Kid Rock, Motorhead, and Toby Keith. They're all very competent, but every song sounds the same except for the last one, which is still the same thing, just slowed down a tad. It's fine, it's just boring without the metal rednecks. Fredag den 13:e. M​ä​nskliga Gr​ä​nstillst​å​nd. Hardcore sensibilities + tremolo picking = Sweden. I'm a big fan of Godmother (also Sweden) and Beaten to Death (Norway), so this isn't far off from those marks. Siege Column. Darkside Legions. This opening track has one ugly intro. Like what Rob Zombie wishes he could make his film scores sound like. Then it drops all the frills and the rawest OSDM starts jumping around the basement. Rob Who? Nah, this is the most Nordic I've ever heard Jersey sound. Are there any vocals in this at all? Is this entire six-and- a-half-minute song all just an intro? Oh, there we go. Blast beats and Chris Barnes in the house. No notes. Tzompantli. Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force. 20 Buck Spin have a dynamic death metal pedigree and I'm expecting this to follow it... Masterful death metal plus one other element to elevate the whole endeavor above its contemporaries. (Ulthar's double-album, Helionomicon/Anthronomicon, come to mind as a fairly recent example of this.) Here, I'm waiting for that one element to show up, but while I do, I'm thoroughly enjoying what I'm hearing. It's just good death metal. Nothing out- or undershines in the production. If the whole thing sounds like the second track, "Tlayohualli", the next half hour is going to be a swimmingly swell time. Trunks on and horns up, fuckers! Oh, track three is the One Element. Got it. Album is great all over, but the last half is better.

I'm fortunate enough to not have people in my life who enjoy damn near any of the comedy that I do, so I Think You Should Leave was not at all ruined for me. (Same with the short-lived reboot of sorts of Mr. Show also on Netflix called "W/Bob & David".) I don't scroll socials at all either, so while I'm largely out of touch with what's hot currently, I'm also free to enjoy media unpunished. It's a mixed blessing that I'm more than happy to count. Izzit Yuro? (I wanted Maggot Shoes to be spelled Maggot Shoos and be about a no-nonsense housefly matriarch constantly having to shoo li'l maggies out of the kitchen while she prepares the evening's dinner of snarge.) CxFxOxS. Feed Them Like a Beasts. (Castle Full of Shit is well at grammar.) This opens with some keys that even I could play. Then it explodes with toilet wretches/pig squeal ree-rees and d-beat slamming. It stays in that lane at that speed for the next eleven minutes. The best part is the wildly broken English, so I highly recommending following along with the lyrics on bandcamp. (Example: "8 billions sandwitshes on two feet/drope somes no one with notice"... None of that is a typo. That's what they belch, and I love it.) A.I.D.S. Wrath, Odious, and Desire. Grinding hardcore with some blackened punk energy thrown in. Longest track is forty-six seconds long. The fi is low low. Some of this is just noise. Some of the riffs are actually audible. The drums shine here, honestly. Nightfucker. Nightfucker. There are a few of their releases on bandcamp, but Oakland's Sentient Ruin released this one, so I already had it in my wantlist. Four doomy sludge songs crammed into thirty-six minutes. Think Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean or Body Void, but without any of their faster bits. Worthikids. BigTop Burger: OST/Season Two. Man, the pandemic made people do weird shit. Digital beats and big ball guitar licks. Digital beats and accordion noods. Digital beats and joke vocals. Season Two was a little closer to Ween than the first and that makes it better. This was weird enough that I had to see the show. Both seasons are on RUclips, so here I go... "You guys have to hike up my jeans, looking for loose lint!" The show is so odd and entertaining that I forgot it was even the music of the show that brought me to it. What a fun half-hour. Militarie Gun. Life Under the Gun. Radio punk/indie rock/LA yawnfest boys bang out friendly alternative jams for eyeliner girls and boys. Fine for what it be, s'pose. It just ain't be for me. Twelve Hour Turn. 'Live' at WNYU 98. I didn't know what to expect from that silly as giggling goose shit album cover, but this is really quite excellent. Reminds me of Slint, early Cable, maybe a few other early Hydra Head releases. The best kind of post-hardcore that's clearly hardcore in its marrow but spends most of its time in those angular-jangular guitar warbles with helter-skelter percussion. Will definitely look into their albums proper. Also, they called Europe "Yurp" and that is a new favorite. Darkentries. The Make Believe. I can only describe this sound as "DEEP", the way a darkness can be deep. This swallows everything. Too intense to be just background, this demands attention. They're screaming too hard to be ignored. I don't know what they're screaming about, but I feel the same way that the novel House of Leaves made me feel: curious but uncomfortable. There's a thread of dread throughout these songs. I bet they put on a killer show. Or did, as it looks like they've not been a thing for over a decade. Instant add to my bandcamp cart. I wonder where they ended up. Navtec. Navtec. This was all right. Would've been a lot better had it been instrumental. Mark Normand. Soup to Nuts. It’s been long enough that this’ll be a welcome rewatch. He runs exactly like I pictured him running. He’s got some real treasures buried in his nonstop stream of short, tight jokes. He’s like a grindcore band releasing a forty-five-minute album. Zero time to breathe. If they’d just slow down a bit, they could make two solid, thirty-five-minute albums… He’s one of the best at making an audience groan, laugh, then applause. Geoffrey Osmus. The Only Funny White Man. I JUST watched this a little while ago, so… See Episode 46 w/Bill D for my review of this. Matt McCusker. Speed of Light. This has been pushed by the algo pretty hard since its release. Finally hitting it up. You can tell he's a close pal with Shane. Got his mannerisms and cadence and such. I didn't laugh out loud once, but conversely, I absolutely loved it all. He's just fun to experience. Tofurkey = suckin' dildos was a favorite. Joe List. Enough for Everybody. I've seen a few things by List, but not much. The self-deprecation is strong with this one, so I always have to find that kind of headspace first. The mental fortitude to deal with someone who hates themselves and never shuts up about it is a strong fortitude and isn't always in the day's arsenal, y'know? I always remind myself to get over to CK's site and rent July 4th or whatever it's called, but meh. Maybe someday. Joe's funny enough and I can't really explain what about his comedy ALSO gives me the mehs, but it does. I never dislike or regret watching his standup, but I'm never excited for it either. Okay, time to actually start this... "I look at it the way that you look at your hand in poker" is pretty fucking perfect. He's so delightfully awkward. I hope these Reels he keeps banking on actually paid off for him. I think he encapsulates himself the best, and it should be on all his merch and the title of whatever memoir he's writing: Not Killer but Fun.

Life on Venus. Odes to the Void. Their own synopsis on bandcamp says it all quite accurately: "We are a shoegaze/dream pop trio from the heart of Russia. Our music blends joyful and dramatic feelings in melodies made of vast guitar soundcapes and hazy vocal lines." Not mentioned is the rhythm section, which is often drowning in those hazy soundscapes, but not so perilously that they're inaudible, but sometimes they're just as washed over as the vocals by the tsunamic guitars. As weirdly optimistic as this is, I didn't hate it. "What Lies Beneath" was my favorite, with its massive distortion dominating most of the track. Gets Worse. Teen Wolf. Wowzers. Dual (triple?) vocal assault is the point here. Shit, is EVERYONE screaming at me? This is unrelenting and threatening. One of these guys' voices is hilarious, though, and that's unfortunate. Blasting, scathing, insane. I bet this is a real spectacle live. That album closer is one nasty behemoth, too. Kontusion. Kontusion. Techdeath of the utmost "I bet I can tremolo faster than you can tremolo". Fifteen minutes of squalling, guttural, discordant perfection instantly added to my Wishlist. Brian Holtzman. #CancelHoltzman. Wow, okay. I thought this was going to be a casual experience after the ferocity of Gets Worse. Turns out they were just the pregame for the vitriol keeping Brian's engine running. The audience is mostly as quiet as I am, just watching this Tourette's case spiral, spit, and spew rage into the void, seemingly not caring a churchmouse fart if the void is even listening. He just needs to be heard. Dressed in his sister's Sunday best, he's possibly the most metal comic I've ever seen. (Sorry, Posehn, Brian is actually more metal than you.) "I'll knock another bitch out and throw that bitch at the bitch." Poetry. Also, calling someone a "cracker barrel" is the dumbest and funniest thing I've ever heard. "You know how hard it is to get your luggage back from a plane crash you survive?" The random jump cuts are somehow the most jarring thing about this whole experience. I love that anything over four syllables becomes a mouth salad of gibberish and he laughs at his own inability to enunciate. "Maybe there ARE estranurestrigals, and they're HERE RIGHT NOW." Is he a boomer? He's got young boomer vibes coming out his megaphone. "The only thing he did wrong was let those women live." followed by pantomiming said women getting beaten. LOL What a treasure. "I DON'T LIKE BABIES ANYWAY." Mike Binder directed this? Oh, wait. Binder did the whole Comedy Store doc for Showtime, of course he directed this. And Burr produced, because of course he did. This is on all the brand. Congealed Putrescence. Within the Ceaseless Murk. Is this more Kontusion? This feels like more Kontusion. Okay, it's slightly more polished, slightly less sharp and ugly. It's still deathgrind, but it's got throwback elements. Honestly, I prefer Kontusion. Especially once the throwback solos started. Quarantine. Agony. Punked up hardco--wait, what the fuck is this shit now? Well, that was uncalled for. Don't do that again. Anyway, punked up hardcore for hardcore punks. I hear some killer riffs sprinkled throughout, but otherwise this is pretty standard to my ears, solos included. Okay, the beginning of "Who's to Blame" was pretty coo--AW, GOTDAMMIT, I said not to do that shit again. You're fired. Myq Kaplan. Vegan Mind Meld. "I WILL use German to describe how Jewish I am, for example." This is LOADed with quotable lines. Who doesn't like Myq?

48:00 Negura Bunget was one of the first pagan folk black metal bands I got into when I blind bought 'N Crugu Bradului. Fifteen years later, I was one of the donors to their last GoFundMe/IndieGoGo/whatever that they were doing for tour support when Gabriel died. More disappointing than my money then going to nothing, I really wish I'd gotten that tour backdrop that I bought... Name drops and friends doing things… NYC Shootout. Shoot Ya Shot. First riff is undeniable. Hardcore stylings tinged with metal tones but sometimes slipping into rapmetal. Sometimes eschewing everything for some attempted thrash. Holds some promise. Silent Us. 2014 Demo. Not sure if this is the right band but fugget. Three punk tracks apparently recorded from the house next door. Conduit. Helium 3. Not sure if this is the right band (There are a dozen Conduits on bandcamp…) but fugget. Noise slowly simmering itself into noise rock and then reduced back to just noise. This is legit. Jackal. S/T. Scathing, seething, blistered violence. Four tracks of jaunty djenty metalcore. Top tier. God Instinct. All I could find was a live set on RUclips filmed on May 10th, less than a month ago. LOL The hardcore kids’ synchronized limbmills is fucking hilarious. Solid songwriting confidently delivered. Sounds like he shouldn’t try singing, though. Anti-Sapien (NYC). Those Who Know Nothing. Exceptional deathgrind. Also some decent merch designs. AntiSapien (Florida). “A Lasting, Impenetrable Negativity”. A nearly ten-minute dirge of plodding distorted piano devolving into cellar noise. Put it on loop and let the blood out. Homework! George Clanton. Slide. Barber beats under washes of fuzziness and warbly keys. Sadboi poetry via dreamgaze whines. "Tie Me Down" was the weakest track, "Dumb" sounded like an electronic Weezer (dumb), "Blast Off" never did, and "You Lost Me There" was the most engaging track off of this collection of typical LA sounds. The Sundays. Blind. Mellow, guitar-driven, alternative rock with feathering drums and pleasant, beautiful vocals. I don't remember what I thought of their first one, but this is neither wrong nor right for me. Unoffensive but also uninteresting. Pet Shops Boys. Please. By the end of the first two and a half minutes of the first song, I was already ready for it to be over. I hate synthpop. Swans. Filth. My familiarity with Swans is with To Be Kind. And a couple of documentaries and filmed concerts. So this is a new thing for me, this Neurosis/Godflesh mashup that's happening. I really dig its industrial Nick Cave, lurching madman dirge. Crippling Alcoholism. When the Drugs That Make You Sick... By the first three-minute mark, I was 1,000% on board. This noise rock shit is awesome. It FEELS haunted and dirty. Ancient. But recently exhumed. And fucking PISSED. "Group Home" is unsettling in its discordant circus menace. This record is one wild and wildly emotional ride. Now I feel like I'M menacing just by living in the atmosphere these guys are creating. Like... If a Chat Pile and what's left of Daughters collab was produced by Jaye Jayle. "Trash Bride"... In a word? Scary. None of these songs are long and each one feels like an entire journey. This is exhausting in the best way. Cop Shoot Cop. Release. Clutch with ska sensibilities playing the dreams of dying sons of rockabilly dads. Basically, a fever dream of Henry Rollins collaborating with The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Behind the edgelord band name is a big big sound that's pretty undeniably enjoyable, all digs aside. I didn't think I'd be able to stand over fifty minutes of this, but by track five, "Slackjaw", I was fully digging it. Foot tappin' and all. "Turning Inside Out" is the craziest frantic bit of sonic anxiety I've heard in a minute. (That "Ambulance" follows it makes all the sense.) The beginning of this album is either a lot different than the ending, or my perception of what this is has changed with prolonged exposure, because this is fucking great, and now I only hear Henry Rollins collaborating with Clutch and I love it. Godflesh. Cold World. Classic era Flesh. While industrial shoegaze elements were still embryonic, the pedigree for the genre was being delivered here. "Nihill" showcases the dub/breakbeat tendencies that Broadrick would be embracing fully in projects to come, complete with his penchant for remixes. Extortion. Threats. Groovy punkcore, just having fun. I especially loved the album closer, dancing off into the silence. David Nihill. Cultural Appreciation. Birthers do be cray cray. The American charcuterie parallel is flawless. “See that really touched some of you.” "That was the first time that Corona trumped Guinness." Game of Irish Thrones is example number three in this special that proves this guy is one of the best writers holding a mic today. “Wakeboarding, if you don’t stand up, quickly becomes waterboarding.” For how many times he says it, the special should’ve been called A Grave Error of Judgement. By the end, knowing it was coming was rewarding instead of annoying. Also, he didn’t BUDGE from his mark on the stage. I don’t think he even took a step when he fetched some water. I don’t know what exactly that’s indicative of, but it’s still wild. PowerPoint comedy is a bold choice but that was enjoyab-ahhhhahahaha! He mentioned in the credits that he barely moved during the thing. Love this guy. David Piccolomini. Goblin King. Title of the special in the first five? Opposite Burr here. I’m thirteen minutes in and unclear on how exactly this makes me feel. I think maybe I'm seeing and hearing potential here, but not much more than that. Clearly nervous, which sometimes negatively affects his delivery, especially if all the laughing he’s doing is a manifestation of that. I THINK he has some decent premises but MIGHT have better endings to a bunch of these when he watches them five years from now. MAYBE. This could also be his best and he’s just not very good? Like the edible Tinder date seems like it COULD’VE been funny? I don’t know how full this seemingly large high school auditorium is, but the three people who really like him REALLY like him. HIs biggest applause was when he asked for a round of applause, but the whole heroin junky dad bit is decent just for the fact that he WROTE IN that the jokes wouldn’t be getting laughs. The dead pedos bit is actually really great. Turns out the back end of this is where the real promise shows up. Closing strong is for sure a good move, but this special could’ve been a solid, funny and interesting twenty minutes instead of the mostly weak hour that it is.

Public school is a joke now. My kids schools average test scores keep going down year after year, and it’s like that almost everywhere.

Cancel anyone that says "Satan is tight" Jesus is King

hes fuckin 6.6, you definetely should have given it to him, but family also shouldnt have been so harsh and rude

Hell nah😂 im not giving my brother the good seat but hes my younger brother so helll nah😂😂

The Family are the assholes

Lagwagon. Let's Talk About Feelings. Ooof. All right, I can do twenty-five minutes of Blink-182, I guess. Feckin homework, anyway. There was a piano bit there at one point that I didn't hate. Some kinda pointage for that, I s'pose. Dir En Grey. Withering to Death. I'll have to dig a little, but I have a couple of Dir En Grey CDs. I remember thinking they shared a lot of aesthetic choices with Marilyn Manson, primarily because of the vocalist's shock rock fashion, complete with Manson's "watcher's eye" contact. Anyway, this'll be a fun revisit to an old favorite. (I think I switched gears when I heard Envy and dug their sound a lot more, and we all know we can only have four or five Japanese bands in our regular rotation at one time. Any more than that and we become a 1980s song by The Vapors.) It's just as schizophrenic as I remember it, sometimes sounding like an anime opening/closing song, other times sounding like a harder HIM, or Christian nu-metalers, PAX-217. Moonspell, maybe? These guys are all over the genre map, which is for sure part of their appeal, because they're competent wherever their whimsy takes them, not unlike fellow countrymen, Boris. The album's backloaded for me, starting with the banging oddity, "Garbage". Unto Others. Strength. That first song's got Rammstein's galloping drums all over it. At least to my ears. I think I'd dig this a lot more if it was instrumental. He sounds fine and can sing just swell; he's even pretty perfect for what they're doing musically, but I just think I'd prefer this if it was just a bunch of big, cinematic anthems woven together with guitar licks and nothing else. The early Baroness sound is here in a big way. But there's a lot of love for young Lou Reed and krautrock here as well. Joy Division. I love that guitar tone a lot, though. Erythrite Throne. Mortiis' early era is my dungeon synth go-to, with Abruptum as my close second. But I also have a lot of stuff from Fiadh that scratches my forest and chainmail itches. Point is, I'm sure I'll enjoy this. Dungeon synth has to be pretty terrible to not be what it's supposed to be. It's a simple formula, and Erythrite deftly checks every box. Oh, vocals too? Well, that's how dungeon synth becomes black metal, brother. That's a different thing, dude. That's Mortiis' SECOND era, m'guy. Still, this is great. Put on your corpsepaint, light your candles, and pet your kitty. Juvenile. Tiny Desk. I just spent twenty-seven minutes trying to read out-of-focus book spines, relics, collectibles, and other such Tiny Desk ephemera. I do appreciate that, more than anything else, this spotlights that hip-hop is rooted in rhythm & blues, and jazz, just like most of modern music. Also, seeing Batiste was a treat. His collab with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for Pixar film SOUL was one of my favorite scores of the pandy. The Promise. Believer. Hey, they're from my concert/record store go-to stomping ground, Syracuse. This one's gonna be digested in the car, just because I rarely listen to homework in the car, and I'm feeling squirrelly. "The Unwanted" was the worst of the worst. Fuck all of this all the way off. Screaming Death Compilation. Destruct/Scarecrow/Dissekerad/Rat Cage. Destruct: Why so angry? I barely got done texting my sister a single response and their quarter was done. / Scarecrow: Sixth mass extinction already? Aren't we the fifth? Anyway, this is better than Destruct. Female vocalist? Or just a wee lad? Such young barkin' outta this li'l pupper. / Dissekerad: I missed it. Where was I? / Rat Cage: Almost missed this one, too. I think I like this quarter the best, too. Mike Vecchione. The Attractives. Glad to rewatch this, mostly because I digest so much comedy that this will still probably feel like a first time... "All right, car alarm, I get it." is my favorite line, but the whole special is free of filler. Cheese Parade. If this balloon touches the ground, we all die! The last thing I need is more Instagram nonsense to follow, but that was a fun scroll. Phil Hanley. Live in Ann Arbor. "Joking. It's part of technology." I was smiling the whole twenty-five. I guess it's been long enough since I saw crowdwork that I was in the mood. And Phil is always fun. Brendan Ayre. Desiree. "My waist looks like the property line between a rich family and the abandoned mobile home that can't be burned down because of all the meth in the walls. And my ass is just the woods across the street... Don't cross the street." is what I wished I'd heard. This is a rewatch for me, as an 800 Pound loyalist, and I'm glad for it. I know because I gave it a thumb up the woods at that time. "...Or B: You were in the boat tunnel from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie wasn't there to stop the boat. You just... RODE IT TO SOBRIETY and a promise to never trust a whistling tree ever again." I love this, but why can I not stop writing my own tags for these jokes? I think it's the edibles, if I'm honest. "James is doing pussies by the monkey bars. You need to quit fingering the churches and get over to the bars, my man. Finger pussies." The moment with the 18-year-old's mom in the audience ALONE is worth sharing this special with the furthest reaches. Now onto the most annoying mouth in comedy. Whitney Cummings. Mouthy. I know all comedy is performative, but seeing the switch in her behavior from offstage to on was cringy. I suppose points for sticking to the job when perhaps she shouldn't be, but ew. I can't explain it, but the mic flip she's doing is driving me nuts. How riddled with anxiety can she be that she needs a fidget spinner while doing what's supposed to be the thing she loves doing? Only Chappelle and his constantly smacking the mic against shit throughout his set is equally as irritating. "What's gonna come out, actual baby powder?" was a good one. I can hear and see Rogan performative laughing at that one, so she knows it's good for an audience. I was glad the credit sequence BTS had her addressing her voice. I was wondering. It's a solid set, with Whitney's typical approach to material and crowdwork. Also, maybe I'm just used to seeing women pregnant with their second or third or whichever kid, but she's a TIGHT seven months. Must be a teensy feed us in there or she's gained zero baby weight. This mostly just makes me wonder how casually and nonplussed Ali Wong has done eighteen specials while carrying.

Kai Mark. Doll. Sadboi acoustic ballads? Uhhhhh, duh. Of course I bought the 7". Staticlone. Flexi I and II. Punked-up d-beat hardcore 101, but with a seriously tight economy of output, they also showed that they could be more than that, especially on "...Of Light". Alienator. Time To Die. Time to die, indeed. Thrashiest, most frantic, solo-topped groovegrind around. Nice to know this kinda thing is still being recorded in 2024. Iron Monkey. Spleen & Goad. In a word? Ugly. In a few more words? Super ultra mega ugly. If you're already in a good mood when ya put this on, strap in, only gonna get gooder. Like the seriously sludged out Gnar Kill album we'd love to be foot-tappin' our way to a murder to, bruv. Sex Prisoner. S/T. (Looking this up at work took a little finagling around some corporate search restrictions, lemmetellya.) Unparalleled vocal ferocity with grinding powerviolence barely able to keep it all together. As much as I want to blast this in the car with the top down, I probably shouldn't. Vehicular homicide is still frowned on, yeah? Into Another. Seemless. Fates Warning meets every post-grunge, radio rock, pretty metal band? Meh. Big sounds from every corner of the studio, though. No one's lost in the mix, so kudos to the production. None of the songs are too long, either. This is still for ears other than mine. Lipoma. Horrors of Pathology. One-man gorefest. Riffs on riffs on riffs. Too bad he can't drum, because a live drummer combined with bringing those vocals down a bit would've elevated this above the toilet bowl. (I was trying to place the sample in the title track and just couldn't. Sounded like Vincent D'Onofrio, though.) Joe Derosa. I Go to Atlanta All the Time. First time listening to Joe's standup. Only familiar with a couple of podcast appearances over the years and the transexual experience at the most recent Stankfest? Fully Loaded? Whichever it was. Anyway, this wasn't bad. I never LOL'd but it was enjoyable enough. I might tap into another one if it was filmed. Caitlin Checkeroski. Comedians You Should Know. She's got a few CYSK sets on her own YT. I watched all three. All of the 2023 set is also in this year's. Not a terrible ten minutes all told. The platonic third wheel is her best joke.

Bohren & der Club of Gore. Black Earth. I'm chalking Dan calling Bohren "screamo" up to the fact that he's a comedian, because that's laughable. I've been a LONGtime listener of Bohren, first discovering them in the blogosphere decades ago, and I've discovered nothing else that sounds like what the band themselves describe as "jazz noir". (The Darkjazz Ensemble bands come close, but only sorta.) Bohren's 2 1/2 hour behemoth, Midnight Radio, is one of my all-time favorite albums, and another release that I can have as background music to any activity. I've thought about assigning them as homework for you myself, but figured you guys would hate it, so never did. I can't wait to hear what you guys have to say about this. Amesoeurs. Amesoeurs. This is quite a genre salad. I thought I knew what I was in for with that opening track and I was excited. Then the second song showed up and it sounded like a different band altogether, at least with the mood. Less excited then, more curious. By the halfway point, I figured that the flip-flopping, genre-hopping is kinda the point. By the end I was pretty positive that Dan meant to call this black metal Joy Division the screamo assignment. He's a real card. Cat Power. Moon Pix. Jangly guitars, twangy vocals, minimal percussion, if any... This is rainy, lonely, Sunday music and we all need that. Scent of Death. Woven in the Book of Hate. Only four releases in two decades? Damn. Tool has more of an output than these guys. Too bad too, because this is perfect brutal death. James Acaster. Repertoire. I watched this when they were released on Netflix and loved them, so I'm rewatching all four episodes. I'll just review the first one, Recognise. Corduroy blazers (suite-coats? jackets? sports jackets?) are a whole vibe. I’m high, by the way, so… Wheeeeeewww!! I’m pretty sure I bought those shoes, yellow laces and all, when I was seriously considering doing Joker cosplay. “Unfreeze the ice.” “Have them loose in your pocket and guess. Live your life.” I can’t believe I’m doing this on my night off instead of playing Zelda, but Acaster’s funny and his casual confidence onstage makes the estranged Weasley wonderfully enjoyable. That an audience follows him on a ridiculous premise for thirty minutes is proof positive that he can do anything with anything for anyone. That doesn’t make sense because I’m purple as a git right now. Byyyyeeeee. George Carlin. Complaints and Grievances. Watched this innumerable times when it originally aired. Most of this I can probably quote by heart. King Curmudgeon confirming why the throne was his. Simon King. As Good as or Better Than. Hey, fat Karl Urban, that set design is a bit much, what with the smoke and the blue bars. (That said, my favorite weirdo, Rory Scovel, directed this, so maybe it's his fault.) Preachy virtue signaling streaming out of his screamhole at 100 words-per-minute, punctuated with excellent accends and sounds. He's hitting more than he's missing, but I can't decide if he's actually telling jokes, or this is just a funny TED talk... I don't dislike this... but I'm not sure if I LIKE it either... I'd probably watch it again and enjoy it, but only accidentally. I feel like this is all very quotable, but the rapid-fire delivery is exhausting.

Doug Stanhope. Acid Bootleg. Doug is on my Rushmore, no doubt. "Nothing makes you feel better than when someone who shouldn't've fucked you, did." RIP opening the set with trying to get your feature act laid. Doug is the GOAT (Patton is a close second) with the ability to use words to paint the most graphic descriptions of the human body at its absolute worst. (The football bit in Beer Hall Putsch, his version of the joke in the Aristocrats doc, etc.) He's also the GOAT of making absolutely horrifying truths about relationships (hell, life in general) painfully hilarious. Never tell your secretes, indeed. (And that whole thing about not wanting the whole truth and nothing but? There's another aspect of that that has to do with desensitization. I'm 43 and have yet to meet a single woman who wasn't abused in SOME way as a girl. By family, friend, or foe, it literally goes without saying that there is some serous trauma in every woman's past. The problem arises when a woman trusts you enough to share that trauma, in part or in whole, with you, and you have to act like you've not heard it a million times before by now. One woman revealed horrific childhood trauma to me and, when I didn't respond how she wanted me to, she further embraced her victimhood by my perceived apathy. Because I wasn't horrified, she was. Point is no one is special in their neuroses or triggers or hang-ups. Go ahead and share them if you must, but don't put the onus of empathy on me. I'm too punch-drunk. Understand that I already know you're fucked up and let's go from there. The startling line needs to be moved.) "Why even moon a sorority girl if they can't see the swingy nut part of it?" "What happened to his head? Babies are like poems--they're beautiful to their creator, but to other people they're silly and annoying." I don't think he's ever released something that wasn't under an hour, and without exception, whenever said release is ending, I'm always sad about it. Very VERY short is the list of comics I can say that about. (Kinane is another long-winded comic who I can never get enough of.) "School shootings." fivefullsecondsofdeadsilence "Got a problem with it? Well, stop fuckin." "This might be the greatest country in the world, but that's like being the prettiest Denny's waitress." needs to be a bumper sticker yesteryear. "Being the best doesn't necessarily make you fucking 'good'." That's the tit you're not supPOSED to see" is the insight that makes Dough who he is. Untouchable. (Also, I'm not even halfway through this and I have a two-hour French black metal album to get through tonight, so I need to stop pausing to pontificate...) As a raging alcoholic, I 1,000% support BAC tolerances being graduated the same as corrective lenses, as far as the DMV is concerned. "Daily drinker? Breathe into this and do a FST before taking your glasses off for your renewed license photo." "But say you get that first exploratory Ernest Shackleton probe finger in there, and you're immediately greeted by the angry nose of yesterday's BK Broiler." Untouchable. Oh, good, a shitty rip kicks in for the last ten minutes? It's bad enough that this is audio-only, now even the audio is fucked? Fuck all the way off. Done and done, cunts. Even the internet archive (dot com) version is fucked. Why is this a thing? This is so stupid and upsetting that I want to set the whole world on fire, just so I can light my cigar by its light and die smiling. Paysage d'Hiver. Im Wald. (Four years since its release, I'm shocked any of the limited physical formats are still available. I love underground metal. Also... I was going to do more comedy after Doug, but the way that the internet made that fucking impossible pissed me off to no end, so two hours of whatthefuckever seems just right for my mood.) At two hours long, I didn't expect the fuzzstorted shrieking to start so soon, so I'm doing my best to settle in. I'm not home, but if I was, I'd be lighting candles and taking a big, honkin' edible. I might still do that in the morning... Less than four minutes in and the keys are blooming? Okay, didn't French long-form industrial/ambient doomers, Darkspace, do this before? Whatever, at least it's not skipping every other second. This isn't thinkin' man's metal, this is lose-man's-entire-capacity-to-think metal. By track three, (the first intermission of sorts, I'll bet) I was fully on board and ready to just enjoy the voyage. . . . which I did. I'll likely eventually own this. I love long-form outputs that are less about anything other than transcendent emotional experiences. I have a handful of releases, digital and physical, that are actually inTENDed as sleep aids. Ambient works by ambient artists. Folks who take cues from Brian Eno and Lustmord and expand them to the breaking point. Works by Volker Lankow, Max Richter, and Bill Baxter. Obviously, Im Wald is more rooted in black metal, but it's the kind of black metal that's mostly just walls of noise, everything distorted and repetitive to the point of being meditative. Like a two-hour walk in the forest. But at night, with winds howling when winds rarely blow at all, so there's an added element of menacing dread. I could read to this, sleep to this, drive to this, wander Tamriel to this... This is the rawest, truest form of what black metal strives to be. It's lizard brain primitivism, terrifying in its alien familiarity. (Also, to think there are actual lyrics over all of this is wild.) Unleashed. Where No Life Dwells (Reissue & Rare Tracks). As a longtime attention giver to Century Media whenever their blips showed on my radar, I must've heard Unleashed before. That said, the fact that I don't concretely remember is probably because this mostly misses the mark for me. Vocals are too far forward, and the rhythm is too far... Slayer? I dunno precisely what's annoying me here, so it's probably a little bit of everything. Weirdly, I can't tell you why the vocals are annoying me. Johnny sounds so much like Kevin from Brutal Truth that I looked members up to make sure I wasn't hating on someone I love. Must be just Unleashed's thrashy pedigree. These particular parts, layered like this, make me sick. Pizza is supposed to be crusty on the bottom. Gutted. Bleed for Us to Live. That riff in "Nailed to the Cross" mostly just annoyed the shit out of me. Then the solo, short and dumb, annoyed me even more. I'm only a third of the way through this album? Fuuuuuck. I'm gonna be annoyed out of ALL of my shit by the end of this. "Death before Dismember", still dumb, came pretty close to being tolerated without a grimace and a headshake. 'Chock full of Guts" came even closer. "Flood of Blood" with its silly phonetics, (nearly) one-minute solo, and should've-been-the-whole-album closing electro-coustic bit, still mostly just disappointed. Hard pass.