Nasty_Cabbage

Yeah that Netflix show was a standout from every other attempt they've made for original content. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Really satisfying and fleshed out factional world building that actually expanded the mythos from the movie. Most things that attempt to continue a story like that try and tie up loose ends to provide satisfying catharsis. That show did the opposite almost and by the end of it I was completely in love with the world they built all over again. Made my girlfriend at the time really frustrated, though. She wasn't a fan of anything Muppet adjacent. Is Billions that show about the Machiavellian wealthy family that had Brian Cox and more Culkin sightings than anyone should have to endure? ...And just an aside in case anybody here happens to know, did the second half of that horror film that was laying waste to the festival circuit including some of the more respected and drama based movies ever resurface? I think it was called Mad Gods or something to that effect. Last I checked we only had the first half available for torrent or download, and nobody seems to know what the hell happened to the guy that made it. He had publishers lining up to give him distribution, but nope; just straight up ghosted.

Here's the thing though, I have to have at least a little begrudging admiration for a movie that can so effortlessly get past my defenses. It's absolutely maddening. I'm the type of person who will go to great lengths to safe guard against being made to look like a complete mope. What I watch by myself... sure. I'll probably watch something intentionally manipulative because there's any number of good movies out there that I wouldn't have any exposure to if I held to that standard, just not when there's others around.

NP: Horror Chamber - Thoughts: The Slow Decay ▶︎ Thoughts: The Slow Decay | Horror Chamber (bandcamp.com) Good stuff. New album supposedly coming this month from what I can glean. This one's a little older, but it's still good. Reminds me a little of that album by Bodyfarm that came out earlier this year. I do like the attention paid to some of the smaller details in these songs like the effects pedal use on some of the riffs that bridge the gap between a decidedly unmelodic strain of dm and the solos. Overall I'm really enjoying this one. These guys aren't going to set the world on fire by any means, but their songwriting and instrumental proficiency easily wins the day. It's also worth noting that the solos that are here don't default to what I'd feel comfortable calling death metal Phrygian. Notable for just how common it is in dm. If they were formed in a mid sized city I have no doubt they'd be home-town heroes, which is something I'm always keen on.

I think the main issue with Cameron is that when given complete control and no budgetary considerations the excess goes into special effects. As much as we'd all like the opposite to be the case, you will never make an effects laden movie that doesn't date itself eventually. I think the original Jurassic Park is about as close as you can get, and that one utilized both computer and practical effects and is an absolute master class in why placing your actors against a green screen will never yield performances as nuanced as having practical effects they can interact with. It's the reason you can get absolutely lost in a movie like The Dark Crystal or anything from Jim Henson's studios in the 80's and 90's. At my father's behest this week I saw The Holdovers. I always like seeing Paul Giamatti in his element and he fills the role of a grouchy college professor nicely here. I'm not surprised my dad really liked it. The tone is in the same ball park as Dead Poets Society and a really underrated movie with Michael Douglas called Wonder Boys. I liked the movie in any case. Trying to figure out a way to avoid the annual family Christmas viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. I've successfully managed to evade it for years. I tried explaining to my parents that I actually really like the movie and a few others from the Christmas classic cannon, but's it's almost too effective in it's delivery and I really hate indulging in that kind of molasses-thick sticky sap in audio-visual form in front of anybody. I made the mistake of telling my parents over the phone that "You guys don't get to see me like that. No one does." I've endured so much emotional battery from Pixar and other studios whenever I've had to watch my nieces and nephews over the years that I've built up my mental defenses. That movie though... like the whole back third of that movie is the cinematic equivalent of a swift kick in the balls. They proceeded to mock me and now I'm going to have to be very careful not to get ambushed when I'm there this year. 🙄

NP: Ancestral Blood - Forgotten Myths and Legends Chapter One ▶︎ Forgotten Myths and Legends Chapter 1 | Ancestral Blood (bandcamp.com) Black metal for those who enjoy the simpler things in life. If it continues to hold my attention I'll have to check out chapter two just because I can be a sucker for concept/narrative albums as long as the music's good and they don't pad it out with spoken word passages that seriously disrupt the momentum of an album. I'm still a little butthurt over that awful techno track in Mayhem's Grand Declaration of War.

That's a whole lot of metal awesomeness crammed into four words. I'm down. I'll give it a try as soon as I finish... NP: Tombstalker - Age of Darkness ▶︎ Age of Darkness | Tombstalker | BORIS RECORDS (bandcamp.com) Bout what you'd expect. Love the guitar tone here.The track "Titan Warlord" even opens up with a little punkish intro that fits perfectly.

I know what you mean. Cameron is so much better when he has some constraints on him. How the director who pulled an unfuckwithable classic from the no-budget smoldering wreckage of what became Aliens ended up making ebullient technicolor schlock like Avatar is beyond me. I think I'm in agreement with most people in thinking that The Abyss was a huge step down from the quality of films he had been putting out, and that was his first project where his creative freedom and ambition were allowed to run unchecked. After that it was all downhill.

Moonlight Sorcery - Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle I posted the picture and link to the album back there somewhere. I'm stuck with this album. It's infectious. Every time I think 'that was good. Now let's listen to x' some part of my brain says "No. Lets just listen to Vihan Verhon Takaa one more time."

For what it's worth Dead, even though I'm a relative newcomer, I've read and posted in this particular containment zone of the board on occasion. I don't think your posts are particularly anti-discourse, and you're pretty plainly willing to engage with others. It seems to me that it's more a matter of just how obvious your entrance into a "low" cycle of dopamine and serotonin is to most others. I can completely understand the desire to goad and cajole until heads start turning or positive conversations spark up. People do want to have discussions about this stuff usually. Personally I got over my Malthusian phase about halfway through my twenties, and now I'd consider myself more of a conservationist (very different from an environmentalist) than anything else. The problem happens because the entry level for discussions is pitched at such a high volume it becomes impossible to join unless you want to enter on one or another side of a cacophonous torch and pitchfork bearing rabble which is an incredibly unappealing endeavor for most. The volume always goes up and never down. I've always thought that the only time in this day and age when you truly don't have a voice is when everyone around you is screaming. Discussion and engagement are possible, but it demands a tempered and measured tone. Idunno. My two cents on something I have no business offering my two cents on anyway. Carry on.

NP: Diogenes BCE - Innocence Will Never Regain ▶︎ Innocence will never regain | Diogenes BCE (bandcamp.com) I must have missed this one a few years back. Excellent material on display here. The songs are a little overlong, but that's not a dealbreaker when they clearly have a distinct identity and the skill to realize it. Well worth a listen, especially if you tire of the long string of melodic death bands doing their best Amon Amarth or At The Gates impressions. They've got something going that is wholly their own thing.

NP: Destructor - Maximum Destruction ▶︎ Maximum Destruction [Skull Smashing Edition] | Destructor (bandcamp.com) Talking about Razor gave me some thrash withdrawal cravings.

Nice. Evil Invaders usually takes top billing from their catalogue for me, but man did those Canadians string together a hell of a run of full lengths from '85 through to the 90s. NP: Black Spine - Through the Collapse of Industrial Society ▶︎ Through the Collapse of Industrial Society | Black Spine (bandcamp.com) I don't know. Something here really lacks energy. I like the raw production with the simplicity devoid of newer black metal trappings, but something I can't really put my finger on just feels really plodding, like they grazed their target sound and didn't challenge themselves beyond that.

NP: Somnium De Lycoris - In the Failing Hours ▶︎ In The Failing Hours | Somnium de Lycoris | Enigmatic Diversity Records (bandcamp.com) Another first full length from this year. Definitely a lot more melodic than I was expecting. Not bad though. The melodic bits are a little, I don't know... video gamey maybe. It's not melodic in a way that many releases are. Still solid though.

A minor classic from that era/genre/region. Good stuff. NP: Diabys - Portals of Annihilation ▶︎ Portals of Annihilation | Diabys (bandcamp.com) Excellent diy feel to everything on this one. As near as I can gather this is the bands only release, but the members have been in the trenches as live musicians in a number of different known and respected bands from Canada (including my personal melodic death metal darlings Quo Vadis). No complaints here in the songwriting department. They've clearly cut their teeth and applied their learned experience to this straight to the point death metal release. The album doesn't go anywhere near newer death/black dissonance, but it's definitely not melodeath either. The only thing I can really see drawing complaints it that a lot of people don't like Chuck Schuldiner style growls. I consider them a plus.

NP: Wapentake - Agrarian Gothic ▶︎ Agrarian Gothic | Wapentake | Legion Blotan (bandcamp.com) Now here's an interesting one. U.K. one man band making instrumental black(ish) metal with a clear tilt toward historic themes regarding the Dutch influence on English culture and warfare/allegiances in particular. There's no real battle ready frothing at the mouth violence here even though that seems to feel more at home in black metal than anywhere else. I'm sure some people who lived at that time in areas where a much more barbarous legal and administrative system had been forcefully installed might disagree though. If anything I'm glad of the history lesson internet hole it sent me on. The idea of dense instrumental black metal has always intrigued me. Without vocals it often feels like it's losing it's primary tool for repelling would-be casual listeners leaving only those who have the dedication to enjoy the inaccessibility. The problem starts to really show with the repetition, though. A lot of these songs could use some very judicious trimming.

NP: Helga - Wrapped in Mist ▶︎ Wrapped in Mist | HELGA (bandcamp.com) This was a pleasant surprise. I typically see all clean female vocals with longer song structures and incorporation of traditional and neofolk, and I think 'Here we go: another gimmick band that wants to be Nightwish or The Gathering'. Not so with this one. Yeah the clean vocals make it so the music falls within the regular tonal range and popular sensibilities you might expect, but this is a cut above the rabble who attempt something similar. If anything, it's a statement that the musical ideas were never bad. It was just the execution that was lacking. The vocals adjust to the shifting moods of the songs and never really go for much bombast. The instrumentation adds tons of texture to an already creatively rich approach to songwriting as well. Metal? I wouldn't say so, but that's hardly what it's shooting for. Really well done brooding folk-rock would be a more accurate description. Nice palette cleanser. Metalheads approach with caution, though, but if you're picking up what this albums putting down this is easily some of the better stuff out there.

Yeah. They really lean into it with the keyboards. I should have specified symphonic black metal when talking about there being room in the metal landscape. I like Emperor but on Nightside Eclipse in particular every element is fighting to make it's impact heard so it comes across as kind of a free for all drunken brawl. Dimmu are clearly on the opposite side of that with very clear and crisp production value that's only been getting worse with each passing album. There's a ton of ways you could take the best of both without ruining one or the other. The ...And Oceans album people were fawning over at the beginning of this year seems to be aiming just for that middle ground, but even that one (with a couple of really head scratching tracks) felt overproduced to me. NP: Astharoth - Gloomy Experiments Nice thrashier nods to Watchtower here without the screechy vocals.

NP: Drunemeton - Age Of Nameless Things and God ▶︎ Age Of Nameless Things And Gods | DRUNEMETON | Der Schwarze Tod (bandcamp.com) Damn that is a hell of an album cover. If I saw that in some sort of cool framing on the cover of a fantasy novel, I would read it. The sepia with strong outlines drawing the eye across and up toward the mostly black night sky with a centered figure is bloody perfect. Unless the album is really bad I'm going to search for this on a shirt. Music's passable so far as well. Maybe leans a little too heavy on the keyboard, but far from terrible. I feel like there's a fairly unpopulated space in black metal right now between the muck of In the Nightside Eclipse and super smoothed over and overproduced Dimmu and their kin.

I've probably seen Nile play at least a dozen times. They're one of those road warrior bands like Clutch that, for one reason or another, I always find myself in the vicinity of. Not that that's a bad thing. I don't want to unequivocally make out as if my experience with them is wholly representative of what they are though, but just anecdotally, I remember when they were notorious for having a "muddy" live sound that made picking individual songs out from their 'gravel in a blender with a gut-shot badger' approach to playing live pretty rough going on the old ears. I think that was probably primarily the venues they were playing though. Then after Annihilation dropped they must have opted for new gear because their sound suddenly became absolutely pristine in any size venue. Dallas Toller-Wade's drumming was impeccable, and they even made their twin vocal attack worth paying attention to. The atmospheric tracks were eerie, and the guitars were murderously precise (and keep in mind when I see a band whose studio output I'm familiar with I always pay attention to the fingerings and picking on their axes just in case somebody tries to pull some of that live-tracking bullshit). It's definitely been a treat to watch their careers play out. Black Seeds is still probably my favorite, but Annihilation is still an amazing feat to see. ...and can I just say that it's very appropriate that we've moved from Candlemass to Nile in the discussion, since Nile inadvertently took the infamous riff from Cmass' Well of Souls on one of the tracks from In Their Darkened Shrines. I've actually asked them about that particular riff and they were pretty good sports about it, and said before people started pointing that riff out to them they'd never really heard Candlemass. NP: Diabolic Night - Beneath the Crimson Prophecy ▶︎ Beneath The Crimson Prophecy | Diabolic Night (bandcamp.com) Another album another skippable overlong keyboard intro track. Death/Thrash that leans away from the sometimes frustrating "pizza party thrash/crossover" template a lot of the young'ns have been adopting since Municipal Waste. It sits comfortably in the more arch minor-key and euro influenced style of things without losing sight of it's thrash roots.

I had yellow eyes once. Thought I was metal as fuck until it turned out to be liver failure.🤔 NP: Penitence Onirique - Nature Morte ▶︎ NATURE MORTE | Pénitence Onirique | Les Acteurs de L'Ombre Productions (bandcamp.com) Not sure about this one. The decidedly atmospheric approach has an interesting way of highlighting the harmonies in the musicianship, and they definitely have no issues hitting the newer post-whatever style with an amorphous wall of sound the way certain parts of Krallice and their ilk might. There's the issue of them being a newer young band that will certainly garner an eye roll or two from metal veterans of the old guard. For me personally, I don't mind it as long as it doesn't push the 'core' influence too hard. They're at their best when they bring their buildups to a sudden precipice and drop you off the dense soundscape cliff right into the waiting maw of stark and unadorned riffs. Closest comparison I could here would be like a more ornate Artificial Brain (and I actually really like Artificial Brain). Above average I'd say, but it's going to have to work harder than most albums to truly win me over.

Stupid spoiled cat won't let me sleep. He probably woke me up at least eight times last night through today. Ugh. Guess I'll just stay up and wait for football to start. NP: Prieuré - Le départ ▶︎ Le départ | Prieuré (bandcamp.com) Cool. Album knows exactly what it is and exactly what it wants to be. Nice use of acoustic instruments that don't go too far into folk territory.

NP: Infection Code - Sulphur Sulphur | Infection Code (bandcamp.com) I'm actually enjoying this more than I thought I would, despite the occasional modern flourish. It's has an understated catchiness and a very nice variety of riffing styles that does wonders against what could easily have been a pretty pedestrian listen.

Feral as it's used in it's literal sense simply means an undomesticated animal born and grown in and among animal conditions. As it's applied to members of human society it has a negative connotation of being unhinged and animalistic in their appetites. There's also such a thing as feral children who've usually been left for dead in infancy and adopted by some type of pack animal. These children can be taken back into society, but as a general rule there seems to be a hugely pivotal point in human development in which the groundwork for forming sentences and language needs to be established or the child will never gain that capacity in full. I think there was a movie staring Jodie Foster where she played one of these. Interesting stuff in any case. NP: Betiraun - Subversion ▶︎ Subversion | Iban Arana Productions (bandcamp.com) Spanish band with some really good energy going for them. Looks like they put out two albums last year and one this year. The production is kind of all over the place which makes me think this was recorded on separate days and in separate places. Can't really lay that on the band though. I enjoy it.

NP: Hellblood - The Angel of Destruction ▶︎ HELLBLOOD "The Angel of Destruction" CD | Tribulacion Productions - Underground Necro Metal Label (bandcamp.com) Not as chaotic as say Angelcorpse, but decent. Might lean a little too far into the thrash side for some. I'm enjoying it even if the recording could use a fresh coat of filth.

See, I don't think I could get into that. Back when I was carrying the stoner torch my go to for films/TV shows was usually something from the golden age of premium channel original material. So, think The Sopranos, Deadwood, Carnivale, or for comedy Mr. Show, Arrested Development (first three seasons), and The Venture Brothers. The whole children's programming thing was probably less the result of the programs and more to do with the inane and constant advertising on those channels. I still cannot stomach commercials of any variety. If I want to watch something I buy it on hard copy. The ads have to be the worst part of watching tv aimed at anybody, but my god I swear children's advertising is the worst of the worst.