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“What the Moon Brings”
A full moon stokes the fires of lunacy in all degenerates, criminals, and the mentally ill: any ER nurse or police officer can corroborate this as factual. The nights when the moon is most luminous and full bring out the worst in these people, and I am among them.
For days leading up to this evening, a feeling of malaise had slowly begun to creep into my mind and tonight it has reached its peak. I am awash in the moon’s terrible glow, and memories I had confined to the deepest crypts of my mind are now exhumed in full view to torment me once again. This is the time of the month, when I am alone in the evening, when my thoughts beleaguer me most and all I can do to find solace is sleep or pace anxiously around my house and I am at my most miserable. It’s a small wonder that my feet haven’t carved a circular trench into the carpet in my home office, and I am alive and crawling with parasitic visions of past ills. I keep shaking my head or screaming internally for them to dissipate, but always there are more. There is no shortage of shame and disgrace living and breathing inside of me, not tonight.
I tried to go for a walk a few moments ago, but my head was full of noise and the moon’s poisonous rays so I returned home. I’m working on another book, and I had planned on working on it this evening but I don’t think I’m in the right head-space to create anything coherent right now. This will pass, and tomorrow I will wake fresh and with renewed fondness for life. Much like the phases of the moon, my creativity and will to create wax and wane in an almost measurable cycle.
Enough of this for now. To those of you who read this, I bid you a fond Sunday evening. If you’re like me, or perhaps even a little superstitious about the lunar cycle, then I hope the morning finds you in a better place than tonight.
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“Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II” – Nachtmystium
Assessing a work of art in any medium can be difficult; moreover, not all good artists are good people and the same goes for the reverse. There can be no denying the controversy that Nachtmystium founder Blake Judd’s actions have raised (Google it) but it also should be noted that Judd’s music -especially during the band’s “Black Meddle” phase- was haunting, evocative, and damned good. I will not further denigrate Judd here, and with that said, wherever he is, I hope genuinely that he can recover from the dire complications he has found himself in if he has not already done so. With that said I am a massive fan of Nachtmystium, especially “Addicts: Black Meddle Part II”. I bought Addicts as soon as it was released and I can still feel what it inspired in me. I myself was not yet addicted to drugs at the time of it’s 2010 release, and I had almost no way of relating to that topic and the experiences which inspired its creation; it was not until seven years later when I too fell to IV drug use and became addicted to cocaine and crack that I really understood what was being expressed.
Looking back (before I myself fully learned what addiction truly meant and held in store) the album and the way it made me feel painted a picture that was not only horrifyingly accurate, but relatable to a non-addict. I felt immediately upon hearing tracks like “Ruined Life Continuum” and “Every Last Drop” what it meant to be hopelessly consumed by forces that, once evoked, far extend beyond what we can initially envision, and the feelings of inevitability and finality that come with making such choices. The sonic landscapes that the band wove were so effectively dismal and grimy, it truthfully was exactly like what I later experienced, but condensed into a single piece of art. Addicts didn’t just describe addiction, it made me feel it. When I did make those awful choices, I returned to Addicts and frequently shot up with it blaring in the background, punctuated with bell-ringers, tears, and blood.
Addicts was largely experimental rather than straightforward black metal. Nightfall is almost upbeat sounding at times (in spite of its grim subject matter) and No Funeral is more of a dancy electronic track, like what you might hear in a goth club; the groaning synths on “Every Last Drop” accompanied by Judd’s cigarette-scorched rasp all come together to illustrate one of the most damaging burdens humans come to bear. In a world of Darkthrone clones and Cookie Monster carbon copies, Nachtmystium dared to break the mold in very big ways with this one. Never before or since have I heard anything quite like it.
I always thought when I was using that I had (as the lyrics go) “used up my chances, ruined my life”. I was fortunate. I lived to tell the tale, and I got out. Many don’t. You can hate Blake Judd all you want, but it won’t change the fact that he did offer what is in my opinion one of the most poignant and accurate musical and lyrical depictions of addiction since Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. Like it’s creator (and like me) this album is not perfect, but it is unique in many ways, and well worth listening to.
Listen to Ruined Life Continuum Here:
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“Unending Degradation” -Krypts
I remember first hearing of Krypts when they were recommended as a must-listen some years ago in a social media post by Dragged Into Sunlight regarding heavy music that had piqued the interest of the band. Krypts’ first full length album “Unending Degradation” had just been released, if my memory is accurate. At a glance, the album art was hideously dark and somewhat grainy, the earth tones and eerie crimson sky and smoky clouds, the harsh canyon walls that seemed to get smaller and narrower but without end in sight, overlooked by rounded stones above not unlike great hooded figures glaring down into the dry, dead valley of the foreground made for a chilling, lonesome picture of a place straight out of a nightmare.
But the cover art had only grabbed my attention: it was the music that pulled the rest of me down into the suffocating murk, making the experience whole. Between its ominous introduction and its eerie, groaning climax lies a soundscape that is equal parts blistering venomous aggression and hopeless thundering doom. This is a place without light, without hope or redemption, like a perpetual funeral where those in mourning march themselves into dust, vanishing when the dry breeze of the surrounding wastes carries them aloft to nowhere. Each track is a scathing, torturous sonic assault. The band has released a couple of albums since, and their more recent work is (to me at least) more polished, but Unending Degradation is a snarling, roaring inferno, and remains one of my favorite heavy albums to date.
Unending Degradation by Krypts
Support Krypts and listen to Unending Degradation Below: -
Thanatophobia and Other Neuroses
Death comes for us all, one way or another, piercing where it might. I remember exactly when I learned that I would die one day when I was a very young child, and my parents showed me the animated film “Charlotte’s Web”, when Charlotte dies. I remember crying and pleading with my parents that I did not want to die, and worse, wondering what -if anything- happens to us when we do. I could not escape the horrid thoughts of my eventual death, it seemed always near to me and the nothing I imagined after was inevitable. I found solace soon after in religion, and the promise of heaven, but of course, I soon learned of its fiery antithesis, and the various rules and coda which must be adhered to in order to avoid the torments of the latter.
I prayed constantly, tormented by abusive inner monologues, thoughts in my head that I deemed evil or unholy. It was like a multitude of voices were crying out inside me spewing bile and blasphemy in incessant litanies. For each of these thoughts, I would complete various rituals and pray in order to escape my infinite consignment to the abyss. This went on for years. Other children did not understand, I could not articulate to them why I behaved the way I did. I prayed, too, to be normal. I just wanted to be a normal child.
When I was about fourteen, I finally had enough. The devils in my head had won. All they prayers and rituals of cleansing and salvation could not deliver me, and I felt that God had turned his back on me. Was my suffering not worthy of the lord’s blessings? If he would not have me, then I would go on my own. I resolved no longer to pray, but to beat the voices down by force of will. What could the voices take from me? Now, as a teenager, I did not fear death, but welcomed it, and hell was not a concern, nor was empty, infinite nothingness. This world was not of my creation, and I was not a true denizen this creation, and the humans I lived among, those who shunned and laughed at me, I would not count myself among their number anymore. All of this was preferable to what my life had become as a puppet of delusion and paranoia. Like any good penitent, I was adept at self-destruction, and pain pleased me. It made me feel stronger.
I’ll be thirty years old next month. I have a house, a sweet little daughter, and a lovely wife. I’ve survived abuse, fights, drug addiction and blackout drunk benders. The hardest part has been surviving myself. My outlook is different now. I still battle the voices, but they are quieter now, muffled; my outlook is different and after spending years learning to drown out all that caustic noise in my head, I’ve learned to see God, beauty, and life as a whole in a new light. I know still that I will die, but I don’t worry about it anymore. I don’t know what happens, and I don’t care to know, either. Some questions aren’t meant to be answered I suppose. As always, I’m grateful to be here. To those of you who see this on this little independent backwater site, thank you, and to those of you who hear the voices too, bring them low by defying them, and may the light of your smiles and the light in your hearts always guide you to truth.
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Flotsam and Jetsam: Onward to Future Shores
2019 is dead and buried, and has been supplanted by 2020 as the “present year”; time spills forward like a great river, eventually drowning us all, and carrying our waterlogged corpses toward unseen future shores. When and where our journey ends is unknown until we arrive and there is fuck-all that can be done about it. But this year’s passing is different. I did not wish for 2019 to end, nor was I so transfixed by its events that I wished it to remain longer; it just feels different. My life is becoming more illusory, more ephemeral with each passing day.
There is a haze that follows me, quietly looming about my person like a benign ghost in gray silence, but the further I progress in my life, the deeper and thicker the haze becomes as it swirls about me and suffuses my reality. Things just sort of stop mattering. They become blurry and obfuscated until they eventually just disappear, and I often find myself wondering if this isn’t indicative of something important, ominous, but I’m not sure what. Is it my death drawing nearer? Is it my memories blurring together as more of the already scarce space in my brain is occupied? Or is it simply that fragments of other possible realities -those of the variety which were only narrowly avoided and at great cost- are bleeding into this one and confusing my perception of what is and isn’t real?
Who can say what the future holds? I just float down the tributaries and backwaters of time and hope my good fortune holds out.
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“Hell Follows” – Aderlating
Most people who know of Maurice “Mories” De Jong’s music will immediately associate him with his acclaimed project Gnaw Their Tongues, if not his myriad other projects and side projects (Cloak of Altering, Offerbeest, Hagetisse, and Seirom to name a few). Of the latter releases, those branded under the moniker “Aderlating” are among my favorites, and of those favorites, one in-particular shines above all others like a boil glistening with pus and ready to burst: “Hell Follows”.
Hell Follows is a vitriolic amalgam of black metal, drone, and experimental noise so mesmerizingly black it’s almost frightening to listen to at length. Nightmarish and hallucinatory, the listening experience of this bizarre and awful album is like entering a trance-like state and having all fondness and joy leeched out of your body and spirit and replaced with pitch-black burning nightmares. Songs like “Choir of Sick Children” and “The Silver Domain” are disturbing in an almost spiritual sense, reeking of the worst possible blasphemies. Hell Follows is an emotionally jarring listen, and even as a fan, I can honestly say that there are parts of this album that make me physically uncomfortable.
This is one of my favorite Mories release. That said, it is sickeningly eerie to the point that I seldom play it. If any of the above piques your interest, support Mories and all of his projects, listen to Hell Follows here:
Hell Follows by ADERLATING -
“Echoes Through the Catacombs” – Catacombs
The new millennium ushered in a fresh age of darkness for heavy music. At the beginning of this new era, Catacombs was spewed into existence from the depths of the extreme doom metal underground with the January 1st, 2000 release of debut album “Echoes through the Catacombs”. ‘Echoes’ consisted of just two songs, Consigned to Flames of Woe and the title track, but was over half an hour long. With riffs as slow as cold molasses, plodding drums, and vocals that sound like a subterranean dragon choking on broken glass and gravel, ‘Echoes’ is a journey into a vast sonic labyrinth, winding and meandering deeper and deeper into solitary, choking darkness with every note. This is one of my favorite doom releases, and I still remember getting the CD from Antinomian Records around the year 2006 for Christmas. It’s a simple, but heavy album that channels an excellent atmosphere of gloomy solitude and it feels like being immured underground for centuries.
Catacombs is a one-man project, with all music and vocals played and recorded by Xathagorra Mlandroth. Support Catacombs and Xathagorra’s other projects here:
"Echoes Through the Catacombs" [+ REMASTERED TRACKS] by Catacombs -
“Midian” -Cradle of Filth
This month is a special time of year, so I wanted to touch on something a bit different from my usual fare. That said, of all the albums I associate with October and Halloween, for various reasons, one in particular sticks out like a bleeding red thumb on an otherwise mutilated fist: Cradle of Filth’s “Midian”. Released fittingly on October 31st, 2000, Midian is a towering gothic masterpiece resplendent with references to the modern master of horror, Clive Barker, whose films and books no doubt inspired much of Midian’s lyrical content, as well as its name.
I did not own Midian until about five or six years after its initial release, but after my initial discovery of the band, many fans and friends of mine recommended it to me as Cradle’s most exemplary work. To date, it remains near and dear to my heart. Dani’s trademark banshee wail and dizzying vocal patterns, ensorcelling lyrics, razor-sharp guitars, glistening keyboards, as well as Sara Jezebel Deva’s operatic vocals, and even participation from Doug Bradley of Hellraiser fame: all of these and more converge to form what was -and to this very day remains- a special, macabre glimpse into the world of the Nightbreed, a blood-stained soul sucking nightmare.
Listen and Support Cradle of Filth below:
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A Lingering Aroma of Human Waste
Putrescence clings to me; the odious shit-smears of a past I can’t escape, let alone understand, stick to my skin like pine resin. Everything occurs in fragments. There is darkness, and then there is illumination, pictures in my head that I can’t turn off. It’s like flushing a clogged toilet: the muck just keeps rising and swirling. There are so many things I wish I could delete, and other memories I almost wish I could recollect, little puzzle pieces that have gone missing forever, that tie this whole mess of who I am together.
In these dark moments, I float like a pitch-black nightmare in unspeakable solitude. When the lights come on, and I see, in my mind’s eye, all the humiliating and degrading things I’ve done and endured, I just want to look away, and disappear into a dark, bottomless hole. I have no use for this world. Let it fester, just the way it is.
But this is just another spell of depression. It will pass. I will endure. On a positive note, I’ve begun drawing again. It’s been so long since I’ve done so that I’d almost given up on the idea, but I’m pleased with most of what I’ve managed to produce so far. Maybe I’ll get motivated and work on that book of poetry I’ve wanted to compile, or an anthology of short horror fiction like I’ve always wanted to do. I keep worrying I won’t be good, or that people will laugh at my attempts… I abhor laughter. It’s the cruelest sound in existence.
On the other hand, I beat a heavy crack addiction, and continue to beat it with every day I spend clean. If I can do that successfully, maybe I’m stronger than I think.
Time will tell…
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“Dead as Dreams” -Weakling
Released in the year 2000, “Dead as Dreams” by now-defunct San Francisco black metal band Weakling was -and remains- something special. Dead as Dreams is a desperate, frothing mess of raw, shrill black metal fury, with traces of early Emperor, Satyricon, and other Norse favorites. Vocalist John Gossard’s piercing shrieks cut like a finely honed blade in an atmosphere further emboldened by looming guitars, eerie keyboards, and pulverizing drum and bass lines. Morose, furious, terminally desperate, and so much more, it’s a crying shame that Weakling split up without releasing a follow-up.
Apart from two demos, this is Weakling’s only album.
Listen below:
Towers of Rust 