#incandescent like incandescent ruins by the mountain goats okay | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

transgothicgenre · 2 years

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bleed out liveblogging

training montage: excellent as always. chorus is my favorite part mostly because the imagery of the other verses are discordant for me for some reason, but it still goes hard as fuck

mark on you: i think i actually only listened to this a few times before the album released and originally i only liked the chorus but the song as a whole is incredible. revenge songs my beloved

wage wars get rich die handsome: please release an instrumental/karaoke track of this one it goes so hard. it goes so hard even without the lyrics. i don't think i'm allowed to drive while listening to this one. the abrupt ending is so sexy tbh

extraction point: first new one yippee!!! i like how fast-paced it sounds especially juxtaposed with the calmness of the vocals. every time johnny boy mentions dreams in his lyrics that song gets +1 so this one is doing really great for me so far. loving the chorus. the vocals are quieter than the rest of the album has been so far which is throwing me off a little bit but i can vibe with it

bones don't rust: OH HOH HOH. the lyrics on this one immediately have me going ham. i didn't type anything else i was too busy listening to the song

first blood: reminds me of corsican mastiff stride. it's very upbeat and i'm grooving to it. there are a lot of references to things in this song that i don't understand but that's half of all tmg music so i'll just close my eyes and imagine what they mean and also check genius lyrics in a few days. "we worship nothing in the foxholes" reminds me of a poem! i will find it later

make you suffer: another revenge song let's fucking goooooo. i will have to listen a few times to figure out how to fit the second verse into the rest of the song but i understand on a subconscious level. AW YEAAAH another +1 for mentioning dreams. don't give up on revenge you always need to strive for it!!! adding this to the list of songs i'm not allowed to drive while listening to. oh my god the OUTRO. delicious

guys on every corner: why do you as a man have guys on every corner (original joke by yadriel(c) 2022). that aside the rhyming is really winning for me. big enjoyer of this song. it really reminds me of fight club which is a red flag if anyone else says it but don't worry guys i'm a weirdo. the last verse is decadent fuck yes

hostages: hey why is this one so long. ohhhh man it's good. i know each song in this album is telling the story of a mini action movie and whatnot but i think, excluding the fact that i haven't listened to the last 3 yet, that this one accomplishes that the best for the format. does that make sense? like the story it's telling is best told through a song and the song is the best vessel for telling the story. if i say it reminds me of die hard does bruce willis come out of the vents and kill me

need more bandages: oh DELIGHTFUL. i am already shouting the chorus while driving despite not being in a car at all. this one reminds me of tintin but like. the bad guys from tintin. y'know? i was really into tintin when i was younger. WHEN THE SHOVELS BREAK WE'VE STILL GOT OUR FINGERNAILS!!!!!! once again +1 for the dream. this one also reminds me of mad max fury road oddly enough. you're right mr goats we ARE going to need more bandages

incandescent ruins: i like the chorus. i have to admit i spent the majority of the time listening to this trying to parse the lyrics and their meaning. again this is one that i'll have to listen to a few times and get to know before i have more thoughts about it but it's very pleasant to listen to

bleed out: 30 seconds in and this is already . woagh. wow. he's gonna bleed out yknow? "every story needs a child...end up just like me" these lyrics are fucking insane. AND THE PAPER RUSTLING NOISES RIGHT AFTER? the g in mountain goats stands for genius. okay wow. this is already one of my top favorites from this album . once again it is 7 minutes long but i completely understand why it's 7 minutes long because it literally couldn't be not 7 minutes long. i love how the last song on albums always feels like a sledgehammer to the ribs. the mountain goats truly understand how to do it. the way jd's voice is cracking toward the end of the song is the cherry on top.

album thoughts as a whole: definitely going to convince my coworkers to play this tonight at work. pretty much all of the song titles are great and i'm a big fan. they really slayed!!!

#post #the mountain goats #bleed out

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ansgar-martinsson · 4 years

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Fair Winds and a Following Sky - Part 9

Ansgar Martinsson’s Flat. 21 July. 0315 hours

Anna wasn’t entirely sure what woke her.

But when she did wake, she felt an odd, jumbled up sensation, a strange thump in her chest - a powerful knowledge of safety and comfort mixed in with a crippling panic that, for a few seconds, she had no idea where she was.

She stretched and moaned, her joints protesting, her mind muzzy after hours and hours of sleep. Where her skin touched the bedsheets she found them soft and warm, luxuriously so, and the duvets above her were a solid, cloud-like weight, their scent something like jasmine. Rolling over on to her back, she finally allowed herself to open her eyes.

The room was dark, save for a glow from the open door. She turned her head toward the other side of the room, eyes widening at the tapestry of twinkling lights that stretched from one side of the wall to the other, top to bottom. “Holy shit,” she muttered as she sat slowly up, stretched once again, and, dropping her hands to her crossed legs, gazed out the immense set of windows.

She was drawn to it. Not really knowing how, she found herself standing before it, her palms flat on the glass, peering like a child at the world below. She’d never seen anything quite like it, Stockholm. It was nothing like the view of Dallas she’d seen from the Travidge Property offices on one of the top floors of the Bank of America Building, nothing like the view from the hayloft of her barn... or, what had been her barn.

This was something entirely different. The buildings were shadowed, but lit at the same time. Smaller brick and stucco edifices, reaching spires, bridges, ships, trains, thousands of tiny windows outlined the shape of winding streets and glowing, almost flaming rivers. No, not rivers, she reminded herself. Not rivers. What was the word? Fjords.

This, she remembered, was not home. She was not home. She was somewhere else altogether. Somewhere strange. Somewhere... she was not entirely prepared for.

She’d just pressed her forehead to the pane to follow the path of a cyclist on the road below when she heard it. She stiffened, pushed back from the window and turned her head, her ear toward the open bedroom door. Again, the sound, and in quick succession two, three... four more times.

“What the....” she held her hands out before her, feeling her way back across the foot of the expansive bed to the door. She pushed it open the rest of the way and stepped into the dimly lit hallway. The punctuated, percussive, irregular noise drew her to the right, and she continued past four more doors, around a corner and finally to a room situated at the end.

The door was partway open, the light coming from the room was an incandescent gold, and there was music, then - not loud, but the definite chest-deep thrum and screaming wail and speed-crash of some sort of heavy metal band. There were words, but either they were too muffled for her to hear or growl-shouted in a language she couldn’t understand.

Probably the latter.

She crept along the wall, not wanting the occupant of the room to discover her there, and arriving at the edge of the door, she bent her head to peer in. Upon seeing the source of the strange noises, she turned and stood against the door jamb, her hands clutching the wood as she stared at what she found inside.

It was him. Alan... no, Ansgar. His back was to her, and Heaven help her, his upper body was bare. He wore only a pair of black and silver boxing shorts; padded black fingerless gloves on his hands. The noise she’d heard was the dense and heavy thwap! of his fists, and an occasional thump! of a barefooted kick against a massive heavy bag, punctuated by harsh breaths and feral grunts. Over and over, he threw his entire weight through his fists or through the top of his feet, making the bag recoil - almost murdering the thing with each blow.

She watched him -- studied his lithe, graceful, yet viciously barbaric movements as he went through his pugilistic paces -- and a small smile played on the corners of her lips. He was heavier than she’d remembered him. Broader shoulders, narrower waist, albeit with a minuscule amount of pudge, but that was okay. At least, she thought, he wasn’t so thin she could see his ribs like before.

Now, in place of the visible cage of bone, the thick muscle of his writhing, twisting back seemed to span eternity. Even his tattoos loomed larger - the scar-ruined crest on his upper arm was darker, wider; and the branches on his back were longer, reedier, more apt to schuss in the wind like she imagined they were doing right then.

Fighting a wash of giddiness, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to wonder what the flesh of that back would feel like under her hands. She reveled in how she would entwine herself within his arms, bury her face in his chest, curl her fingers and create striped runnels in the thin sheen of sweat that coated his skin. How she would taste him - trace her tongue along the lines of distinct definition on his arms, his abdomen, along the back of his neck, would cup her hand beneath his tight little....

“The hell are you doing here?”

Her eyes flew open. “I... uh....”

He panted, his lungs making use of his whole body to siphon gouts of air. He stood hunched and beast-like, shoulders rounded, hands clenched and dangling at his sides. “Close your... your mouth,” he grunted. “You look like... a moron... standing there gawping... at me.”

She obeyed. Her teeth clacked shut and her eyebrows shot nearly to her hairline. “I’m sorry to butt in and all, I just... heard... noises, and....”

He quirked a small grin, and the tension in his body and his aspect quickly softened, humanized. “Relax. Its okay.” He picked up a towel and mopped at his face, pushing the terry cloth back through his dripping hair. “I apologize for waking you. I thought, actually,” he lifted a water bottle and took a long, deep draw, letting go with a loud ah!, “thought you’d sleep at least until morning... either that or,” another pull from the bottle, “mmm.. or I’d have to wake you with a kiss or something.”

She blinked. “A... kiss?”

He chuckled, gesturing to her with the open mouth of the Hydroflask. “Sleeping Beauty, you know? Sleep of the dead, prince’s kiss, and all that shit.”

“Oh, no,” she giggled nervously. “You didn’t wake me up, I... wait. Until morning, you said? What time’s it now?”

Ansgar peered up at the circular analog clock on the gym wall. “Half three, from the looks of it.”

She cocked her head and ventured a step into the gym. “Why’re you up? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

He shook his head. “Don’t for that long usually.” He straddled a bench and proceeded to towel sweat from the rest of his body. Anna sighed quietly, regretting the lost opportunity to fulfill her girlish fantasy. “Besides, I had some things... some work to take care of.”

“At three in the morning?”

“Nah,” he breathed. “I finished at about half one. Been in here ever since.”

“Okay, so, let me ask it this way. Do you always beat the shit out of your heavy bag at three in the morning?”

“I take the opportunities when they arise.” He shrugged, leaned his elbows on his knees, pulled off his gloves, and began unwrapping his hands and wrists. “One has to find a way to divest oneself of one’s pent up aggression. Better than beating the shit out of another person in the daylight, eh?”

“Or under a halogen lamp,” she bowed her head, hiding her sly grin behind the curtain of her long bed-mussed hair, “just after sunset.”

“I suppose,” he sniffed, his lips curving into a wry smile. “Bring back some long lost memories, did it? Seeing me fight? Standing back and watching me pummel things?”

“I never lost those memories,” she murmured. “I remember everything about you. Everything.”

***

Nowhere, Oklahoma. Two Years Prior. Two Weeks Earlier

He was, in Anna’s vocabulary, plumb ornery.

It had been a long, sweltering hot day of work on the barn. Progress, yes, but progress wrought with frustration. Wrought with a table saw that decided to fucking die in the middle of a rip cut. Wrought with a twenty-foot extension ladder that was nearly shoved over - with him on top of it - by a pair of horny goats. Wrought with the throbbing, stinging reminder of the consequences failing to wear long sleeves, a hat, or to reapply sunscreen to his unaccustomed Nordic skin.

In a word, he was angry, shaken, exhausted, and quite sunburnt.

Not to mention hungry.

Anna was away in Oklahoma City. Steak dinner taken with a prospective client, the owner of a newborn Arabian. He, in contrast, choked down a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich on bland American bread followed by the next course - a disgustingly sweet half can of Mountain Dew garnished with two Advil. The dissatisfaction with his paltry meal only added to his ire.

He threw himself onto the sofa, hissing as his reddened neck rubbed against the rough horse blanket. He lifted his legs gingerly, groaned, and rest his stockinged feet on the coffee table, where retrieved his book. This, he opened - preparing to delve into the mysterious world of Nero Wolfe, to forget the troubles of the day, of the world... of his life....

He’d barely managed to read two paragraphs of Archie Goodwin’s biting commentary before he succumbed to his toilworn body’s insistent demands for sleep.

He didn’t hear the wail of screeching brakes and a crunching skid of tires on gravel, or the other set of the same sounds that followed. He didn’t hear the heavy, hollow thunk! thunk! of one truck door slamming shut, then another. He didn’t hear Anna’s angry “Go home, Brian. Not now,” or the furied scuffle of bootsteps moving at a rapid pace through the grit. The pace quickly halted, replaced by a shuffling struggle, kicks and scuffs....

... and a scream.

“Brian, let... go! Aah! Fucking... get off me!”

That scream, that is what he heard; and what drew him immediately up, off the sofa, pelting across the living room and out the front door. The door banged on its hinges as he yanked it open, his still unshod feet all but carrying him in flight down the front porch.

He didn’t think; he simply acted. Acted in response to her continued screams, to her frightened cries and huffing struggles. He didn’t really see what Brian Travidge was doing to Anna, not really. All he knew was that the hulk of a man was on her, was somehow molesting her, was... hurting her.

“Get the fuck off!” he bellowed. He dug his fingers into the meat of the man’s shoulders like eagle talons and yanked, catching him off guard and tossing his bulk to the ground. “Stay down!” he commanded, and turned his attention, albeit briefly to Anna. “Get inside and lock the door.”

“I can handle this, Alan. I -- ”

“No!” he barked. “Just go!”

“Alan --”

“Go!”

Anna nodded, clutched her handbag around her like a protective shield and ran to the house. She did as he ordered and locked the door behind her; but she couldn’t help it. She knelt, child-like, upon the window seat, pressed her hands to the pane, and watched.

She watched as he hovered over Brian, yelling, screaming, spit spraying like fire from his lips. She watched as Brian shot to his feet, shoved his shoulder into Alan’s middle and slammed him into the gravel. Alan rolled, pushed up on his hands and knees and managed to get to his feet even with Brian’s weight on his back. The men continued to scuffle and skirmish, the advantage slipped back and forth between them; a jab to the gut here, a hook to the kidney there, a headbutt, a kick to the knee, a flip over the shoulder....

.... until Brian was once again on the ground, and Alan bent viciously, yet slightly wobbly, over him. “Stay down!” he yelled once again; but Brian, once again, disobeyed. Her brother in law got slowly to his feet, his eyes blazing, boring into Alan’s as he rose.

And before Brian could move, before Brian could speak, Alan twisted back and shot his fist into the side of Brian’s head. Brian reeled, shook himself like a wet dog, and sat down hard in the dirt.

She watched as Alan lifted Brian from beneath his armpits and shoved him against the side of the man’s F-450. She didn’t hear what Alan said to him, but it was clear from the tight clutch of Alan’s left hand around the collar of Brian’s t-shirt, from the raised finger of the right hand, from the wide stance and the almost serpent-like movements of his head that it was a threat, and a quite malevolent one at that.

And finally, she watched as Brian turned, wrenched his truck door open and scampered inside. Alan stepped back, arms out to his sides in mock invitation. Brian cranked the engine to life and the truck’s tires spun in the gravel. Before she knew it, the truck was out of sight, leaving Alan, arms still open, silhouetted against a white-lit cloud of driveway dust.

She sighed, “Oh, God,” and covered her face, bellowing her pent up anger into her hands. She felt sick - the medium-rare filet with bleu cheese felt like a wodge in her gut. She curled up against the wave of nausea and and rest her forehead on the edge of the window seat. She remained there, breathing, trying desperately to sluice away the fear and confusion of the past half hour, trying to rid herself of the image of Brian’s twisted, cruel face, of the echoes of his terrible words... Whore. Fucking slut. Injun bitch.

She expected to hear Alan’s footsteps on the porch, expected to hear the door open, maybe even expected... wished.... to feel his arms around her, to reassure her, for her to comfort him. But no sound came. The door didn’t open, and no matter how devoutly she wanted it, she did not feel his touch.

“Alan?” She sat up, shoved her hair from her face and peered out the window. She gasped at the sight of him, unmoving, unconscious and spread-eagle on the ground. “Oh my God! Alan!” Her legs carried her, just like his had earlier, out the front door, down the porch steps, and out into the stark-white pool of street light....

#fair winds and a following sky

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