Since Sunday is a day of rest for a lot of people, I present #SundayShorts, a weekly mini review of a movie I’ve recently watched. This week I got carried aways so it’s #SundayNotSoShorts!
We meet petty thief Gaston “The Mouse” Gaston (Matthew Broderick) as he’s finding a way to escape from the horrific dungeons of the medieval city of Aquila. Being the only person to ever escape the prison, the evil Bishop of Aquila (John Wood) orders his soldiers to find Gaston and kill him. When it appears that he’s about to be recaptured and killed, Captain Etienne Navarre (Rutger Hauer) appears and rescues him. Navarre, who’s accompanied by a hawk, forces Gaston to go with him where they seek lodging in the barn of a local farmer. That night while Gaston is out gathering wood, the duplicitous farmer attempts to kill him, but he is saved again, this time by a large black wolf. Freaked out by this seemingly random event, Gaston runs back to the barn and finds a young lady named Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer), but no sign of Captain Navarre. Isabeau isn’t surprised about the events that Gaston describes to her. As a matter of fact, he sees the wolf join Isabeau in the yard as she’s taking a leisurely stroll that evening. The next morning, Navarre has returned and tells Gaston that he needs his help to complete his plan to kill the Bishop. Not wanting to get involved, Gaston escapes that night and is immediately captured again by the Bishop’s soldiers. Saving Gaston a second time doesn’t go well for Navarre, when both he and the hawk are shot with arrows by the soldiers prior to dispensing of them. An injured Navarre forces Gaston to take his horse and deliver the injured hawk to a monk named Imperius (Leo McKern) who resides in a ruined castle in the area. At the castle that night, Gaston sees Isabeau with an arrow in her shoulder. Imperius tells him of a satanic curse that has been placed on husband and wife, Navarre and Isabeau, by the evil Bishop because she spurned his advances. The curse dooms them to always being together, yet eternally apart. Thus, by day Isabeau is a hawk, and by night Navarre is a wolf. After learning this, Gaston is now ready to help Navarre in his plan. Is there any way to reverse the curse, or is vengeance against the Bishop the best thing that can be hoped for? You’ll just have to watch and see!
LADYHAWKE is a film that checks quite a few boxes. It has some good action scenes. Rutger Hauer makes for a strong hero who can handle his fists and his swords in numerous fight scenes, and he looks damn awesome astride his beautiful horse! It also has some good comedy, which is mostly provided by Matthew Broderick. His petty thief has a running commentary where he talks to God anytime that he’s alone and needing help. He has this way of making promises, while also hedging his bets, so he doesn’t box himself in with promises that he has no chance to keep. I recognized myself in those conversations. The film has an air of magic and romance. Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer are a beautiful couple. The idea that they are lovers caught up in a curse, but who still love and care for each other every day is hard to resist. This desire to see them break that curse is what gives me a real rooting interest in the outcome. The film is a story of redemption for the monk Imperius whose drunken betrayal helped put the two lovers in this position. And it’s a story of good trying to triumph over evil, with evil being vividly portrayed in the character of the Bishop. Leo McKern and John Wood embody the characters of Imperius and the Bishop perfectly. Director Richard Donner handles all of these different facets in a fun and entertaining way. I think LADYHAWKE still holds up well as a nice piece of 80’s entertainment!
Five Fast Facts:
Spike II, the hawk featured in this movie, worked in the Universal Bird Show until 2000, when she was transfered to the National Audubon society and became an Audubon Ambassador until she died in May 2007.
If you needed proof that celebrities aren’t like the rest of us, three of the castles used for this movie were owned by Italian movie director Luchino Visconti and his family.
Producer and director Richard Donner originally cast Kurt Russell as Navarre. When Russell dropped out a few days before principal photography began, the part was handed to Rutger Hauer.
When Matthew Broderick’s character Gaston is escaping the dungeon at the beginning of the film, you can hear someone say ‘cut’ just before Phillipe says, “It’s not unlike escaping Mother’s womb.”
As enjoyable as the film is, LADYHAWKE was a disappointment at the box office. It grossed a little over $18 million on a budget of $20 million, ranking 48th in the North American box office for 1985.
Here’s just a few thoughts on what I watched this week.
Abbott Elementary (ABC, Wednesday Night)
I got caught up with Abbott Elementary this week. The first episode that I watched was the Ringworm episode and I have to say that I’m on Gregory’s side when it comes to the proper way to react to fungi. I’m sure it was probably not the show’s intention but the episode felt almost like a commentary on the madness that gripped the nation during the COVID pandemic.
Ringworm was followed by the “Class Pet” episode, which I really enjoyed. The Guinea Pig was unbelievable cute and I like any episode in which Ava is given a chance to show that she’s actually not that bad of a principal.
The Halloween episode was amusing, though the most interesting thing about it was people giving Jacob a hard time for dressing up as Pat Sajak despite Sajak’s politics. The episode, of course, was filmed and aired before the presidential election, which was won by Sajak’s candidate. As such, the episode felt almost like an artifact from the distant past.
The Dad Fight episode actually made me cry, both with laughter and genuine emotion. I’m a lot like Melissa when it comes to spraining my ankle. Gregory’s refusal to fight showed that this is a show that definitely has its heart in the right place.
This was followed by an episode about Jacob trying to lead a protest against gentrification that felt like an apology for those terrible anti-private school episodes from the second season. This episode also featured a great Ava subplot, in which she gave a TED talk about how be a successful principal.
The final two episodes that I watched were both Christmas episodes. Barbara put together the “Winter Show,” and then Melissa hosted “Winter Dinner.” Both episodes were okay without being as memorable as they could have been. One gets the feeling that the show’s writer couldn’t decide between being earnest and being snarky about the holidays and they instead went for a wishy-washy middleground. That said, I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve seen of season 4. It’s definitely been an improvement over the third season and I look forward to seeing how things develop.
Accused (Fox, Tuesday Night)
This week, I got caught up with the second season of this anthology show. As always, Accused was frustratingly uneven. Occasionally, the stories are interesting. More often than not, though, this show often feels like it’s just trying too hard. To be honest, I think the show needs to liven things up with maybe a comedic episode or how about an episode that takes place on a different planet? If you’re going to go the anthology route, you really should be willing to experiment a bit.
Amerika (YouTube)
I finally finished up this very long miniseries from the 80s about what life would be like if America was taken over by communists. Life would not be good.
Dragnet (YouTube)
I watched my two favorite episodes of Dragnet this week, the Talk Show episode and the Night School episode. Jack Webb and Harry Morgan were a good team. Friday and Gannon would have agreed with me about Accused.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show (YouTube)
Mary had to work on Christmas Eve! Boo! Poor Mary!
That Girl (YouTube)
Marlo Thomas has to work on Christmas Eve! Boo! Poor Marlo!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 9 pm et, Deanna Dawn will be hosting #ScarySocial! The movie? 1974’s Black Christmas!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! I’ll be there tweeting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
There are certain movies in my life that I consider “comfort movies.” These are the movies that I love so much that they always help me relax because I feel better just by watching them. I often turn on a comfort movie when I really need to fall asleep. Examples in my life include most of Charles Bronson’s filmography, RIO BRAVO, the ZATOICHI films, THE OTHER GUYS, and pretty much anything directed by Alex Kendrick. MY COUSIN VINNY fits comfortably under my categorization of a comfort movie.
The movie opens with friends Bill Gambini (Ralph Macchio) and Stanley Rothenstein (Mitchell Whitfield) taking the scenic route down south as part of a cross-country trip to attend college at UCLA. Unfortunately, while in Alabama, the two are arrested soon after leaving a convenience store. Thinking they are being charged for accidentally shoplifting a can of tuna, it turns out the actual charges are robbery and murder as the place was robbed and the clerk killed soon after they left. Knowing they are in big trouble, Bill calls his cousin Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci), who’s pretty much the only lawyer that he knows. The problem, Vinny has never actually tried a murder case. Vinny heads down south with his fiance Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) where he must contend with a judge (Fred Gwynne) who doesn’t like him, a prosecutor (Lane Smith) who has way more experience than him, and a mountain of circumstantial evidence that he has almost no hope of contradicting. Will Vinny be able to prove his cousin’s innocence before they end up with life in prison, or even worse?
There are many reasons that I love MY COUSIN VINNY. The cast consists of a couple of my personal favorite actors in Joe Pesci and Ralph Macchio. GOODFELLAS is certainly one of the best movies ever made, and Joe Pesci gives an unbelievably powerful performance, a performance that would win him the Academy Award. Pesci took a short break from filming MY COUSIN VINNY to attend the Acadamy Award ceremony and pick up the gold. He even took the statue to the set to show the cast and crew. Maybe that helped inspire Marisa Tomei to give her own Academy Award winning performance in this film. My favorite scene of the entire movie is when Vinny is treating Mona Lisa as a hostile witness on the stand, just before she proceeds to prove that nobody knows more about cars than she does. It’s such a satisfying scene as she makes the prosecutor’s “expert” look like a novice. As for Ralph Macchio, many times in my life I’ve made the statement that I wanted to be the karate kid when I was growing up. I think I was in the fifth grade when I saw the film for the very first time. I’ve been a fan of Ralph Macchio, and in love with Elisabeth Shue, ever since. It’s the kind of movie I’d just sit around thinking about when I was a kid. I even wanted to learn karate, but being just a little over 4 feet tall at the time, I didn’t need to be getting into any fights. I also like that MY COUSIN VINNY was partially filmed in the town of Covington, GA. My wife and I were driving from Arkansas to Myrtle Beach back in 2020 and we stayed the night in Covington. I had done a little research while I was looking for a place to stop for the night, and I found out that Covington is sometimes referred to the “Hollywood of the South” due to the large number of movies and TV shows that are filmed there. We snapped a couple of shots of the downtown before heading on down the road. But I think the thing I love most about MY COUSIN VINNY is also the reason I love movies like THE KARATE KID and ROCKY so much. I love movies where a person is completely underestimated, and rightfully so. But then, through some combination of intelligence, hard work, heart, and will, that same person is able to rise to the occasion and prevail against those very same people who underestimated them. Vinny has no business in the courtroom, but somehow, he’s able to win the case, and he does it in a smart, funny and exciting way. I love an underdog, and MY COUSIN VINNY just makes me feel good!
Liu Zhenyang hit the ground running in his first year, and I have to admit I didn’t get the hype at all at first. His debut album felt a fair bit overcooked to me, and the second didn’t evolve enough to keep me listening when the third started to really make waves. I decided to give his 2024 album a fair shot when it came out though, and I was impressed by how far he’d come. At this point the initial bias has faded away and I’m very interested to see what’s next. The woodwind incorporation, if predictable for the scene, is a welcome expansion (that might have shown up by the previous album, I am unsure) and applied in more interesting ways than most. The ratio of weird experimental things to repetition has been ramped up quite a bit. It still has more filler space than I care for. I am still disproportionately interested in what he’s doing vs the way it makes me feel. The ambience doesn’t seem quite there yet. But this album has advanced Hoplite from a state of disinterest to definite curiosity. I enjoyed exploring this more than most despite limited replay value. His next album will go in the sample bin without hesitation.
To All Trains doesn’t achieve as much as Dude Incredible, but no Albini project has. The last Shellac album was simply higher level stuff few bands can muster in my estimate. This one is more humble–shorter and to the point. I listened to enough music this year that a simple “I enjoyed and remembered it” didn’t always guarantee a spot on the list. Maybe Steve dying made me sentimental, but I want to believe To All Trains got here because it’s fun. Steve’s social awareness evolved a lot over the years, but his underlying attitude was core to his being and continues to resonate here. It’s well-dressed punk. It’s tightly held together but oozes snark along the seams. It’s anti-music, and that always puts a smile on my face. I doubt Steve expected “I Don’t Fear Hell” to be the last song of his career, but it’s as fitting an end as any. Rip you were a legend.
Muuntautuja offers a clear progression from Mestarin kynsi into more industrial and electronic territories. The continuity is there, but the styles have certainly evolved. It’s a stretch to call this a metal album, and that’s fine. It ships really chill and dark vibes I have found no struggle enjoying. It doesn’t have the epic progressions and dire climaxes of its predecessor that saw that album near the top of my 2020 list. It’s a more mood-oriented work, and it offers a persistently dark one.
It’s easy for me to undersell this album because it’s not God’s Country, but rarely has a band transitioned from my #1 aoty to not placing at all, and Chat Pile are no exception. Instrumentally, the album picks right up where they left off and offers some really imaginative and bleak progressions that hit off a sort of anti-pop aesthetic I can easily embrace. Raygun Busch’s unique vocals wear on me in a way they didn’t last time, such that by the closing track, No Way Out, I’m distinctly wanting something more from him. The compositions often grant that–No Way Out even unexpectedly rips into blast beats–but shouting “no escape” over and over doesn’t hit home on a remotely proximate plane of existence to grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg’s world-ending caterwauls. He just doesn’t feel as consistently engaged with what he’s saying. But I don’t think it’s overly fair to double down on a comparison to literally my favorite album of 2022. Cool World is still a highly rewarding if somewhat front-loaded product. And I swear I will finally watch that movie one day. I still remember the mystique of a PG-13-rated cartoon in the early 90s lol
I was pretty late to the ballgame with Dirty Three. Warren Ellis is fairly well known for his role in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, but I first discovering Dirty Three in 2021, close to two decades since they were releasing material on a regular basis. Ocean Songs has since found a home among my all-time favorite albums, and Whatever You Love You Are and She Has No Strings Apollo are way up there. I was pretty surprised to get the bandcamp notice that they had a new album coming this year, their first in a dozen. Love Changes Everything has been slow to grow on me, but it’s been a steady process that, by December, had earned it a spot. It’s not an album I enjoy paying attention to. It’s something I want on in the background to form my mood. It’s chaotic but peaceful. It’s a happy place I easily forget but don’t want to leave once I enter; something I’m prone to put on repeat once I’ve clicked play.
If I am being the old guy who won’t let go of his youthful favorites, I am ok with that. Cometh the Storm offers absolutely nothing new and is ideal because of that. I am never going to complain about more Matt Pike doing his thing, and he does his thing completely true to form on this album. I listened to it quite a lot and it became my go-to workout album for a while. It’s just fun and I will never grow tired of their sound.
I picked up Kurokuma’s debut album, Born of Obsidian, sampling new metal releases on bandcamp without any rhyme or reason, and it just barely missed out on the top 35 chart I posted end of 2022. I actually forgot all about them and, probably with some algorithmic prioritization, also stumbled into Of Amber and Sand randomly sampling new metal releases on bandcamp. Pleased to say this album feels like an improvement on every level. I keep seeing doom and sludge applied as their style, but I dunno, to me the Sepultura vibes are unmistakable. It certainly does embrace sludge textures. I don’t think those labels are necessarily wrong. Kurokuma just uniquely appeal to me for their rhythms more than their melodies. There’s something deeply tribal to it.
Three years of keeping up with Asthâghul’s music hasn’t managed to make it any less weird. Or maybe he’s making it more weird with each release, I don’t know and don’t have much desire to look back. It’s a bizarre and moody package I’ve come to expect and look forward to. His vocals are a litmus test for the capacity to enjoy people doing weird things with their mouths, especially lately as he’s shifted the rest of his sound from harsh abrasiveness to somewhat soothing atmospheres. When I first heard Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh I took it to be some sort of rebellion against convention, but I’ve grown increasingly more convinced that it’s just how he likes to sing. I don’t think this album will appeal to most, but I’ve been enjoying his cosmic vibes as a flavorful background piece quite a bit and the vocals are… certainly an unmistakable watermark.
I went on a big catch-up-on-what-I-missed binge in April that didn’t yield terribly much, but it did yield Witch Vomit, and I’ve been going back to this album pretty regularly all year long. It’s just solid, tastefully produced death metal, encompassing but not overbearing. The songs are never quite too catchy to feel redundant or too abstract to feel like songs. A Scream from the Tomb Below didn’t quite make it onto my 2016 chart and I missed out on Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave entirely, but Funeral Sanctum rises to the occasion. I mean, my tastes have gravitated a lot more towards death metal in recent years too, so I don’t want to say A Scream was sub-par. Might not have been quite my vibe in the moment. Funeral Sanctum clicked with me immediately.
The latest-discovered addition to my list. I didn’t actually run into this until December, but I’ve listened to it a hell of a lot since so I don’t feel biased placing it. If anything it should be higher. To be blunt, this gave me what I wanted and couldn’t find on the new Akhlys album. It’s the same sort of haunt and horror but delivered in a raw and direct way that permits the instruments to carry. Where that album is so overproduced I just hear soup and lament that something appealing might be lurking below, every instrument shines throughout Weaver of the Black Moon and the quality song-crafting can’t be missed. The bass is especially noteworthy, a rare thing to say about a black metal album.
Every year I need one album to put on when I could not possibly give a fuck about anything. Thank you for providing me with that album this year, Korrosive. Thrash usually turns me off because it’s not heavy enough but this uh lol this is heavy enough.
This album is strange. I do not know what to call it. Instruments are played. People make noises with mouths and other objects. He likes to scream a lot. Electronic things happen too. It’s a neurotic clusterfuck that puts on the outward appearance of containing songs with structure but I’m pretty sure they’re just hitting things and pressing buttons to see what happens. I loved it.
A Diabolical Thirst won me over full force in 2021 and remains one of my most frequently revisited albums from that year. Needless to say, I had this on pre-order the moment it was announced. Not quite so many tracks on Songs of Blood and Mire sear sick hooks in my brain. I didn’t end the year remembering one start to finish to the extent of Frigid and Spellbound. But Spectral Wound didn’t deviate in the slightest from the standard they set, and that’s about as good as straight forward black metal gets.
I picked this up on pre-order based on sample tracks before I even knew they were kind of a big deal. In the vast compendium of bands trying to go hard, these guys just get it done better than most. Rich full textures smash brick walls in robust and flavorful ways. It filled a need for endless pummeling brutality that never grew old throughout the year.
Notes notes notes notes notes notes notes notes notes. This album contains many of them. Two hands on the fret board all day here. (Ok, maybe not for a bit in the sample track I used, but the point withstands!) It hedges on silly, but what metal doesn’t one way or another? I try to keep up with I, Voidhanger releases and hit it off with this one right away. Just kind of landed a sweet spot between fun and ferocious.
Tune in here if you enjoy Krallice at their noodliest or dial-up modem aesthetics transposed for guitar. This album packs a ton of eclectic licks and endless dissonant tremolo. Where Aveilut offered a distinct journey through a soundscape, The Promise of Rain stays put. I don’t get the sense of the album progressing somewhere. It is perhaps not as grimly inspiring for that, but it certainly tickles my love for chaotically sequenced note soup. This band’s 2/2 now on top quality albums. If you like this, definitely check out Aveilut as well.
Yep! I don’t think I’ve ever included Nightwish on a year end list before… I expected to be wrong on that claim, but yeah my lists goes back to 2002 and I never did it. Well, this is really good. Maybe some of their other albums were too and I just wasn’t in the mood at the time, but I think they nailed this one in a way old bands rarely manage. It’s punchy and well paced. The orchestration is big and bold in that classic 00s way I don’t hear bands pull off nearly as often these days, and that definitely carries the show. I’m always the most leery of vocals in this style of music. Floor Jansen kinda nails it too though, never getting in the way and deliciously complimenting the soundscape rather than trying to steal the spotlight. She certainly has spotlight moments, but they’re catchy melodies and don’t wear out their welcome. It’s been a minute since I gave a Nightwish album a fair shot and now I’m very curious to see if their last few trended in this direction as well. Might turn into a January binge.
A meandering jazzy metal glob that probably won’t sound how you expect that description to. This album breaks from recent trends of jazz in metal. It’s dissonant, certainly, but it feels so alive. I’ve never heard anything quite like it, and it didn’t wear out its welcome when the novelty passed. Some overlap with Botanist in production and instrumentation perhaps, but applied towards a very different sensation. Highly recommend checking this one out even if metal isn’t your thing.
Some black metal band doing standard black metal things is inevitably going to make my charts just on the massive quantity of this sort of stuff I listen to. Aldheorte appealed to me more than most. Really nice song-writing here if you’re into the melancholy, forlorn side of things. It sometimes had me thinking of Spectral Wound in terms of capacity to ship memorable melodies over relentless pummeling bm standard techniques. Not to say it sounds anything like A Diabolic Thirst or even appealed to me in the same way, but similar elements stood out to me. In a year where for reasons I can’t comprehend I found like a dozen new black metal bands starting with the letter A, Aldheorte overcame their name and cemented a spot among my favorites.
A complex, rich, vastly ranging album that I think could readily appeal to fans of maudlin of the Well. There’s so much to absorb here, in the complexity of things going on in the moment for sure but even more so in the abstract, unorthodox stylistic transitions and song progressions that leave my head spinning and wondering what I just listened to. Pleroma has more to yield than I have time to listen to. It’s a treasure. A curious, uncharted territory waiting to be explored. That I didn’t drop everything I was doing to become deeply and intimately acquainted with every moment is a reality I have to accommodate. Its mood doesn’t resonate with my personal tastes quite enough for me to compulsively put it on over and over again. This is a list of my favorites, not of what I think was “best”, but it’s hard to deny this album’s viability for the latter title.
Man, this album grooves. Fantastic tempo-dynamic roll that bleeds confidence and touches a sweet spot between the bonecrusher catwalk and a furious pulp machine. Sometimes I’m being eviscerated with a chainsaw and sometimes an ogre is sitting on my face. What’s not to love?
I love Thou. I mean, above and beyond the music. They feel like a crew I could just immediately get along with if life chanced me into their midst. They have such a personable stage presence. They like the shit I do. They covered Soundgarden’s 4th of July and Born Against’s Well Fed Fuck on the same album how fucking cool is that. I want to see Thou succeed. They’ve got that fan base connection only a few artists manage. But that hasn’t compelled me to put all of their albums high on my charts. Umbilical is here because it’s really, really good. It goes a lot heavier than 2018’s Magus and ramps up the personality along the way. This is a weird comparison, but I get similar vibes to Boris in terms of like, an extremely extroverted song-writing process that absorbs everything around it and passes it through a core sound filter. It feels so human despite being ridiculously heavy.
I haven’t enjoyed eating shit this much since Dave Brockie died. The album immediately ostracizes anyone with a shred of respectability by way of super-cheesy space alien vocals, and they ride that gimmick the full 33 minute duration. It’s corny as hell in the best possible way, because the guitars absolutely slay throughout and I’m grinning ear to ear listening to them. She’s walkin’ down the alley of the shadow of death, but she’s got nothin’ to fear CAUSE SHE’S EVIL.
12. modest by default – South Cougars Jazz Ensemble
I don’t actually highlight vaporwave nearly as much as I listen to it, and I really, really need to fix that, because in the decade since I stumbled into a 100 album Dream Catalogue dump this genre has evolved and expanded with impressive results in every possible direction. modest by default is my current golden standard, and I think if you give it a sample you’ll quickly understand why. I have absolutely no idea to what extent he’s manipulating the source material in these, but be it a ton or just barely, my ears do not care they know that they are hearing gold. Holy hell I listened to this artist 330 times and counting this year. There’s so much material. If you like what you’re hearing you’re in for one hell of an archive. I’m letting this album represent all six of his 2024 releases because it’s the one that I remember the most individually. Having listened to all 36 of his releases this year, I’m not going to even try to figure out which was which.
By the way, wtf is up with zoomers being all fired up for deaths dynamic shroud.wmv? That feels so random lol where’s the 식료품groceries and Hong Kong Express love if we’re fishing through that can of worms.
11. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD”
How is it that post-rock is turning 30 but these guys still do it best? Not many artists are as consistently outstanding as Efrim Menuck. Obviously a lot of other musicians are in play for Godspeed creations, but everything he touches is gold. Except All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling I guess, but the lost recording rediscovery adventure in 2022 made that album just as worthwhile in its unique way as the rest. I am an old and I have been listening to Godspeed since f#a#oo was a hot new internet file trading sensation at the turn of the century. I think they just keep getting better. I’ve taken to calling Luciferian Towers their best album, and damn this one comes close. (Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything by A Silver Mt. Zion is still #1 though; go listen to it immediately if you have not.) I didn’t get invested in God’s Pee and I don’t know why, but No Title took no effort whatsoever. It has been an absolute joy throughout its three months of existence and I am nowhere near done listening to it as I write this. Every moment of this album is a blessing. The progressions are absolute bliss. The climaxes never amass anticipation because the journey to them is always just as good. They’re just peaks you never asked for. A nice view along the ride. It does assume a darker tone beginning with the Broken Spires at Dead Kapital interlude, but by then I’m always so high on what I’ve heard that it doesn’t really shift my mood, just expands the palette.
Shockingly, this is the only Trha album on my list this year. Don’t worry, I didn’t stop being a sucker for everything Damian releases under the name. He just only released one full length and spent most of his time doing Sadness albums instead. Everything you could want in a Trhä album showed up on demand though. It’s raw lofi bm emo’d to the pit of my sadboi heart. I can’t distinguish his releases in my head anymore, but I want to say this one ships classic black metal more aggressively than most. That’s fine by me.
9. Theurgy – Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence
Really masterful tech bdm. The vocals put most of the genre to shame, and I can’t emphasize that enough. I can’t think of anything that sounds this consistently satisfying in pursuit of pig stuck in an unflushed toilet aesthetic. The songs aren’t just interesting in a wtf are they doing sort of way. There are compelling melodic progressions in this package. This is an album that taps so many interests at once for me. It’s brutal and ridiculous, but it’s introspective and kind of thoughtful too.
I’ve listened to most Winterfylleth albums at least once over the years, but the stars never quite aligned to get me engaged with them on the level this album spoke to me. I sense a strong stylistic overlap with Drudkh, one of my all time favorites. But the emotional leverage these songs carry keeps making me think of screamo-black metal hybrid Bosse-de-Nage, maybe an obscure reference but certainly a complimentary one. I feel like a lot of the album is building up around In Silent Grace, a sort of black metal ballad near the later middle of the mix featuring Nemtheanga on guest vox. It’s a break from the other songs, so my comparisons are going to look really silly if it’s the only track you listen to, but it’s definitely my favorite and the highlight cementing this as a top year-end contender.
Depending on where you’re reading this you might not have gotten the memo, but over the past two years Everything Everything have grown to compete with The Drones as my favorite radio-friendly unit shifter since Radiohead. Mountainhead feels like a weak album at a glance when I distance myself from it very specifically because the opening track Wild Guess is easily one of my least favorite songs they’ve ever written. But the rest is bliss and as soon as I put it on I remember that again. Mountainhead doesn’t quite encroach on my holy trinity of Raw Data Feel, Get to Heaven, and Man Alive, but damn do I adore this.
If a lyric of the year award exists, the growling of your stomach’s eldritch heart is spilling into waking life deserves it in every universe.
Ulcerate’s ceiling is through the roof. Stare Into Death and Be Still would have taken my 2020 album of the year crown if I’d known about it before it won MA’s album of the year poll. This is the first album they’ve released since they’ve been on my radar, and while Stare Into Death and Be Still remains my golden standard (good lord, this band has accumulated 1200 plays in a span of four years, and their songs aren’t exactly short), I listened to this the most of anything released in 2024 without even trying. They have mastered what I want. This is everything my ears crave. Maybe I’m not as deeply engaged in the things that are happening around me as I was in the heyday of Krallice and Liturgy, but the sustainability of it all is unprecedented. They ship an eternal mood. So full, so rich, so comprehensive. I remember seeing “voidgaze” pop up on fmbot tags and barely going wtf does that mean before understanding it means Ulcerate. Stare into death and be still.
It’s black metal in French of course it’s good. I mean, I gobble up anything I see with a medieval bm tag, and this was the one I found that held my attention. It’s rather Agalloch-attuned on the folk side and maybe appreciates a bit of Amesoeurs-styled post-punk too, but it isn’t afraid to black ‘n’ roll along the way. Really that’s this album’s greatest strength. It fucking rocks, despite never quite holistically vibing like it will. Like, three and a half into Le Grand Hyver we’re full throttle heavy metal soloing, and it fits but I never hear it coming until I get there. Every track exceeds expectations on attentive listens, and it’s quite satisfying as a background piece as well.
The opening track on this album is so good I don’t even have to remember the rest exists to want it high on my charts. Wait, no, I didn’t forget the other songs. It’s just flows like one continuous masterpiece. Progressive and atmospheric conjure very different things to my mind in a metal context. One suggests a lot of twists and turns, the other a highly consistent ride. This is kinda both. Think later day Enslaved if they listened to a lot of Oranssi Pazuzu and also liked prog rock and jazz.
I chose to sample this because I was feeling an itch for power metal this year and it had awesome cover art. It turned out to be one of my most played albums of the year. They’ve got a fantastic range of instrumental and song-writing talent. Every song hits like it matters, whether it’s a power metal ballad or a fast-pumping Ensifereverent folk metal shredder. This album is a collection of anthems. It makes me think of the 00s golden age of folk metal, when a lot of power metal bands were also tapping into that scene’s energy. I don’t remember any Japanese bands fully capitalizing on that potential before and I love hearing it now. I’ll be keeping up with this relatively young band in years to come for sure.
Every year I run a game where like 50+ people submit 8 songs to me, and it is the source of most of my non-metal awareness of new music. I received two Eunuchs submissions this year and the rest is history. This album isn’t metal, but it certainly goes hard. The lyrics are insanely dark. Everything is dark and horrible and wonderful and just listen to it.
From Austin Lunn, to Ayloss, to Damián Antón Ojeda, a lot of solo musicians have claimed my favorite artist of the moment crown over the past decade and a half. If Erech Leleth continues to release music on a regular basis, he’s next. I absolutely fell in love with Chapter Two: The Resistance by Ancient Mastery last year. Unfortunately, it was released in 2022, a bit late to contend for my #1 album of that year. I had Akt III by Narzissus on pre-order, and despite dropping on January 12th, not many albums challenged it. The song-writing is so good aaaaaaaaaaa. It’s like everything I love about folk metal reskinned in black metal a la Falkenbach but with all of the vision of a prog or power metal concept album epic. It’s so filled with creativity and vibrance and life. This album deeply influenced my entire 2023 listening trajectory, compelling me to seek out a lot of more melody-driven artists and giving power metal a new lease on life in my exploratory repertoire. Make no mistake; this isn’t a power metal album. It’s just got that narrative grandeur fully locked down.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix presents 1988’s Miracle Mile!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Miracle Mile is available on Prime and Tubi! See you there!
