#like it's somehow grandiose or majestic

[chuthulhu-reads]

[ID: A panel from Trigun Maximum. It's a close-up of Vash's face, looking exhausted and sweating heavily. Enough of his shoulder scars are visible to show that he's shirtless. His odd posture is because, as revealed in a previous page, he's being forced into a one-armed handstand by Legato. Vash is saying, "Believe me, Knives, I have seen the dead plants. All of them had the black hair. They weren't the bodies of plants who had lived their natural lifespan. They were the bodies of plants who had been abused and pushed past their limits." End ID.]

Knives saw one plant die and went on a mass-murder tantrum; the feeling is understandable, if not the actions. To him, I wonder if this sounds like Vash not giving a shit about their sisters, because he's found multiple dead plants before, knows what the black hair means, and hasn't done any murders about it.

[ID: Two panels from Trigun Maximum. In the first, Vash is looking down, his expression is entirely shadowed aside from his gritted teeth as he says, "...There is no other way for humans to live on this barren desert planet. They are forced... to rely on plants... on us." The second panel shows Knives, though mostly obscured by Vash's dialogue, so we can't see his reaction to Vash's words. End ID.]

However, we can tell from Vash's expressions and from knowing who Vash is as a person that it hurt, finding dead plants. He's grieved for every single one; given that we've seen him take the time to respectfully bury people who were trying to kill him, he's definitely given funeral rites to the dead plants. The difference between him and Knives is that he has the emotional maturity to experience anger/hurt and also coherent thought at the same time, and he's aware that humans don't kill plants out of malice. Many of them love and revere plants; even the coldest know that it's outright stupid to kill plants, who are essential to human life on Gunsmoke. The necessity of a Last Run is questionable, but it's undeniable that they feel they have no other choice, and Vash is aware of that. He's aware that, given better circumstances, humans wouldn't be killing plants. (I think Vash would love The Good Place, seeing as it's all about unpacking the many forces that drive people to do bad things and explores the potential people have for goodness, if only given the opportunity.)

[ID: Two panels from Trigun Maximum. The first shows Knives frowning slightly as Vash says, "You're quick to forget, Knives... that you caused all of this." The second panel shows Vash, still in his forced handstand but managing to hold his head up enough to glare at Knives with absolute fury as he says, "The reason for all of this... the one thing that started this... was the Big Fall!" End ID.]

And, knowing that humans have been forced into a position with very limited choices, Vash is feeling just as much rage as Knives... but it's all pointed at the person whose choices put them all here in the first place.

Just because Vash isn't throwing murder tantrums doesn't mean he isn't angry, and god I love it when kind characters are allowed to be furious. The emotions are not contradictory. Rage isn't the opposite of compassion; often, it's a direct result. Vash simply has the emotional maturity to hold onto the anger, simmer it into wrath, and direct it where it's deserved.

[ominous-auburn-orbs]

@obamerzslop yo it's the thing, the wonderland au thing, the wonderland au piano kingleader thing

the thing

I've wanted to write for one of these au's for a while so this was a glorious opportunity that got dropped into the discord server

Mad Caine was performing his usual duties as jester, entertaining the Kinger of Hearts and delighting in his laughter. This time, his routine involved music, with him pulling a variety of peculiar things out of his hat and somehow using them as instruments. It brought a specific memory back to Kinger of Hearts' mind, of when he used to play the piano. It was a regal instrument and thus believed to be important for a royal to play. Now with no family in his castle to pressure him into it, Kinger played very rarely. He never felt much of a need to, anyway.

"You know, I can play the piano." Why was he telling Mad Caine this? It didn't matter and was unimportant to either of their roles in the monarchy. Yet it was still a part of him that he wanted to share with his jester. "It's been a good while since I've practiced last, so I've likely gotten rusty."

"Oh my, Your Highness! I had no idea you were so musically talented!" Caine paused his enthusiastic gushing for a moment. Did that sound passive-aggresive? Did the king think he believed him to be talentless? "O-of course, it's far from a surprise, someone as wonderful as you is bound to have skills in near every field!"

Kinger's face became warm, which he hoped was unnoticeable. "Thank you kindly, Caine." He always felt like he was doing something wrong, crossing some unspoken line whenever he said 'thank you'. It was near only ever to Caine, but it still showed weakness. Weakness would cost him his power. It would cost him his life.

"If you don't mind, Your Majesty, could you please play a piece for me? I'd love to hear it!"

"Caine, like I told you, it's been a long time since I played last. I won't be any good."

"Nonsense, you'll be wonderful! Plleeeeeaaasse?"

God, his ridiculous voice and shining eyes never failed to make Kinger's stomach fill with butterflies. But he couldn't yield, as much as he wanted to.

"Caine. No means no." His tone was harsher than he had intended, making him feel a pang of guilt, which really shouldn't have happened.

"Oh. My sincerest apologies, Your Majesty." Mad Caine continued on with his routine, Kinger's piano mention seemingly forgotten.

The next day, Caine entered the throne room only to find it empty. Although, he had come early that day, so it was to be expected.

"Your Highness? I know I'm ahead of our typical schedule, but I had this wonderful routine idea that I know you'll love, and Bubble Hare insisted I show you as soon as possible anyway, so-" Caine stopped short, fully realising that there was no one around.

"Huh..." His eyes scanned the room, looking for any sign of Kinger's presence. When he found nothing, he began to call his name, "Your Highness? Kinger of Hearts?... Kinger?"

The last word he said quietly and with caution. No one was to call Kinger by his first name unless they were beyond close with him, and no one was. Despite how it risked his life, saying that name spread warmth throughout Mad Caine's chest.

Still getting no response, Mad Caine dared to venture further into the castle. He really should've stayed in the throne room and waited for Kinger of Hearts to arrive, or even left and came back later. However, Kinger always loved his performances, and for all he knew something could be wrong. He simply had to find His Highness!

He walked down a high-roofed and elegant hall. Caine became somewhat distracted by the beautiful heart patterns on the walls, but was snapped out of it by the sound of piano music.

It was soothing. Majestic. Gentle. Grandiose.

The hatter followed the music further down the hall, entranced. He eventually reached its source, a room with its door ajar. Peeking in, he found Kinger of Hearts playing a large piano. The king wore an expression of both focus and serenity. Caine's eyes were locked on the chess piece's face as he repeatedly glanced between the keys and his sheet music. Mad Caine couldn't tell if he loved the music or the view more.

The rather peaceful moment was disturbed by Kinger playing a note that sounded off, followed by him loudly slamming his fists on the keys with a yell of frustration. Caine gasped, causing Kinger of Hearts to quickly turn to him, just as startled.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mad Caine. I didn't realise you were here." Nervousness spiked in Kinger, which he hoped was hidden well. He hadn't wanted Caine to see this yet, if he was ever going to show him at all.

"No need to apologise, Your Majesty! If I may ask, what's frustrating you so much?" Caine fully stepped into the room and stood next to Kinger. The king turned on his chair to face him.

"I've been trying to learn this new piece, but like I told you yesterday, I'm quite rusty. It's not going as well as I would like it to be." Kinger of Hearts sighed.

"Well, I thought it sounded wonderful. I'm sure you'll master it if you just keep practising! When did you start learning this piece?"

Kinger's eyes darted to the floor, scared to admit the truth. "I started yesterday. Just after you left."

That was when it clicked for Mad Caine. He had asked him to play a piece, and despite his original refusal, Kinger was now learning an entirely new one just for him. His chest felt close to bursting. He really cared that much?

"Do you mind if I sit with you? I'd love to hear you keep playing." Kinger's eyes widened in disbelief before he shuffled to one side of the long bench. When Caine sat down, he could've sworn he saw the king's cheeks darken in shade. After a moment, Kinger of Hearts' gloves made contact with the piano's keys again and he began to play the song once more.

Over the next week or so, instead of performing his comedy routines, Mad Caine would sit beside Kinger of Hearts on his piano bench and listen to him play. Caine's eyes would be trained on Kinger, mesmorised by how hints of his thoughts were visible in his eyes and the movement of his shoulders. Kinger would occasionally return his gaze before getting flustered and looking back to his piano with a new intensity that always pulled a chuckle from Mad Caine.

Gradually, the hatter would scooch closer to Kinger, chasing the heat radiating off of him. He knew how risky it was, but there was risk in every interaction had with the seemingly, and ironically, heartless ruler. There was more to him than that anyhow, which Caine was more than well aware of. The two would sit close enough that their legs(?) touched. While he loved it, Kinger of Hearts would desperately avoid Mad Caine's eyes. He was supposed to be powerful, unfeeling, and yet he found himself wanting more of this small insane man's touch. Kinger wanted it more than anything.

Kinger would still get annoyed whenever he played the wrong note, but Caine's reassuring praise and head resting on the absurd fluff of his coat quickly calmed him down. Mad Caine never said it, but he loved all of his off-key mistakes. It showed who Kinger of Hearts really was, underneath the mask he had secured tightly around his face, never to slip. Yet Caine had loosened it. Wonderland knew their king as a ruthless man, executing all who dare go against him. Mad Caine could never see him like that, not after hearing his mirthful laughter and softened voice. Those wrong notes were who he was, breaking through the refined and strict demands of the music notes written on the paper. Those flaws were what made him perfect.

When Mad Caine entered the throne room once more, he prepared to walk to the usual room Kinger would play his piano in, but instead found the chess piece and his aforementioned piano in front of him.

"I believe I've finally gotten it right. I wanted to perform it to you here, if you don't mind." Caine stared up at the king, almost forgetting to respond. He nodded vigorously, fixing his posture to be standing as upright as possible. While it was only shown in his eyes, Caine saw Kinger's gentle smile.

Kinger of Hearts sat down on the bench at his piano and began to play. Mad Caine was nothing less than enamoured. He noticed that Kinger had chosen to change some of the notes, making the song even more beautiful than it had been before. At some point, Caine removed his top hat and held it against his chest. He never took his hat off, but he felt like this moment deserved it.

When Kinger finished, he let out a quiet exhale to try and relieve the last of his nerves. He couldn't tell whether he wanted Mad Caine to see this performance for what it was or not. If the hatter knew it was an act of pure love, who knows how he would react? Kinger of Hearts stood, somewhat unsure of what to do at this point, simply looking at Caine. He hadn't seen him without his hat before. He liked it.

"My king..." Caine's whispered tone paired with the new title felt like it would bring Kinger to his knees. The hatter had never called Kinger his king before. All it did was make the chess piece maybe even more insane than Mad Caine himself.

Remembering himself, Caine fumbled to return his hat to the top of his head. "That was- absolutely magical. I loved it, Your Majesty!" Caine didn't dare to say what came to his mind next. This really was the point of no return for both of them now. Doomed to fall for one another, or perhaps simply doomed to fall.

"Why, thank you, Mad Caine. I'm-" Kinger of Hearts took a deep breath, still needing to calm himself, "I'm glad you liked it."

"Of course! I know how long you spent on it." He had spent far longer than what anyone thought he would for someone else, let alone his jester. But Caine was a special exception for him. He always was. Maybe one day, Kinger would even tell him so.

[cheeryfairygender]

[ID: A banner that has two images of Nagiso Momoe from PMMM, one in her casual attire and one in her magical girl outfit. The background is a picture of strawberry cheesecake, lightened to look soft. The text on the image reads Nagisa Momoe-related pronouns, names, and genders. End ID]

Pronouns:

Flu/fluf/fluff/fluffs/fluffself

Fluf/fluff/fluffy/fluffy/fluffyself

Cheese/cheese/cheeses/heeses/cheeseself

Cheese/cake/cheesecake/cheesecakes/cheesecakeself

Pea/peach/peaches/peaches/peacheself

Magi/magic/magics/magics/magicself

Oran/orange/orange/oranges/orangeself

Polka/dot/polkadots/polkadots/polkadotself

Polka/polkadot/polkadot/polkadots/polkadotself

Be/be/bebe/bebes/bebeself

Pom/pompom/pompoms/pompoms/pompomself

Pom/pom/pompoms/pompoms/pompomself

Names:

Momo

Bunny

Kitty

Shore

Sugar

Peach

Peaches

Blessing

Blossom

Pom

Pompom

Cheese

Syrup

Shelly

Crystal

Sweets

Honey

Hope

Genders:

Abdominusbaonic- a gender that consistently is gluttonous for more genders, and therefore will scrounge up any it finds and put them in its “stomach”

Benegender- a gender identity that is very lowkey and soft; positive gender (meaning that it’s there [not that it’s a “good” gender compared to others]; not an absence of gender). Used to describe a gender that is felt by the person/being as an undertone.

Cakegender- gender that is soft and sweet like cake. It can also be a little warm! Cakegender can also come in different flavors which could change how the gender feels!

Cheesecakefluid- a sweet and clean fluid gender that always makes new forms of genders, such as foodic and candy genders

Cheesecakegender- a gastrogender for people who have a strong connection to the dessert, cheesecake, or for people who's gender is best described by cheesecake. Someone who identifies as cheesecakegender could describe their gender as feeling both soft & sweet, and light & sophisticated. You can identify as Cheesecake as a whole or just some flavors.

Cheesegender- xenogender related to cheese. One may feel that their gender feels like cheese, tastes like it, or may just want to incorporate cheese into their gender. It could also be an aesthetigender, relating to the aesthetic of cheese. Cheesegender can be considered a gastrogender, but it doesn't have to. Cheesegender can be felt along with other genders, binary or not (ex. cheesegirl, cheeseboy, cheesenonbinary...)

Cheesecakic- a xenogender related to cheesecake.

Cheeseic- a xenogender related to cheese, any type.

Clucklic- a bouncy, fluttery gender, named for chickens and chuckles, that is somehow tied to the strength of one’s platonic relationships. It may make other genders stronger when present.

Gendercute- when your gender is literally anything that fits your definition of "cute."

Frostingic- a xenogender related to frosting.

Kilriagender- a gender that feels like a childhood memory, like it was important to you at one time but now it’s very vague and difficult to remember.

Magicalgirlgender- a xenogender that feels connected to Magical Girls/Mahou Shoujo.

Polkadotgender- a gender for anyone who has a unique understanding of gender and feels a a deep connection with polka dots.

Princessgender- a soft but grandiose gender; The individual with this gender feels that their identity feels majestic, imposing and grand, but also prim, cute and ethereal.

Ribbongender/Bowgender- a xenogender that connects with ribbons and/or bows.

Ventummaribaonic- a gender somehow connected to sea breezes, the feeling of beaches and sands, ocean waves, boats, and harbors. it may also be related to the smell of salt and the sound of seagulls flying above. somewhat fluid

[ID: A banner similar to a DNI banner with Cham-P, a large hamster, and Maga-Z, an aggressive hamster with a tear in its left ear, both belonging to Gundham from Danganronpa. They both are on the left and break the border of the banner. The banner reads as follows: Do not respost onto flop/cringe accounts! It triggers my paranoia, and you are not immune to being reported to your website’s staff! “My paranoia” is implied to be referring to Mod Bede. End ID]

[ID: A DNI banner with Jum-P, a curled up and sleeping hamster, and San-D, a calm/happy hamster holding a sunflower seed, both belonging to Gundham from Danganronpa. They both are on the right and break the border of the banner. The banner reads as follows: Do not interact: Ed, Edd, n Eddy icons, Nazi, pedo, bigot, truscum/transmed/”nonbinary skeptic”/”gender critical”, against xenogenders, pro-shipper, think bisexuality doesn’t include trans/nonbinary people, antikin. End ID]

[madaras-housewife]

Nighthawk

I’ve had this idea in my head for like 2 days and I wanted to put it on paper really badly so I wrote it on a whim. It’s poorly edited too so forgive me if there are any grammatical erorrs. 3 am vibes babyyyyy 

pairing: Madara Uchiha x reader

length: 1.8k

tw: none

It wouldn’t be too contrived to compare Madara to the weather outside. He was a storm; majestic, grandiose and powerful. And yet, there he slept next to you, in the same bed you had been sharing for a while now. Had it been two years already? Your mind was too foggy to think about something even as simple as that; or maybe the pouring rain was at fault. It was almost too loud for you to hear your own thoughts, but you still heard them, nonetheless.

Somehow, you wished the rain could drown them out, the way you knew your newly planted crops would be soggy by morning. What a shame. Madara was going to be so disappointed after pestering you about planting a garden and having worked so hard on it. He had several skills, ranging from diplomacy to combat, but gardening was not one of them. Nevertheless, he insisted that it would be healthy for your growing family.

 Even though your husband was near you, the abrasive feeling of loneliness filled your bones. It was always this way when it stormed, wasn’t it? Especially that night. 

You turned your head to the side, squinting your eyes, but the room was too dark to see the clock. Carefully enough, you stood straight so as not to bother your man and rubbed your dry cheek. The thought of sleeping was way past you and, if you weren’t already certain about that, you definitely were when a billowing thunder roared so closely to you, you felt it rock your body with intensity. Before realising it, you recoiled and stubbornly balled your fists. 

That night marked five years since Izuna had died. You only met him a few times, before you and Madara had become a couple. It often felt like the Uchiha compound was empty, as if it was missing something. Would it have been odd to say that you were missing someone you barely even knew? That was not quite right. In fact, you knew a great deal about the younger brother from Madara’s stories about their childhood, their squabbles and frequent conflicts regarding war. At one point, it started consuming Izuna’s consciousness, warping it into something dangerous, something that not even his elder brother possessed at the time; desire for conflict. 

Whereas you counted years, Madara counted every day, even though he would never tell you that. It was obvious when he called that name in his sleep, almost every night, in a meek, broken voice that sounded nothing like the man you knew. If anything, he sounded like a scared child who wandered alone in the darkness. Even when you hurriedly draped your arms over him and clung onto him, his brows never fully unfurrowed. 

Not even when he slept was he at peace. 

Without realising, you turned your body to his side of the bed. Madara was sleeping on his back, soundly, as small snores parted his lips. He hated snoring and he swore he would never sleep in that position again, saying that shinobi must have control over themselves at all times. You smiled and promised yourself you wouldn’t mention it when morning came. All you wanted was to bend down to give him a small peck, but instead, you settled for brushing the hair out of his face, caressing his face so gently that you barely touched his skin. Your husband would usually wake up at the smallest touch, since you knew him as a light sleeper, but on that night, he seemed to be more tired than usual. Even in the darkness, you could make out that the creases below his eyes were a tad more prominent than usual. Peace was… exhausting sometimes, to say the least. 

A flash of lightning cracked the midnight sky into two, brightening the room enough for you to see that he had a slight frown on his face. Your hand pressed itself against his forehead until you felt the tension slowly disperse. Now he looked rather calm and stress-free, as if a burden had been lifted from him. He seemed to have many of those these days and they piled up, almost forming a wall between the two of you. Deep within your heart, you wondered if that wall would become impenetrable, if you wouldn’t be able to reach him anymore. 

You truly wished Izuna had been there instead. Though it was nothing more than an oversimplified solution to the numerous problems you and Madara faced(when, in fact, it wouldn’t even be that anymore, now that his little brother had been gone for so long), you liked to think that he could make your husband happy, happier than you made him. The comparison felt silly, unfair and unwarranted. You even felt selfish for thinking such a thing. Despite rarely ever showing it, his stares had grown a little fonder and his hugs a bit tighter since he received the news, and it was your candle of hope during the grim days, when he chose solidarity over comfort, working all night long, going on missions only to separate himself from the village and the clan which had caused him so much pain. 

There would soon be another source of joy in his life and you wondered if you were up to the task. It was something that you had been ruminating over for months, but couldn’t quite put into words until now, though not exactly sure why. Maybe the chaotic life of inhabiting a shinobi clan had made it more difficult for you to truly look at yourself, to see what was inside. So instead, you chose to lash out at your husband again and again, until your anger poisoned him and all the patience he mustered for both of your sakes. But you were blessed with a headstrong man, who, in all that vast sea of insecurities and responsibilities, rarely ever mistreated your heart. Especially lately, when Madara had been sharing the same fears as you did. 

On the other hand, Madara didn’t take out his anger on you the way you did. He lets all his fury simmer, lets all his misgivings haunt him, until everything builds up to a tempestuous wrath which befalls him out of thin air. That was how he was taught, and it was one of the few lessons from his father, Tajima, which he didn’t reject. It was what his father had left him with, besides agonizing memories of war. However, when his last sibling passed away, it seemed as if all of Izuna’s own burdens were passed down, leaving him with double, maybe even triple the cargo(or maybe, you couldn’t really quantify suffering in mere numbers, the same way you couldn’t with words). 

Madara’s shoulders were heavier. You felt it every day, when you gave him the regular massage in the evening. What was it that you promised him on your wedding day? (It was hard to remember, now that so much had happened.) You promised him you would always be his pillar, so that he wouldn’t tumble when it was too dim to see what was ahead of him, (in reality, no one could ever see what was ahead of them; one can only row the boat facing backwards), but marriage wasn’t as simple as that. If love is controlling, then wedlock is a dictator. It demands a home, sex, patience, shared meals, babies, empathy and eternity.  

Another thunder roared mercilessly, making the earth quake below you. Sucking in a sharp breath, you wrapped your arms around yourself, cradling your stomach. The disagreements had become too frequent, the scowls too obstinate and the distance between you too lengthy. How long would it be until you completely failed, until you wouldn’t be an adequate wife for Madara Uchiha anymore? Until you weren’t fit to carry his children? 

The rain now hammered the ground, like a deafening fusillade of bullets and, in a moment of insanity, you thought it was taunting you, mocking you. It was so loud that you didn’t even hear the raspy groan next to you, until you felt a hand on your forearm.

“Can’t rest?”. His dozy voice seemed to have pulled you out of your disquiet pitfall of thoughts. Without facing him, you shook your head. The lump in your throat was too thick to even open your mouth. 

Your husband then grabbed your shoulder and gently pulled you down, until your back hit the now-cold sheets. For a split second, you glanced at his face and noticed that his half-lidded eyes were locked on your belly, but as soon as he felt you looking at him, he stared back. When Madara noticed your pursed lips and glimmering eyes, he sluggishly crawled closer to you, turning you on your side until his chest was pressed against your back. Wrapping his arm around you, you heard him inhaling deeply into your messy hair. 

You eased into your man’s embrace. “Did I wake you up?”

“No. Now come sleep.”, Madara said. 

You meekly nodded, pushing yourself against his warm body, the worries gradually dissolving into nothing more than what looked like particles of dust, ready to be washed away by the rain. But when he didn’t hear you reply, he placed a deep kiss on your soft spot, the crevasse between your neck and shoulder. 

“You’re going to be a great mother, you know. I love you.” 

Could he have read your mind? You didn’t know, but you also didn’t care about the answer. You were at home, exactly where you needed to be, with the person you needed. In that moment, you realised that Madara was going to be a great father, too.

“I love you too.” 

Your husband always knew the right words to say; it was as if he could hear you even when you didn’t speak, mainly when you didn’t even want to. It might be that he just understood you that well. After all, he had a knack for reading people. Sometimes you would curse that talent of his, but it was in rare moments such as those when you were infinitely thankful for it, for it all.

It wouldn’t be too contrived to compare Madara to a storm. He was a majestic thunder in the sky, capricious, striking fear and admiration into your heart; a grandiose ocean which didn’t fall from the sky, but was driven, torrential, carving mountains and earth to his own pleasure, omniscient, poised; the powerful wind, howling loudly, as if yearning for a melody to sing his tune, bending trees and tearing houses in his way, almost seeking to outrun everyone else, until he felt forlorn. The floods were promised, the might of nature had already been unleashed, but there would be sunshine and warmth by morning.

[doomedandstoned]

‘Chaos Reigns’ as Wolves in Haze Drop Harrowing Sophomore Record

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

There's something ferocious afoot. From the opening howls of 'Chaos Reigns' (2021) that precede the wicked guitars we know we're in for a vicious ride. These wolves have blood in their eyes. "I will drag you down. You are doomed to follow."

We last visited WOLVES IN HAZE in these pages whilst giving you a first look and listen to the music video, "Green River Speaks". It also happens to be the perfect launch for the band's new sophomore album, filled with ire and menace.

"Way in Haze" follows suit with a raw, distorted buzzsaw of a riff that recalls Black Cobra, though the mood of the album's second single quickly turns punkish, leading to the malicious chorus: "Ooooooh, let them burn!" The who of that dreadful declaration is left entirely to your imagination.

If you've been curious about how the rest of the album fares, you'll be pleased to know that Chaos Reigns does not let up its hail of brimstone. "In Fire" is a maelstrom of riffage that would pair wonderfully with most any High on Fire romp. The howling vocals (clean, yet somehow very, very dirty in spirit) seal this as a most fearsome number indeed.

"The Night Stalker" brings us more of that death 'n' roll spirit, a flood of hard beaten rhythm, and stinging guitar play. By this point in the album, I'm coming to relish in the apocalyptic grandiosity of its choruses. After "Green River Speaks" I don't think we have to guess too hard as to what "The Night Stalker" is about.

The vocal reverb on "Tormentor" conjures images of an echoing horde marading their way over the hills, closer and closer to you. In fact, the first thing I thought of was how the coyotes would seize the night, their unhinged yelps darting about from hither and thither, keeping us kids trembling in our beds. In the morning we'd awake to find one or two of our chickens mysteriously missing who'd managed to evade curfew in their pens.

"My Destroyer" is the sixth track, presumably ending the A-side of the record (I've not had a chance to consult the vinyl layout for confirmation, it just feels like it should hold that place). A quieter song, the band's namesake haze pervades the atmosphere conjured by an acoustic guitar, keyboard, and surreal, dreamlike crooning.

"Beyond Perception" returns to the bloodlust of its predecessors, and this is feeling more and more like Halloween territory, as we transition from High Summer to Autumn --- joining the great company of menacing bands like Venom, Mountain Tamer, R.I.P. and Acid Witch. The keyboard noticeably plays a more prominent role than in the A-side songs, but you'll get no complaints from me here, as it suits its purpose quite well in evoking a "chilling" spirit .

"Into The Grave" is another rebellious romper, with rhythm 'n' riffs that honestly reminds me of the feeling I had at age 13 hearing Appetite for Destruction for the first time. "Heat of the Moment" follows in this same tenor and I'm also more convinced than ever that Chaos Reigns would make a bitchin' soundtrack to some contemporary horror film. It feels very much in the vein of the wispy Erlkönig by Franz Schubert (a strange point of comparison, I know, but there you have it).

"Breath in the Night," the penultimate track, is a dark, blood-curdling adventure, making us feel as if we're madly thrashing about with the pack, our voices unleashed upon both moon and stars. The whole album up to this point makes for a great commute to school or work in the morning, as it's got that "Wake up! Life begins now!" kind of essence about it.

"Chaos Reigns" is the strange 11th number, which takes the pace down a few notches. Here, I envision the dawn on the horizon, cue for these Wolves in Haze to return to their hovels with satiated appetites, ready to collapse in sleep after a night of terror and revelry.

Today, Doomed & Stoned is delighted to bring you a first-hearing of Chaos Reigns, which releases digitally this Friday, September 3rd, with a vinyl release on Majestic Mountain Records (pre-order here). A welcome expression to add to a handful of outstanding releases we've had in this, another year on pandemic planet.

Give ear...

Chaos Reigns by Wolves in Haze

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Get Their Music

[newmusickarl]

2021 has been relentless with great new music so far this year, with each Friday drop bringing with it at least two or three incredible new releases worth checking out. However, that still didn’t quite prepare me for this last week which has probably been the best New Music Friday of the year so far. An avalanche of new releases, including (at least as I haven’t got round to everything yet!) five incredible albums, each offering different sounds to fit different moods. Because of this and because I can’t choose a favourite from these records yet, there is no Album of the Week – instead here are the five albums and two tracks from the last seven days that you should make the time to listen to and discover:

Album & EP Recommendations

Carnage by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

“This morning is amazing and so are you…” – Balcony Man

Surprise! Out of nowhere, the legendary Nick Cave and his partner in crime from the Bad Seeds Warren Ellis have today dropped their lockdown collaboration album - Carnage. And although I have only managed one listen through at the time of writing, just like his last two records, this one is really something special.

If there was any artist who you would pick to really capture the mood of lockdown and turn it into something magical, it would be Nick Cave. On his last record Ghosteen, one of my Albums of the Year for 2019, Cave & Ellis continued through their journey of despair which originally begun on 2016’s Skeleton Tree, ultimately finding a glimmer of hope at the end of it all. Carnage by comparison arrives almost as a halfway house thematically of these two previous efforts, carrying the hopelessness of Skeleton Tree rooted in real life events, along with the fantastical stories and tinge of optimism displayed on Ghosteen.

Because of this, Carnage is arguably more accessible than those two records, with Cave & Ellis seemingly dancing in the melancholy of the apocalypse across the album’s eight tracks. Sonically however it is vastly different, with the understated piano-driven melodies replaced with grand, operatic instrumentation built predominantly on strings, that move effortlessly from the menacing to the stirring at the drop of a hat.

Although I still need to stew on this record a bit more, the ominous prance of Old Time, the gorgeous guitar and choral chants of the title track and the beautifully restrained closer Balcony Man are standing out as the early highlights.

Cave himself summed up Carnage perfectly in his release statement, calling it “a brutal but very beautiful record nested in a communal catastrophe.” This is Cave and Ellis waltzing majestically in amongst the chaos, taking the listener into the eye of the storm and presenting them with something quite glorious at the centre of it all.

Terra Firma by Tash Sultana

Elsewhere, Australian multi-instrumentalist Tash Sultana released her much-anticipated sophomore album this week, Terra Firma. Contrary to Cave & Ellis’ record, Sultana delivers a peaceful escape from the global situation, delivering a record that is very personal and reflective.

Soulful and richly textured, there are plenty of career-best moments here including the acoustic-driven cooing of Crop Circles, the gorgeous Josh Cashman collaboration Dream My Life Away and the record’s transcendent finale, I Am Free. However, it is the album’s centrepiece Coma that delivers arguably Sultana’s best song to date, a beautifully constructed track about letting go, that culminates in a wonderfully bluesy guitar solo.

At 60 minutes long, Terra Firma feels like a meditative experience – an album to sit and bask in to get some much needed relaxation and introspection away from the lockdown grind. This is another special album, one I’ve returned to numerous times this week and can see me continuing to do so over the course of the year too.

As Love Continues by Mogwai

At this point, ten albums and 26 years into their career, people just about know what to expect from Scottish post-rockers Mogwai, and that is soaring, grandiose instrumentals. However somehow with each new release, the band still manage to amaze, taking their instrumentals into unchartered territory and leaving listeners in wonder with their colourful, breath-taking soundscapes.

For me, As Love Continues is one of their best releases for years (with some of their best song names too). From cathartic opener To the Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate The Earth, the acid-drenched industrial sounds of Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever, and the dreamy, looping guitar riff and euphoric crescendo of Pat Stains, Mogwai’s touch for forging fascinating sonic textures hasn’t missed a beat. That said, it is the one track that contains clean vocals that stands out amongst the pack, and that is the emotional gut punch of Ritchie Sacramento which sees frontman Stuart Braithwaite paying a beautiful tribute to all his musician friends that have passed over the years.

This is definitely one of my favourite recent Mogwai records, and one of my favourite releases by anybody this year so far – an essential listen.

Trauma Factory by nothing,nowhere

When you’re ready for a change of pace after indulging in the albums above, then the fantastic fourth record from American prodigy Joe Mulherin under his nothing,nowhere guise is the place to go. Mulherin has always been known for his edgy blend of hip-hop, R&B, pop punk and emo, with this crossover of genres helping him to forge a sound that feels very much his own, with many trying to replicate since and ultimately failing.

Now on Trauma Factory, Mulherin sets himself for world domination with arguably his most commercial collection of tracks to date, certainly from a melody standpoint at least if not lyrically. From ambient groove lights (4444), the laidback, slackerpop of upside down, the anthemic chorus of pretend, the infectiously catchy KennyHoopla collaboration blood, and the straight-up pop punk of nightmare, Trauma Factory feels stadium-ready, almost playing out like a nothing,nowhere greatest hits collection.

However as big and chart friendly as this one feels at times, there are still plenty of riskier moments too, such as the bold, heavy riffs and aggressive vocals of death, a track which is nicely contrasted by the vulnerability of one like real, an album highlight which sees Joe confess his own pressures and anxieties in a haunting spoken word number.

All in all, this a wonderfully eclectic album that perfectly showcases Mulherin’s growing confidence as a songwriter and artist. This was by far my most highly anticipated album heading into this week, and although I am yet to decide if this is overall Mulherin’s finest release to date, there is no doubt that this a highly enjoyable 40 minute listen, packed in with plenty of career best tracks.

Non-Fiction by Spector

And finally this week on the album front, legendary indie rockers Spector have released a new 13 track collection called Non-Fiction, a culmination of all their independent EPs and singles released since their last full length album Moth Boys in 2015 (their last to be released on Fiction records, hence the title of this one, aha!). That album was actually my Album of the Year in 2015 and, despite not being an official studio album, Non-Fiction resonates with me the same way that album did six years ago.

One of the great differentiators Spector have always had over other British guitar bands for me is enigmatic frontman Fred Macpherson, with his witty humour and razor-sharp songwriting completely unmatched by any of his peers. On Non-Fiction, his unique brand of lyricism is out in full force with this collection featuring some of the very best songs Spector have ever written. From the brilliant “We broke down on the M1, they said to call the AA but I didn’t know which one” line in opener Untitled in D, through to the “More M&S than S&M, two can dine for news at ten, voucher for my requiem, now I’m one of them” verse in album highlight When Did We Get So Normal?, Macpherson doesn’t waste a single word.

Steered by Macpherson’s astute, observational lyricism, Spector serve up huge singalong indie anthems that have no reason to be this poetic and wonderfully crafted. Again, an album that features plenty of career highs including Fine Not Fine, Wild Guess, Tenner and Half Life to name but a few, Non-Fiction, despite being independently made, feels every bit as special as its predecessor Moth Boys did. Ultimately if you’re after rousing indie anthems this week, you’ll struggle to find anything better.

Tracks of the Week

The Last Man On Earth by Wolf Alice

Onto tracks then and Wolf Alice made their triumphant return this week, debuting the first taste of their forthcoming album Blue Weekend. An unexpected first single choice, The Last Man On Earth is a haunting piano ballad built around Ellie Rowsell’s powerfully haunting vocals, which eventually erupts into a glorious haze of soaring guitars. Welcome back!

Paranoid by Keir

And my final recommendation this week is the anthemic new single from singer-songwriter Keir. Ever since the release of his song Squeeze Me years ago, Keir has been an artist I always thought should be dominating radio stations across the country. Although he’s not achieved that feat just yet, Paranoid may be the track to change all that with its instantly catchy chorus, glorious choral backing and masterful production. One of the best pop songs of the year so far.

[ivyveil]

She’s Such an Actress

the one where she is golden and he doesn't have a chance

She was golden.

It was in the small ways, the ways that mattered to Harry at the beginning. How she shook his hand and smiled when they met, how she tilted her hair back when she laughed at his jokes.

And he had felt that he could be golden, too, next to her.

Harry was fascinated. As most people were by Y/N, because she managed to be everything anyone could want - yet evade the sense that she was real, as if she were a phantom in the guise of an actress. In the center of the room, the spotlight on her, but there was a blank space in her eyes.

In the manipulative, draining way that Hollywood tended to have, this aspect of Y/N intoxicated the social climbers around her. They tried to fulfill her expectation that was never vocalized, seek validation that had never been promised to begin with.

The movies she starred in had gained international recognition. With awards littering the floor of her lavish mansion, she was clearly in the midst of a firestorm within her career. All eyes were on her. Not restricted to the sense of her work, but when she entered a room it seemed no one could help but spent a few moments, dazzled by her glow.

There was talk among the gossipers and media personnel, of Y/N becoming a director, or that one of her scripts would be passed onto production soon. The way she dealt with art was grandiose and made a statement, she felt like 1920s glamour in a 2017 woman. Essentially, it was everything of the past people craved, with the optimistic hope of the present; she was surreal and felt more like a promise than a guarantee, which made people love her all the more.

People were strange in how they were drawn to what would let them down, eventually.

She grabbed people’s attention without so much as making a noise. It was simple. She was attractive, but more like magnetic fields than airbrushed skin. Golden flecks of magic sprinkled from her fingertips and she simply became the Woman of the Night with barely so much as a blink.

Harry didn’t know how to approach her.

Her image had been painted on the back of his eyelids for weeks. They had stumbled into each other a few times, enough to justify a rushed introduction and quick compliments. He liked her movies, she liked his music. It was easy enough.

It wasn’t enough, though. He wanted more of her, and with the way her eyes would be caught by his own, slowly drifting down his body- it was clear that she wanted more, too.

He finally gathered the courage to start a conversation, at a random networking event that had him bored out of his mind. With a glance her way, in the corner she had nestled into with a glass of wine, he figured she felt the same.

“Hi,” he had begun, sidling up next to her in the booth. The drinks kicking in his veins had given him the boost of confidence, and the hazy aura in his eyes to forgive any forwardness he might’ve brought to the table.

“Hello, Harry Styles,” she acknowledged him with a tip of her glass. Y/N’s eyes seemed to sparkle, somehow, in the dimly-lit room, and Harry could smell vanilla wafting from her perfume.

His heart didn’t have a chance.

The night had ended with her, fast asleep on his bare chest, her fingers clutching onto the sheet’s edges like a small child. His thumb grazed over her fingers again and again as she made small, sleepy noises. Harry had stayed up longer than she had, his eyes drifting over her face.

It felt as if he were running in a church, as if it were sacred, as if she would wake up and demand to know why he had stayed the night. (Not that it had been discussed, but with the way she had jumped back into bed after using the restroom, and immediately tucked her arm around his side, he had assumed the invitation was clear.) But she remained, fast asleep, and Harry remained staring.

Frankly, it was a side of her that Harry wouldn’t get the chance to see a lot, in future ‘meetings’. Their schedules were so hectic, Harry genuinely had to pencil in Y/N’s name on his phone, in order to make it work. Whatever they were, to make ‘it’ work.

And Y/N seemingly did the same, texting Harry the hours she would be free to see when his matched up. The vague sense that it would be restricted to a hook-up was heavy in the air, next to Harry’s moaning and Y/N’s curled fingers grasping for whatever paneling was behind the bed. It didn’t bother them, necessarily, because frankly – that was all they could offer each other.  

Endings didn’t often happen snuggled up under comforters, scrolling through shit hotel TV, staring at her face as she mumbled in her sleep. They typically ended with rushed kisses and her giving him one last bum squeeze, a giggle bursting from her lips as she dashed out of the bedroom, her shirt still unbuttoned and a car’s horn blaring below.

He liked that version of her the best, though, when she was asleep and he was beside her. It didn’t have the elegance and glamour of her evening gowns and smokey eyes, but it made him feel special. Harry got to see her like that, when she wasn’t acting. And the fact was, she always seemed to be acting.

The magic wore away, as it tended to do. After a month, Harry no longer noticed the golden flecks and crimson streaks that drifted after her physical form, he didn’t hear the angelic bells when she laughed.

Rather, he saw the violet smears, the eyeliner smudges, the beige stains on the fronts of his shirts. From when she, drunk and stumbling into his chest, had made her way back to him at the end of the night, again. Harry heard that one time, when they managed to squeeze in a dinner and he fed her pizza. He had made a dumb joke about the cheese, when she laughed so hard, she snorted and almost fell off the bed. He saw Y/N, and was privy to her sans pedestal and wings.

They weren’t anything tangible, though. There were no firm titles, labels, anything. Harry didn’t even have her name in his phone, it was simply the mesh of digits he started associating with her face.

Harry enjoyed that bit, because neither one of them had to play a role. He didn’t have to buy her flowers and she didn’t have to text him more often than the rare moments she did.

No “boyfriend”, no “girlfriend”. In his mind, somewhere deeper than conscious thought where he overanalyzed situations and overthought his words, he felt like that was what kept them real. It was what stopped Y/N’s missing piece from becoming too large of an elephant in the room, what let her laugh unexpectedly and not feel the need to explain anything. Because she didn’t owe him anything. It was what prevented Harry from getting too much in his head, from doing things that would be reserved for a man who could properly love her, with the right time and dedication.

Y/N wasn’t playing a role, not with him. To ask her to do so would shatter the glass that had been so sturdy, thus far. Ruin what they had built. There was no reason to break through the walls, shards flying everywhere, in order to have her stay a bit longer in his bed.

Harry could make do, he was an adult.

It was when she was pulling away that Harry realized he wasn’t as much of an adult as he had thought. His last four texts had gone unanswered. He would’ve understood, if he were asking her to meet up again or to send naughty photos - but they were texts of puppies, of weird clothing he found in thrift stores, of questions he had about that one TV show she had gotten him into (the finale was a fucker, and he wanted to know her thoughts). There was no pressure, no urgency, but he had hoped she would’ve responded.

Truthfully, it was not a huge deal. Harry was not heartbroken and he managed to continue on with life. Hook-ups had the nasty tendency of creating unrequited situations, which Harry realized was a bit relevant to his own situation, and ‘ghosting’ was not uncommon. Especially in his industry, it was what practically created muses for the artists. They thrived off of heartbreak, derived from any hurt imaginable.

Harry couldn’t shake off, though, how happy she had seemed, tucked against his side, naked chests pressed against one another, popping Goldfish at the others’ open mouth. She had seemed happy. He was happy. Was he wrong?

It went beyond sex, he had realized reluctantly.

She was a woman he couldn’t let go of, because she cried at every movie. Even her own, her eyes would tear up before the end credits and she would try to wipe them away without Harry noticing. He couldn’t let go of her because she had seen the world, knew art from countries he had never heard of. She would show him photos from her phone, the ones of her standing crudely against naked statues and pretending to be in awe of majestic portraits, and she would explain to him how art became her life. He couldn’t let go of her because he could tell her, in the same hushed voice she had used against the darkness of night, the emotional, spiritual relief that happened when he performed. How a piece of him lived in every song he wrote, and he couldn’t imagine who he would be without it. And how that equally satisfied him and terrified him, and she would give him a tiny nod and wrap her fingers more firmly against his hair, watching the shadows of his face.

He couldn’t let go of her because he wanted her to meet his mom, his sister, all his friends. He wanted him and her to become a ‘they’, and to be known for certain things. Like how his friend-couples were known for doing certain things together, for always going bowling on Thursday nights or holding wine board game nights on Sundays. He wanted her to be tucked against his side, laughing at the more ridiculous celebrities, at every formal event. He couldn’t let go of her because he could see it plain as ever: he could, very potentially, love her.

Maybe she had sensed his feelings, somehow. Maybe that was what was empty, within her, some gargantuous black-hole that sucked away her desire for more. Maybe she got bored, and it was nothing but another ending. It didn’t settle right with him, it didn’t match up to the woman he met between bedsheets. But, Harry figured, perhaps he was wrong.

He found her on the rooftop.

It was another networking event, and Harry couldn’t stand to stay in the venue for one more minute. He had grabbed two bottles of wine, thinking he would give one to Jeff later, and made his way up the stairwell. The stairs were tucked away near the back of the ballroom, which had made it easy enough for him to escape.

Harry didn’t want to feel another hand touch his shoulder, another cold voice expressing their love for his music, when he felt almost certain they had never heard it. It was cold and stark in the stairwell, but it beat the mass of kiss-ass barbarians below.

He found her on the rooftop.

Her heels were slouched against one another, against the elevated brick edge. Her dress was flapping in the wind, the loose bottom curling against her bare toes. Her legs were up to her chest, her arms wrapped around, and her chin resting on her knees. Her hair was up, but several pieces had fallen out and fell against her cheek. Her shoulders were shaking.

Harry was startled, to say the least, because he hadn’t expected her to be there. Last he had heard, she was in a different country filming an indie movie about Russia in the 1930s.

“Y/N?” he asked, as if she would disappear in a second. He stood next to the entry door of the stairwell, his heart thumping in his chest against the cold. His arms had fallen by his sides, the sloshing bottles loosely dangling by his fingertips. Almost immediately, in a bashful sense that he loathed, Harry wished he had glanced in a mirror before heading up. His suit was most likely wrinkled in the back, his hair was definitely not coping well with the wind.

Harry just wanted her to miss him, was all. And it wasn’t very likely, in his or her state.

Y/N’s head lifted, her eyes looking over her shoulder, before one arm rose and she offered a tiny wave.

“Hello, Harry Styles.”

She was drunk, and her mascara had transferred over to her cheeks and somewhat down her face. Harry felt at a complete loss, unsure of how to deal with Y/N when the tears weren’t from Up but something else, something that made her seem more ashamed than before.

He truly wasn’t sure what was happening in Y/N’s life. Not that he ever had a clear idea, but it was something he regretted now more than ever. Not asking her about her day, not checking up on her every so often - he had assumed that would’ve been too forward, too much, that it would’ve pushed Y/N away.

“What’re yeh doing up here?” Harry approached where she was curled up, moving her shoes so he could sit down. She held out a hand towards one of the bottles, and he reluctantly gave it up.

“Just thinking,” her voice broke, her eyes glancing away from him, to hold back the upcoming stream.

“About wha’?”

It was just Y/N’s luck, to be crying over a man on a rooftop - like some heartbroken teenager in a cheap rom-com - only to have the man show up. And not only that, but he was so heart-breakingly gorgeous that night, with his hair messed up the way she liked, and his shirt half-unbuttoned and his pants hanging a bit low. It was simply just her luck.

She hadn’t meant for anything to happen. Y/N enjoyed watching Harry from afar, to see his charm work over a crowd like an ocean’s wave. The people were just along for the ride, to experience his magic and witness history in the making. Entire textbooks would be written about how he lived, how he grasped attention with humility and pride, how he loved everyone and everyone loved him.

She hadn’t meant for him to notice her, or even to walk over. She hadn’t meant to sleep with him, the first night. But when his hand was on her thigh, and his voice had lowered, bordering husky, she hadn’t stood a chance.

Y/N had created a safe space within Harry. A shelter for her insecurities and flaws to become exposed, to see the light of day lest they plan a mutiny in the suffocation of fear. She had rambled to him like a school child who was learning something new everyday, about her fascination with art and how she had tried new techniques with camera angles and location shots (many of which failed, which was why she typically never let the words slip past her lips to others). Y/N could only starve off the mortification for so long.

He had become too much to her, for it to last.

Her success as an actress had sustained the piece of her that craved meaning. The reaction of people to what she had to perform was everything she could ask for, and more. Satisfaction drenched her shoulders when she received an award, recognition, or even when a famous director give her that knowing smile. The smile that meant, you’ve got this figured out, whatever it is. You’re one of us.

Her success had, similarly, led to her creating divides. Within herself, within how others wanted her to be. There were expectations that weighed down her shoulders to stay poised, that lifted the smile on her lips when it began to droop, that caused her eyes to unfocus after the fortieth time someone was trying to quote her own movie back at her, and did it wrong.  

With Harry, she had felt more free. And originally, because they had been such a secret, it was a salvation. She could separate herself physically from her expectation and live in the ways she longed for, have the romance she craved. It had developed into something more, though, and all Y/N really knew was how to run away. Create more divides.

She supposed it was instinct, more than anything else. Since Harry had been a home for her fears, she would soon turn away from their new location in a natural attempt of escape. They would follow, she knew, and Harry would be left in the dust. A biproduct of her trying to be what she felt she should be.

“Me,” she answered, and it was partially true.

Harry fell quiet, this time, and in the lapse of their words Y/N found it was harder to breathe. Her heart thundered in her chest when he finally spoke, and the tears threatened to over-spill. She wasn’t expecting to hear his voice dry-cracked with exhaustion, the bottle rising hesitantly to meet his lips. Y/N honestly would rather get drunk off the redness from those lips, than the wines in her cellar.

“It’s okay, if yeh wanted to end things. I know yeh’re busy, got a lot goin’ on.” His eyes were held resolutely on the bridges in the distance, the lighted tips of skyscrapers and the dashing streams of cars below. It was cold, the wind beating against their breath and keeping their cheeks redder than the circumstances alone would have allowed, and Harry felt the overwhelming sense of inadequacy gripping his bones.

In his more poetic moments, he had referred to her as his Muse, his goddess, his Eve who never left Eden. And it was true, to an extent, as all mythologies cast their foundations in the well of actuality. She held the world at her fingertips, poised between finger and thumb, and all he could be was a speck in relation.

She never made him feel ‘less than’, because she never quite focused on her talent to begin with, when she was with him. When they were in public, he could easily notice the shift between her then – and her later that night, legs tossed over his own and her head burrowing into his butterfly tattoo. Her actress persona was more refined, with practiced flaws so as to enhance the general beauty of her celebrity. Her other persona was more casual, gentle, with genuine rough curves and edges.

“Never said I wanted to end things,” Y/N mumbled, her fingers reaching down to pick at the pokey ends of the brick edge.

“Yeh didn’t say anythin’, actualy.” His voice was more clipped.

“Didn’t know what to say.”

“Could’ve said that, I-” his fingers reached up and he tugged at his roots slightly, raking the hair back. The wine bottle met his lips as he, aggravated, attempted to sort through his thoughts. It didn’t help, though, only made him feel more imbalanced and less sure about what he felt.

“I dunno,” he sighed, “I didn’t expect yeh to drop me, I guess.”

How much more honesty would it take to shatter the glass around his eyes? Harry already felt them begin to bend with blurry reluctance, the bitter rise in his throat being the ultimate betrayal.

“What did you expect me to do, Harry? What was I supposed to do? Did I miss the script between us, was there supposed to be another fucking scene I missed?”

And, no, Harry hadn’t expected her head to snap over in his direction, her shoulders heaving upwards with an angry rise bubbling in her throat, and her eyes to suddenly break into a clear, irritated glare into his.

She wasn’t acting, now, and she didn’t seem so golden.

Harry wasn’t feeling so golden, either, next to her.

“Treat me like I deserve a response,” was all he could reply with, his tearful gaze looking into hers more hesitantly.

“I don’t owe you anything, Harry Styles. We never established anything,” and her voice broke again, the exterior glaze of frustration not quite matching the vulnerable end of her words.

Harry watched her carefully.

“Did yeh want to establish something?” he asked slowly, unsure of which response he wanted.

Y/N didn’t want to talk to him, anymore. Her mouth felt heavy, closed, yet her tongue worked against her. A drop hit her arm, and it was only when Harry’s fingers gently grazed her cheek did Y/N realize she had started crying again.

“I don’t know, what I want. It’s all just so – so, I don’t know. I can’t think,” she mumbled, squeezing her eyes shut. Y/N could feel the wet mascara fucking up her face more, and the small part of her that had demanded perfection for so long was writhing against her chest.

“That’s oka’,” he was murmuring tenderly, almost, and Y/N hadn’t realized he had shifted a bit against the edge. His hip was closer to hers, his legs dangling down as hers were still tucked against her chest. One of his arms reached out, hesitant, and when Y/N glanced up she saw him looking at her, silently asking if it were okay. With a brief, glum nod from her, Harry’s arm went around her shoulder, pulling her in next to his side.

“We don’t have to figure anythin’ out. I just wanna know, if yeh wanted to end things. Gotta know, so I know if I gotta let go.” It was the most clear either of them had been, the only portion of the discussion that had lacked emotional-driven response and reaction. Y/N appreciated that about Harry, that he could be absolutely rational and calm down way faster than she was able to.

“I like who I am, with you,” she whispered, and she knew he heard because his body stilled, somewhat.

“I’m not who I am, all the time. And, I dunno...it’s hard? Because I can’t figure out how to balance myself, when you aren’t around. I don’t want to be so dependent on someone, not when we aren’t anything.”

Harry nodded, understanding. It had been difficult for him, as well, because although they hadn’t discussed the extent to which they would be dedicated to one another, he hadn’t been messing around with anyone else. And it was hard, on the stretches where they were traveling and across the world from each other. It was difficult because he didn’t know if he had the right, to call, or to text, or to ask for anything.

“Maybe we could make our own thing, yeah? Not a relationship, but with more contact than we’ve been givin’,” he compromised, and Y/N rested her head on his shoulder. He shifted slightly, giving her more space to snuggle in closer.

Y/N gave a little nod, and Harry couldn’t help but smile.

“I like yeh, lil famous Mrs. Y/N.” he gave her shoulders a squeeze, and felt them shake slightly. Worried, he looked down, but saw she was giggling this time.

“I like you too, megastar Mr. Harry Styles,” she replied, sniffling a bit.

They sat there, quiet, in the silence of the night and the overall epic nature that tended to wash over those who sat on a rooftop together, pressed in each others’ sides as they no longer feared the next day. The horizon twinkled with the cars and streetlamps in the distance and the noise of the street below intermingled with the wind to become dispersed over the ground as a whole. It was quiet outside, too.

“Do you wanna know something? Never mentioned it, before,” Y/N said, and one of her hands drifted down to play with the edges of his coat.

People were awfully strange in how they gave up their hearts at midnight, as if the hours wouldn’t tick by and life would just stop. For a moment. For a second. For that instant.

“What’s tha’?”

“You’ve got a glow around you. It’s the first thing I noticed, when we met?” she began, and his heart was already growing a bit, “It’s like…” she drifted off, shaking her head as she searched for the word Harry already knew.

“Gold?” he offered, praying his words didn’t sound as choked as he felt inside.

Y/N paused, before nodding against his shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re gold. And sometimes I feel it, too? Like, gold,” she cut off her own rambling, seemingly a bit embarrassed that her words didn’t appear to make sense outside of her feelings. Y/N couldn’t tell that Harry had felt the same way about her, that she was, for a time, his Sun.

Harry hummed agreement, not feeling the need to explain his own take on how she impressed him, in a shower of golden rain. There would be other nights, he felt sure.

“I was wonderin’...”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to...” The question was already in the air, the ending was all he had to get out. It wasn’t a huge step, anyway, and it wouldn’t cement anything that would require expectation into what they were to each other. But, he had spoken about Y/N to his mother, anyway, and she had been curious to meet the woman.

“What is’t?”

“Meet my mum?” he finished, feeling it sort of difficult to swallow.

Y/N stilled, before looking back up at him, confusion bringing her eyebrows together, and worry painted across her lips. He would kiss it off, if the timing were different.

“Does she know...who I am? About us?”

“She knows yeh’re a great girl, and that yeh’re a bit shy. That yeh like Goldfish but won’t eat real fish, because yeh think of Nemo,” Harry shrugged. “Doesn’t know what yeh do, for a job, though. Didn’t mention it, didn’t think it described you well enough.”

Y/N waited, perhaps a bit confused as to what Harry meant, so he continued.

“Amazing actress, yeh are. But that’s not all yeh are, yeah?” and she nodded, so he braved forward, “Just was wonderin’ if yeh wanted to meet her. No pressure, you don’t have to. She just thought yeh sounded lovely, ‘s all.”

“Does she really?” Y/N sounded a bit nervous, as if she didn’t quite believe what Harry was saying.

“O’ course she does, because yeh are,” Harry brushed it off.

Suddenly, he felt a couple of hesitant kisses against his neck, before one of Y/N’s freezing-cold arms wrapped behind his head to hold his face closer to her lips as they gained intensity. He shuddered, but let her continue, his dimples poking deeply against his smile.

“You’re kind to me, Harry Styles.” Her breath smelled of wine and Harry felt certain he had a mess of smudged makeup against his scruff. He set his bottle down and turned towards her, his hand reaching up to cup her cheeks. They were cold, as well, and still slightly wet from her tears.

“Yeh’re cold,” he mumbled, his eyes drooping from the heavy thudding within his veins.

“Warm me up?” It was barely a whisper, and the shivers that broke against his spine weren’t from the wind.

So, he first started on warming her lips, by kissing her gently. They were a bit rough, not as smooth as her lips usually were, and he ran his tongue against her lower lip as he pulled her in closer. She laughed, a bit, but it quieted down when he pressed deeper against her mouth, a heavier breath escaping his and warming against her lips.

It was one of his favorite things about her, how she would always laugh at the first kiss, little puffs of air against his lips. She liked how he reacted to it, by not questioning what she thought was funny, but accepting it as a compliment of sorts.

Eventually, he broke off, with a small kiss at the end, still holding her face close to his own. Her eyelashes fluttered against his nose when she looked at him, her lips still parted and full. He swallowed hard, flashing her a quick grin.

“Hi,” he whispered, unable to really contain the giggles that slipped from his lips, this time. Harry felt like a twelve year old boy, sometimes, after kissing her, because while she was definitely the most real with him, there was still a phantasmagoric level to her beauty. He almost felt like it hadn’t happened, but his lip was still tingling from how she gently bit against it, so it must have.

“Hello, Harry Styles.” 

His heart really didn’t stand a chance.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Let me know your thoughts here, and check out the rest of my works if you’d like!

[ifeellikeameowster]

E.V.O.L Prologue - Love is Evol

Chapter Summary: We start our story several years prier to the main events, in a dream unlike any other that came before it. One that would forever shift young Virgil’s dreams from henceforth.

Warnings: Mentions of murder and nightmares.

Pairings: None as of yet. 

Word Count: 1k+

Chapter followed by Author’s Note then Tag List under the read more:

Yeah... yeah... yeah...

Pink lipstick stains, cigarette butts.

I lie in bed, I hate my guts.

Blackness.

Loss of consciousness.

The usual, in perchance to dream.

Except what greeted him instead of the usual cacophony of screaming, screeching, and shrilling was a melodic birdsong.

Chirps, caws and coos surrounded him, enveloping him in a soothing sensation. An unexpected break from the usual night terrors that tended to plague him.

He was in a garden. A massive one, by the looks of it. Or perhaps he himself was tiny. Hard to tell in dreams.

The boy went to take a step forward, only to find himself floundering a bit. A quick glance down confirmed that he did not currently sport his human legs. They were replaced by little bird talons, grasping upon the soft earth. Thus he began hopping back and forth, searching for something to clue him in on just what was happening in this particular peculiar dream.

He knew for sure it was in fact a dream. Unlike most children his age, he had always been more aware of matters of consciousness. It was normally attributed to being surrounded by so many mystical mysteries in his day by day basis. Either way, he was still as curious as a cat like the other kids. So he trudged onwards.

Onwards and upwards. Upwards and onwards. Passing a few bushes, some trees, and several vibrant spring flowers. The only break from all of the plant life would be the occasional shadow of a bird that would pass by overhead. Always slightly too far away to make out any specifics of form or shape. He continued on like that until finally he reached a clearing with a mighty fountain. There were three whole levels of glistening water and angelic adornments, most of which were majestic Swans, that seemed to call his name.

He found himself flying all the way to the top, without ever even thinking about flapping the wings he was previously unaware of. As if it was instinct. Something deeply biological. Or even supernatural. After all, that was the natural for him. Or at least for those around him.

Peering into the crystal clear water reaffirmed his suspicions that he was currently a bird. A Sparrow, if he remembered his Pops’ teachings correctly. Pops had always been the parent most into woodland critters and other such creatures of the sort. And they were as drawn to him as he was to them. Speaking of being entranced…

The boy felt an odd connection to this reflection, despite not being his actual one. Somehow it still seemed to fit him perfectly. Well, as much as a member of an entirely different species could that is. Still, he yearned for far more answers than just that. He turned away from the water’s gleaming surface in order to fully take in his surroundings for the first time.

It was, indeed, a massive garden. Though he was tiny, as most little songbirds tended to be, this was still the largest garden he had ever had the chance thus far to lay his eyes upon.

In his awe of the grandioseness of it all, he had almost missed the shadow of the bird fly over him. Much closer than any of the others had previously been. Almost tangible in its intangibleness. Instinct took over once more, and he took flight in pursuit of it.

 It only takes two lonely people,

To fuck love up and make it evil.

It only takes a drop of evil,

To fuck up two beautiful people.

They weaved through well-trimmed bushes, magnificent stone statues, and picturesque trees. The other bird was always so close and yet too far away at the same time. Would he ever catch up to them? Why did he even want to? What did they mean to him? Why were they weaving in and out of reach so much? Did they even notice him? Did they want to lose him on purpose? Or did he mean absolutely nothing to them?

Nothing. Was he nothing?

As his questions grew darker and the dread crawled into his heart, so too did the garden twist and distort. Now they dived past thorny bushes, crooked trees, and broken and decrepit statues. He knew with unwavering certainty that he had been led into a terrible part of the garden. A part where secrets were kept and the ugliness of humanity was shoved under a rug. Or underneath the pitch black, coal like soil in this case. 

If he were to dig here, with his small yet ever sharp talons, what would he find? What did he want to find? Did he even want to find anything at all?

Interrupting his downward spiral, the shadow finally turned backwards towards him in mid flight. Their eyes caught and the boy froze in place. Well, as much as a bird could while still remaining safely in the sky.

I look at you, you look at me.

Milk and roses, squeaky clean.

Well, you're the best I've ever seen,

And I'm your dying beauty queen.

It wasn’t a shadow at all. They were a Dove. One so beautiful he would be enchanted by them if it wasn’t for the shadow still hung over their face like a never ending veil. It seemed some of the mystery would always remain. He opened his beak to speak to them, to hopefully finally reach out to them, yet just as quickly as they had the first time they turned away and took off into the wind.

He stayed frozen. Rattled to his very core. He simply just floated there and watched as the Dove flew up into another fountain, this one almost entirely covered in heavily thorned vines and dark green ivy that held the faintest hint of a deep purple amongst its leaves, and perched on the black brimstone Swan statue at the top of it. 

His momentary fear slowly but surely metamorphosed into an unbidden anger as he took in the sight. The rejection. The dodging deceitfulness. The everything. He fluffed up his feathers and rose up in order to dive towards the Dove.

Only to be denied once more as the Dove easily dodged and flew back into the brighter, lovelier part of the garden. The boy cried out in lonely agony but did not let it deter him.

He followed once more, slower this time around. Carrying the weight of something he did not know of quite yet.

When he finally caught up once again, they were now at the largest fountain in the entire garden. At least thrice the size of the two that had come before it. And instead of the usual statue at the top, there was a gigantic swan. A live one. Ever so alive and ever so vibrant. They had soft pink and peach markings and beak replacing the usual oranges and yellows of most Swans. They took one loving glance towards the Dove he had spent so long chasing after before sweeping them up into their wings. Almost like a mother hen seeking to hide her chick from the dangers of the world.

L.O.V.E. L.O.V.E.

L.O.V.E. E.V.O.L.

L.O.V.E., do you love me?

L.O.V.E., love is evil.

Yet he couldn’t help the sneaking suspicion that this swan was a danger to the world. The peaceful aura of them and this entire garden both carried an undertone of unparalleled peril. One that choked him from afar and almost caused him to lose altitude. If he were to fall, he wondered if his body would hit the rocks and his blood would stain the purity of this lighter part of the garden. If that were to happen, perhaps they would shove him aside in the darker part of the garden and bury him under its jet black fountain.

Just as his breaths were shortening and the Swan was beginning to look his way he heard the strange song of a Mockingbird. The song was as soothing as a lullaby and as homely as a bedtime story. He felt three pairs of talons gently clasp onto him but he did nothing to fight them. Nor did he want to. They carried him away from the ever elusive Dove. Away from the overbearingly powerful Swan. Away from that garden and all it’s mysteries entirely.

They were now in a regular old forest. Untrimmed and wild. Perfectly and welcomingly flawed. The three birds landed in a large nest, covered in little trinkets and knick-knacks, obviously home made by the three of them. They placed him lovingly into the center and took a few steps back so that he could better observe his surroundings.

The Mockingbird was the first one he saw, them smiling at him as much as someone with a beak possibly could. Next he saw the other two, an Ibis perched on the thick branch beside them instead due to their somewhat larger size and a Falcon that tilted their head curiously at him. These three birds were strangers. Complete and total strangers to him. Yet he felt as if he had known them almost his entire life.

Then the kind Mockingbird leaned in to nuzzle their beaks together as everything went white.

Whiteness.

A slap in the face type regaining of consciousness.

The usual, when one is suddenly awoken in the middle of the night.

“Oh gosh! Sorry kiddo, did I wake you?” A man leaned over him and his bed, a hand outstretched towards the dim lamp. As if he were about to turn it off.

“Pops?” Squeaked the little boy, voice hoarse.

“Ah, sorry!” He whispered, protectively wrapping the child tighter in his warm blankets, “I didn’t mean to wake you, we just heard you cry out and I wanted to make sure you weren’t having one of your nightmares again.”

“I don’t think it was a nightmare...I don’t really know what it was...”

“That’s okay, son. But remember we’re just down the hall if you need anything, okay?”

“Yes, papa.”

The man beamed as the proud father he was and finished his previous task of turning off the lamp. He shuffled softly back out the door, trying not to step on any creaky floorboards as he went. Before he was out the door entirely he leaned back to give one last hushed statement. “Try to get some more sleep. Love you.”

“Love you too.” The little boy whispered back, barely loud enough for his father to catch.

The eight year old wondered again, as he usually tended to, if he was being a burden. Had he disturbed his father’s rest? Had he disturbed the other two’s as well? He let out a resigned sigh and turned over to try and get more comfy. It would be at least a few hours until morning, maybe he could try for a more peaceful and a less eventful dream.

That had been eighteen years ago. And it was just the start of something much bigger than the little boy could have ever imagined. Not even in his wildest, most prophetic dreams. And prophetic they were.

A day in the dark, a murdered afternoon, yeah.

Oh baby, darling, how I'd love to become your suicide blonde.

To lie beside my Romeo, oh what a wicked way to go.

A/N: Hopefully it turned out okay. ^ ^ “” This marks the first official chapter of my first ever fanfic! How exciting yet also terrifying lol. If ya’ll have any questions about it or anything don’t hesitate to ask. Also!!! This fic is now dedicated to @accidental-sanders who has been kind enough to listen to all of my ramblings and musings for this AU and fic. I enjoy our conversations! ; 3

Tag List:

@accidental-sanders 

@ren-allen

@noneed4thistbh

@virgil-the-void-kitten

@totalwhovian

@bandgeek82002-love

@allycat31415

@notalwaysthevillian

@cloudchaser7

@iamredxd

@lacrimosathedark

@idon-kno

@darkhumourandfandoms

@phangirlandkilljoy

@nikova-eve

@rebelrewriter

@chaoticpanpastelle

@simreaper98

@adroolingmaw

@iloveallthegays

@corrupt-ink-denials

@all-of-them-sanders

@6-daughter-of-a-witch-6

@angelicakaiba

@blobdad

@bi-sappy

@clara-oswald-333

@friendly-neighborhood-murderer

@randomcrew

@demon-of-sparkles

@transdimentionalapocolypse

@maybe-one-day-i-will-be-okay

@dxlphmax

@aikitty

@comicsimpson

[mudaship39]

The Alpha Centurion War:

Hleor and Loran actually made a throne room inside a massive palace for him/her/them on the colonized moon of the Andromeda Galaxy. Outside the palace is the unpolluted atmosphere where you can stare at a neighboring planet with a planetary ring and its three moons at either side of the sphere with the gray one smaller than the vivid white one. The palace was on the colonized and terraformed moon inside the Andromeda Galaxy. Nonetheless it was somehow outrageous and supernatural in its appearance. It looked more majestic than anything the superhuman, metahuman, divine (such as Asgardian or Old God), or extraterrestrial (such as Kryptonian, Daxamite, Martian, or Tamaranean) mind could possibly visualize. It was grandiose and regal with its unfeasibly high minarets and spires vanishing into the atmosphere. Throughout the hallways of the colossal palace and titanic fortress were one hundred colossal holographic figurines spread across the room that strongly looked like each of the active members of the Elites and Paragons that Cambion Chimera founded. Each that seemed like a life like representation of the Elites and Paragons with members who were mostly people of color, Indigenous, & or lgbt. It showed the Elites as a beacon of hope and faith. It showed the Paragons as a legacy of heroism and gallantry. It showed the Elites and the Paragons as valiant, courageous, & brave protectors. It showed them as the knights the public of the planets, solar systems, & galaxies thought them to be. In the back behind all of the statues of the Elites and the Paragons leading them was their strike team leader, founder, & commander in the statue of the Cardinal Changeling or the Scarlet Shapeshifter. It showed him/her/them as a warden of light, a guardian of life, & a defender of good. It showed him/her/them as the paladin that the citizens of the universe, multiverse, & omniverse thought him/her/them to be. Hleor and Loran said, “Your men and women under your command the Elites and the Paragons designed this statue that we built for you after we showed them their statues.” The Elites (with enough metahuman and superhuman members to defend the entire planet Earth) and Paragons (with enough metahuman and superhuman members to defend the Vega Star System, Polaris Star System, & Sol Star System).  The statues were each member of the Elites and Paragons in each of their superhero costumes, combat armor, and power armor in all sorts of valiant poses. The entire giant royal and regal throne room of the palace is evocative of a medieval imperial throne room. Burgundy rugs were spread across the metal floors. There were many marble effigies of Roman Amazons of Greek Mount Olympus and Greek Amazons of Roman Mount Olympus in Greco-Roman armor and armed with Greco-Roman swords and shields riding Pegasi. There were many marble busts of Atlanteans (from the Atlantean Empire ruled by the son of Neptune and an Atlantean Empress) in Atlantean armor riding armed with tridents or quindents riding giant great white sharks. The statues looked convincing as when the palace needs defending there is magic that has the statues come to life to defend the palace. Besides the busts the most noticeable entity in the room had to be the titanic onyx throne levitating in the middle of the audience chamber. No mortal or immortal had ever seen anything as self-indulgent and pretentious as this before. The levitating jet black throne had cherry satin pillows for a seat and four mammoth carved divine wings spread out from each side which gave the whole thing an ethereal and celestial facade. It was stunning. It was an immense throne ornamented with diamonds, silver, & gold radiant in the luminosity of the throne room. The armrests were bejeweled with precious stones and gems. There were extravagant designs. On either sides of the levitating throne were dozens of statues of winged Aesir Valkyries wearing Asgardian chain mail armor armed with Asgardian spears riding alicorns (winged unicorns). The statues looked realistic as when Crimson Changeling the monarch of this palace needs defending there is magic that has the statues come to life to defend him/her/them. Alexander/Alexandria asked, “What is this Loran and Hleor?” “This our love is your throne room.” “A throne room fit for a titan let alone a god/goddess in a castle fit for an emperor/empress let alone a king/queen.” “This is the only throne in the entire cosmos that is worthy of you.” “To celebrate you and the heroes and heroines under your command.” This is a memory of Crimson Changeling sitting on a throne in the palace on the moon. It was fitting for a Titan of War. Far away from the throne on  a colonized moon on a colonized terraformed planet was a holographic monument to the Battle of the Milky Galaxy and the Battle of the Andromeda Galaxy. It was the battles to celebrate the war that defeated the Forces of Evil. The battles that cost Alexander/Alexandria everything in the Alpha Centurion War. When he/she/they fought to free the Vega Star System, Polaris Star System, & Sol Star System from the colonialism and imperialism of the Forces of Evil. When he/she/they fought to free the Xeno Galaxy, Milky Way Galaxy, & Andromeda Galaxy from the neocolonialism and occupation of the Forces of Evil.

[reptileshrine]

Top 25 Albums of 2018

As usual, compiling my top albums of the year has been a compelling, exhausting experience, having taken me an actual month of consternation, tweaking, writing, re-tweaking, deleting, and shifting. Too. Much. Good. Music. Even though every year is pretty hard I have to say that, despite my Number 1, which cemented itself relatively quickly and didn’t move despite the competition, choosing a short-list and ranking just a few of the phenomenal albums from this year was more of an impossible task than usual. But here it is, finally. With actual words, albeit the same few adjectives cycled over enough times to amply demonstrate my dwindling vocabulary and ability to use it. Spoiler alert; There is no Mopok, no Spectral Wound, no Andeis, no Panphage, no Sargeist, no Atra Mors, no Forest of Stars, no Paara, no Angantyr, no Moenen Of Xezbeth, among many many others. They could all have been there at some point, but at the time of committing this to the web, they are not. What this list is, is a rank of the albums which I have obsessed over the most, have affected me the deepest, have been turned up loudest on my stereo, and that I feel have pushed black metal into some interesting, transcendent or subversive directions. Behold! My favourite albums of 2018. 25. Make a Change Kill Yourself – IV Cursed Records This is a true masterclass in DSBM. Inspired composition and wretched, grey pall of an atmosphere, that still harbours a sense of hope, albeit an uneasy, precarious one which could drop into a pit of darkness any moment. The wait for new material from this project was well rewarded. (also worth noting how great the Angantyr album was too, but it’s not in my list).

IV by Make a Change... Kill Yourself

24. Majestic Mass - Savage Empire of Death Self-Released / Caligari Cool raggedy stuff that sounds like it’s about to come apart at the seams. I love the cooly melodic garagey rock n roll swagger slung underneath the fuzz. GREAT organ flourishes too. One of my most played albums of the year by far.

Savage Empire of Death by Majestic Mass

23. Everything by Harpag Karnik Erancnoir – Wintermonarchie / Frostfallen / Erancnoir Etheraldine – Shapes of Emerald / Euphony of Heralds / An Eyrie for Serenity Forelunar - Wine and the Limerent Self-Released These three projects offer different rays of light from the prism of Iranian Harpag Karnik. Each is a separate vision of atmospheric post-black metal; Erancnoir the most desolate, Etheraldine the most lush, and Forelunar for conveying deep emotions. Most of these releases are eps featuring two long 10+ minute tracks, which give ample time for the music to soak into you, set a scene and extrapolate their vocative and enchanting motifs.

Frostfallen by Erancnoir

An Eyrie for Serenity by Etheraldine

Wine and the Limerent by Forelunar

22. Enscelados - The Unbeknownst Tyrant Self-Released This mysterious band consists of two un-named international members (though one may possibly be based in Iran, as Harpag Karnik mixed them). They released two pieces in 2018, both one track, with this, the second release, expanding on the intent of the first. The twenty-minute piece uncoils a mobius strip of cosmically fluctuating trance, with a hypnotic beat and swaying riff that locks in for pretty much the full length, save for a small eddy of ambience. A singular vision that is immensely effective.

The Unbeknownst Tyrant by Enscelados

21. Schrat – Alptraumgänger Folter Records Primo old-school. Blistering pace and savage aggression offset by symphonic elements. Smells like 1995, and probably another one that should lead me back to Emperor. I hear some Sons of Northern Darkness in this one too. A+ artwork on this one as well. Love a good moonlit ritual in the forest.

Alptraumgänger by SCHRAT

20. Akitsa – Credo Profound Lore One of my favourite bands that hasn’t released an album that I completely love has just managed to do so (Ash Pool split not withstanding). This has the rawness, the aggression, the wildness and chaos, and the ferocious rocking riffs that have appeared sporadically across all their previous albums, but Credo has all those best bits channelled into a whole album.

Credo by AKITSA

19. Craft – White Noise and Black Metal Season of Mist The stunning return of an old band to a new form. The raging nihilism and wild chaos of previous releases was smoothed right down to a clear sheen for an album almost ironically called White Noise. But it is a surface sheen. Below it lies the same seething violence as before, made arguably more intense by the constraints of the cleanliness. Every song is packing dangerously sharp riffs, delivered with a psychotically dead-eyed precision and coolness that makes for an intimidating experience.

White Noise and Black Metal by Craft

18. Vilkacis – Beyond the Mortal Gate Psychic Violence Feral, raw atmospheric, melodic primal black metal with a spiritual theme, from the visionary M. Rekevics. A torrent of euphoric anguish that feels like a cathartic expulsion of squalid bitterness. Comparisons can be made to related USBM bands Fell Voices and Ash Borer for their strung-out electrically charged atmospheres, while simultaneously channelling the more abrupt aggression of Vrasubatlat bands.

Beyond the Mortal Gate by VILKACIS

17. Knokkelklang - Jeg Begraver Terratur Possessions Elevated blackened trance with a liquid ambient outro. The tone and layers of sheet noise riffs verge on DSBM, but there is a buoyancy to the rhythm and a cosmically searching direction that keeps this album cerebral.

Jeg Begraver by Knokkelklang

16. Urfaust – The Constellatory Practice Ván Records Otherworldly transcendental occult music, from these masters of a form of atmospherics which has always dwelt in a liminal space between doom, BM, and the greyed industrial rock of post-70’s UK; it is highly atmospheric, but of a form well outside the more popular Burzum riff-styled post-metal inspired atmoblack. My favourite release of theirs since Drei Rituale Jenseits des Kosmos.

The Constellatory Practice by Urfaust

15. Selvans – Faunalia AvantGarde Music My expectations were high for this, given Lupercalia was one of my favourite albums of 2015. Three years later, Selvans surpass that achievement with this gothically toned, medieval opus that has outshone the similarly ambitious Forest of Stars album for me, in the grand blackened-classical-concept album stakes. Faunalia is grandiose, but never overblown, trip through a stunningly complex yet coherent tapestry, woven with acoustic folk instruments, woodwind, strings, layers of vocals plus primal pagan black metal aggression to bind it together.

Faunalia by Selvans

14. Thy Dying Light – Forgotten By Time Death Kvlt Productions My introduction to Death Kvlt and the work of Azrael and Hrafn’s many bands. Forgotten by Time is a compilation of previous releases but makes for a cohesive album in its own right, mixing several styles of raw old-school black metal, and a dungeon black ambience to arresting effect. It starts off in spitefully violent fashion, and compels to the end.

Forgotten By Time by Thy Dying Light

13. Délétère - De Horae Leprae Sepulchral Productions This Québécois band, whose line-up features Atheos from the infamous Foretresse and Monarque, tells the conceptual story of a leper destined to become a Plague prophet of Centipèdes. It does so through raw, melodic, orthodox black metal in a style which flashes glimpses of Csejthe, Horna, and of course Fortresse. The opening series of gothic organ riffs is obliterated by a thundercrack of guitar which ushers in over an hour of epic rush. The speed and density of the drums and riffing could potentially be very claustrophobic, but each track finds space to expand and develop into passages of rage, elation, hysteria, heroism, and fevered mania. So yes, the concept works, and in Atrum Lilium might just offer my favourite song of the year.

12. Acathexis - Acathexis Fallen Empire / Entropic Recordings A fitting end to a stellar run of albums this year from Fallen Empire, whose shuttering will leave a black hole that is unlikely to be filled in the same way. December’s swansong releases gave us the immense Death Fortress (somehow not in this list), Lubbert Das (waaaait for it), the dissonant Guðveiki and Serpent Column, and this; Acathexis. An album by a band curated by Fallen Empire itself, who played Déhà’s demos to Jacob Buczarski (Mare Cognitum), and then to vocalist Dany Tee (Downfall of Nur). A supergroup was born, and a stunning album of emotionally arresting, nuanced, inspired atmospheric black metal has been created. The guitar composition is sublime, drawing from every corner of the black metal spectrum, underpinned, pushed and pulled by Jacob’s excellent drum work; the instrumentals given life, death, elation and despair through the incredible range of vocal performances from Dany Tee.

Acathexis by Acathexis

11. Adaestuo - Krew Za Krew World Terror Committee The band comprises three members; Hekte Zaren providing vocals, multi-instrumentalists P.E. Packain / Vainaja (of Horna, Saturnian Mist, Neutron Hammer, Sargeist) and VJS (also Sargeist, Nightbringer, Kult ov Azazel) – their credentials are cosmic, and that is spretty much where they keep the tone of this album. The majority of it is ritual dark ambient and drone, spiked with three explosive black metal tracks. More than just a black metal album, this is alternate devotional, ritual offering and violent ordained execution.

Krew Za Krew by Adaestuo

10. Alkymist – Spellcraft Ceremony Self-Released/Vinyl-Compvlsion Ritualistic occult atmospheric black metal is the sub-sub-sub genre of bm that I am drawn to, though even then there are different versions of it. In his Alkymist guise, Noctis, aka Adrien Bloß, draws on sinuous repetition and the flickering shadows of candlelight to convey the ceremonial ambience while summoning the night terrors.

Spellcraft Ceremony by Alkymist (CAN)

9. Wayfarer – World’s Blood Profound Lore This album is deep, and seems to have been a bit of a sleeper hit. Took me several listens to fully appreciate the scope and detail of the landscape portrayed across the five tracks. An evocative, moody ride under huge thunderheads brewing over ominously desolate plains. Indeed, one track is even titled On Horseback They Carried Thunder. There is an atmosphere pregnant with danger, pressure building in the air of scratchy guitar melodies as lightning forms in the clouds of bass-lines, both instruments occasionally striking out with lightning flourishes. The whole album is underpinned and accentuated by a parched drum sound that often mimics the galloping of hooves and swirling eddies of dust. The blackened silhouette of a lone rider against muted browns sets an accurate tone for the sound of the album, which absolutely succeeds in expressing the scale and history of the wild Western US.

World's Blood by WAYFARER

8. Kriegsmaschine – Apocalypticists No Solace Everyone talks about the drumming, and yes Darkside has unparalleled visionary technique, but it is what the guitars are doing at the same time that brings out the full effect of them. They remind me of Joy Division with their combination of industrialised urban paranoia, existential dread and hostility, set to rhythmic piston percussion, droning trance guitars, and a raw vocal performance. Both strings and skins complementing each other in a minimal/maximal relationship which results in one of the most captivating and unique experiences in black metal.

Apocalypticists by Kriegsmaschine

7. Everything released by the ПРАВА Коллектив Fallen Empire Records, Amor Fati Productions, and Underground Soundscapes That’s the Prava Kollektiv, currently consisting of four projects: Arkhtinn, Mahr, Voidsphere, and HWWAUOCH with five releases between them in 2018. A group of musicians from somewhere in the world, possibly Russia judging by the Cyrillic they write their name in, and fallen Empire describing them as being “from the North”, but then again, possibly not, since Arkhtinn’s full album is titled in Japanese. Over five years after Arkhtinn’s first demo, they have done well to remain unmasked. Mysterious background aside, the music offers its own open interpretations. Arkhtinn have been putting out two-track demos with one fizzing, burning raw cosmic emission backed with a skein of dark ambient. On their album, they went for the double buzz and gave us two ferocious celestial slices of galactic trance. And where they look up, Mahr’s Antelux album tore it all down, using a similar template of pulsing starfire, grounding it in an earthier, more aggressive, primal, chaotic fashion. Voidsphere made their second offering of To Await | To Expect; two elevated tracks of disintegrating cosmic blackness, channeling all the blackened reverberating energies they could summon from the infinite void, and HWWAUOCH did their full-cap moniker justice by tearing out an Icelandic-style album of howling dissonance.

最初の災害 by Arkhtinn

Antelux by Mahr

To Await | To Expect by Voidsphere

HWWAUOCH by HWWAUOCH

6. Everything released by Haraesis Noviomagi A label that houses one of the most progressive, creative and consistent collectives of musicians operating in the black metal sphere, revolving around O, who runs the label and threads all bands together. He put out six releases this year, featuring each band from their roster plus a guest, and all releases are boundary pushing, third-eye opening mutations of the cosmic black metal order: De Ontkoppeling – De Ontkoppeling The only non-metal album from the collective, but still pitch-black in substance, delivering subterranean bass noise, squalid dark ambient feedback and disintegrating electronics.

Solar Temple – Fertile Descent M. and O. put out their second release as Solar Temple, and it was another blackened helix of coruscating trance.

Fertile Descent by SOLAR TEMPLE

Iskandr – Euprosopon O’s solo project, deals with more rural, pagan themes, influenced by early Enslaved with lyrics addressing his homelands and geopsychology of living through particular environments. Possibly the most traditional sounding black metal of all HN releases, it is also the most radical departure from the core locked-groove hypnotics the rest of the bands channel.

Euprosopon by ISKANDR

Fluisteraars / Turia Split – De Oord Fluisteraars is O, A, and B, and this release is another milestone in their catalogue. Building from a subtle post-black beginning, it soon mutates into the most sublime, elegant, and euphoric astral-black. This stratospheric track is backed with the dank fetid claustrophobia of Turia (a three piece of O., J. and T). A gnarly, gut-churning contrast.

De Oord by FLUISTERAARS & TURIA

Vilkacis / Turia Split - Untitled The one was a co-release with Psychic Violence, borrowing Mike Rekevics’ Vilkacis from their roster to lay down two tracks which manage to best everything on his full album. Throw this into the tub when Final March Into Flame peaks. And again, Turia are on point, this time with an exotic dirge, as faintly eastern melodies judder out of the overblown amps and bind the clattering drum disintegration together.

VILKACIS / TURIA SPLIT by VILKACIS

Lubbert Das – De Plagen And finally, to Lubbert Das, comprised of O. J. and R. Shimmering sheets of guitars bend with a woozy unease, eerie melodies stalk the foreground, and drums switch from pounding to sparse punky rhythms. This cataclysmically raw, primeval darkened churn may almost be the perfect distillation of all other bands from this collective.

De Plagen by Lubbert Das

5. Candelabrum – Portals https://youtu.be/NZZIUD-CSrQ Black Cilice side-project that is as lo-fi as the main band, but less caustic. Mournful melodies are buried beneath a miasma of ritualisic occult noise. Here starts a theme for my favoured sound of 2018. One which has always fermented in the dankest corners of black metal, but bloomed in the most virulent manner throughout last year.

4. Pa Vesh En – Church of Bones Iron Bonehead Productions So, the bloom spreads. Pa Vesh En put out a couple of releases this year, peaking with the sepulchral aural torture of Church of Bones. A pestilent miasma of putrid organ drone, petrified, mournful shrieks, ghastly voice and haunted melodies. It drags atmosphere out the air, grinds it through the earth to suffocate in the airless underground, mummifying this spectral black metal in a cloak of oppressive dirt.

Pa Vesh En - Church of Bones by Iron Bonehead Productions

3. VOËMMR - Sombr Moebrd Signal Rex Blood-curdling, ritualistic old-school crypt-dwelling misfit music of a macabre magick. The lugubrious, sickly swirl of organ a nightmarish carousel ride, spinning into giddiness. That sound of that thing is right up there, leading the dance of the raw drum pulse, waltzing a deliriously contorted path through the candlelight. This album is a constant shimmer of heady reverie, but twisted as fuck, and all the more sinister for the calculated way in which it spools out its gnashing chaos.

Sombr Moebrd by VOËMMR

2. Degredo - Noite dos Tempos Signal Rex The deepest, most far-reaching, umbral, otherworldly, conjuration of the year, and one which I cannot really describe any better than whoever writes the blurbs for the Signal Rex releases. They nail those descriptions every time, but I will try in my own words to describe this rawest of shamanist occult from the collective which I think is currently pushing black metal to its furthest limits; the Aldebraan Circle. Corrupting black metal’s traditional chaotic fury into a subducted trench of lightless trance, Degredo crystalise the primitive momentum of the genre into paranoid fractal patterns of static blackness, and slowly the throbbing sepulchral hypnagogia of this album falls upon the listener. Once the drum beat builds up the world stand still, and the walls move in. The riffs bear resemblance to the slow-motion dirge of SunnO))), but this album stands far out on its own, way down a disorienting hall of mirrors, and out of reach of most listeners. Paralysis. Claustrophobia. Tunnel vision. Darkness. Then clarity, elevation and revelation through staring into this black flame.

A Noite dos Tempos by Degredo

1. Över - Facing Transcendence AvantGarde Music Out of the darkness and into the light. A light of sorts. Overall, one of the less oppressive albums in my list, but certainly the most overwhelming. Mr Þórir Nyss has graced us with several albums from several projects this year, from ethereal post-black atmospherics to unruly, disturbing disharmonic noise. With Över, he and Malduchryst incorporate these elements, along with overt rock, squealing lead solos, doomy lurching, and passages of pure savage black metal to emotionally stupefying effect. The composition of this album is stunning, each track developing in a way which transcends genre limitations and defies your expectations. Take the watery introduction of Will that bleeds into a slow dirgy distorted riff. It picks up into hammering drums, juxtaposed by a twinkling keyboard motif. It slowly builds more intensity into each passage, introduces a lowing operatic clean vocal and the riffing intensifies until it peaks with (one of several) anthemic riffs. The euphoric surge of Över is Transcendence and how the astral elegance of that track is dismembered by a guttural riff and degraded into boiling noise. The liquid ambient riff of following track Owner and Slave that bursts into furious slashing riff and vicious snarl vocal, its proclamation of self-immolation and the subsequent life-loosening drift into harmonic solo and all-consuming climax. Just some of the many moments in this album that kept me coming back to it with obsessive regularity.

Facing Transcendence by Över

[taste-in-music]

Music Monday (1/14/19)

So there were quite a few new releases and older favorites that I wanted to bring up this week. Let’s get to it:

Ready to Change by Kodaline: If Hozier wrote a dance jam, this is what it would sound like. This song has a grand feel to it, with quieter verses building up to a majestic chorus, not to mention the rad guitar solo that pops in before the bridge. Thanks to @eileentheskeen for recommending this group to me. 

I Went Too Far by AURORA: So in preparation for seeing her in concert, I’ve been listening through AURORA’s entire discography. In doing so, I revisited All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend, and holy hell is it amazing. This track features the AURORA traits we all know and love: ethereal vocals and a sense of grandiosity and melancholy, but it also has this electronic pulse that gives it some oomph. Similar to Ready to Change, this song is perfect for a dance party in the woods. 

Buckets by Elohim: I’ve always known Elohim had potential for greatness since I heard Hallucinating, (a certified BOP, give that track a listen.) This song reminds me a lot of Charli XCX or Grimes or SOPHIE, mixing aggressive production with a screaming-bordering-on-bratty delivery and nonsense lyrics that work somehow. If it had been released at the time, I would’ve put this song onto my Candy Apocalypse playlist, no questions asked. I have a feeling this song will be quite polarizing, so you’ll either love it or hate it, but I love it. 

More Than That by Lauren Jauregui: A new Lauren Jauregui single has arrived, and I’m here for it. Lauren has always been my favorite from Fifth Harmony, (in case you were wondering for some odd reason,) and I’m in love with her sultry, smoky voice. Her delivery on this song is the right combination of sassy and raspy. Now when’s that album gonna come out?

Timebomb by WALK THE MOON: Any day where a new WALK THE MOON song is dropped is a good day. This song is energetic, sunny, and just full of that absolute elation that I’ve begun to associate with this band. I have a feeling that if your day is going kind of crappy, this is a song that will make you feel better.

WHEN I WAS OLDER by Billie Eilish: What can I say? It’s the quiet melancholy of “when the party’s over” colliding with the tense atmosphere of “you should see me in a crown” and the wistful beauty of “ocean eyes.” Something about Billie’s whispered vocals being coated with a thin layer of distortion and the mechanical production keep me on the edge of my seat, despite how mellow the song is. All this does is make me even more hyped for her album. She’s been dropping singles for months, I need that gosh darned album!!!

*takes in long, long breath* hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but i have it by Lana Del Rey: A new Lana single? I’m revived. While this track doesn’t quite reach the impossibly high bar set by Mariner’s Apartment Complex, it’s still a lovely little tune featuring a simple piano and Lana’s emotional vocal delivery. Catch me counting down the days to Normal Fucking Rockwell. 

[and-all-that-palaver]

A Theory on Ciel’s Real Name

A question we've all been pondering ever since Yana revealed Ciel wasn't actually Ciel.

I've had this theory in mind for a while but after a few of the recent chapters I decided this theory might be very possible.

What if Ciel's real name is Finnian?

First off on the cover page of Chapter 132 we can see Vincent reading this book called 'Fenian Cycle' to the twins.

The Fenian cycle is a collection of short stories centering around this character called Fionn mac Cumhaill (his name is translated to Fionn in modern Irish but was also known as Find and Finn in old Irish) and his warriors the Fianna. Basically, Fionn is the son of the the late Cumhaill (the former leader of the Fianna) and was always on the run and in hiding as a child from the men who slain his father. The current leader of the Fianna did not want Fionn to take his rightful ownership as the leader of the Fianna. This can parellel with how Vincent was slaughtered and how Our Ciel was always seen as the weaker and timid child compared to Real Ciel who was depicted as the braver and stronger of the two. Not to mention Real Ciel is the rightful heir to the Watchdog title and the Earl of Phantomhive, not Our Ciel. It is also worth noting that in the recent chapters where Real Ciel has mysteriously and grandiosely reappeared he seems to have this underlying vendetta to get his title back. To make things simpler, it's as if Real Ciel is trying to 'steal' Our Ciel's 'title' as the Queen's Watchdog and although he is the rightful heir, Yana has made us all read through and experience Our Ciel carrying out the Watchdog duty so in a way, we are able to empathise with him as being the 'rightful' person to do this job and that this duty 'rightfully' belongs to him.

What follows from the story is that Fionn showcases how great and omnipotent he really is and eventually regains his leadership of the Fianna and spends the rest of the story roaming Ireland, carrying out the duties of the Fianna. This parallels greatly with Kuroshitsuji as Our Ciel proves he is capable of the Watchdog title and being an earl. He is calculating, dexterous, and vigilant. And we as readers watch as he masterfully carries out the Watchdog duties throughout each arc.

What I'd like to point out next is this:

Notice that look of surprise on Our Ciel's face in the left hand corner panel when he sees Finny. I interpreted this as Our Ciel seeing a reflection of himself (or his past self) in Finny somehow. Both of them were kidnapped and locked up and used as 'lab rats' for heinous, nefarious reasons.

I think Our Ciel also recognised the distant, faraway look in Finny's eyes as somebody who has gone through an equally heartwrenching, dark experience as he has.

Granted, they both also watched as their loved ones/close friends were brutally murdered right before their very eyes.

This was Finny when he watched a doctor gun down two of his fellow inmates:

And this is Our Ciel watching his twin brother, Real Ciel (whom he seems to have a very close relationship with based on the flashback chapters) getting stabbed right before him:

I found it really interesting how similar Yana drew both of these panels when showing how both these characters witness the murdering of their loved ones/close friends (especially the eye panels where she highlighted the pure shock in them). 

There are other interesting parallels that could possibly hint that Our Ciel’s name is actually Finnian. Both Finny and Our Ciel were branded (one with a slave mark and the other with a tattoo) to indicate whom they belonged to.

And in this sense, it shows how both were being treated as mere objects instead of actual human beings.

Moreover, one compelling fact is that both Our Ciel and Finny were the only ones to survive their horrendous ordeal (I'm not taking Real Ciel into account because as of now we are unsure as to whether he actually survived or was revived or is some form of developed Bizarre Doll, although I would place my bet on the latter as there is no possible indication whatsoever that he could've survived). In addition to this, in order to escape from their cruel captors they both sought to killing them.

This was the doctor that shot Finny's fellow inmates:

And I think this panel speaks for itself:

So I assume this was one of the reasons why Our Ciel spared Finny's life on that day and hired him as a Phantomhive servant. Finny reminded Our Ciel of himself (or again, his past self) in terms of how they were both victims of human greed and savagery.

I found other interesting links that could possibly hint at Our Ciel's name being Finnian. One of them is how both Our Ciel and Finny are caring, selfless individuals who tend to think about the people around them first rather than themselves (in Our Ciel's case, I suppose this trait was more dominant before the kidnapping and the whole cult event that ensued).

Also, Our Ciel was depicted as a naïve, wide-eyed innocent child which is basically Finny in a nutshell.

And here's a bonus picture of a̶ ̶c̶u̶t̶i̶e̶ Our Ciel getting really mad because Real Ciel told him that it was silly to believe in something he hadn't seen before (and if you do believe in Santa then by all means you do you).

What really striked me is how similar Finny is compared to the younger version of Our Ciel. I've already cited the evidence as shown above but this revelation only further strengthens my belief that Ciel's possible name could be Finnian.

I think it's also worth mentioning that out of all the servants Finny seems to be the closest to Our Ciel and remember, Finny was the only one who saw through Real Ciel when he first entered the manor.

I also find it interesting how Finny was the only one that Our Ciel allowed to be near him and to tend to him during the Emerald Witch Arc. 

During this time Our Ciel had broken down completely and reverted into the part of himself whom he vowed he'd never be anymore. So why was Finny the only person who was allowed to be near Our Ciel during his extreme mental breakdown? Even Sebastian whom Our Ciel seems to 'trust' the most was rejected and thrown aside. Well, I'd like to think that was because Our Ciel could relate to Finny in some way. Since I've mentioned how similar younger version of Our Ciel and Finny actually are, considering how Our Ciel has relapsed into his 'old' self, 'the one who died on the altar', I'd assume he found comfort in Finny because Finny represented him. He allowed Finny to stay because Finny could understand and empathise with him. Kind, innocent, selfless, and caring. These were all prevalent traits Our Ciel possessed before he was tortured by the cult. And these are all the traits that Finny possesses after he was rescued from the lab (granted, I'm sure Finny had kindness and a sense of closeness with his fellow inmates but these characteristics did not have the opportunity to grow or nurture until he was rescued by Our Ciel). What's also interesting is how Yana illustrates Our Ciel and Finny's relationship being far more prominent than with the other Phantomhive servants. 

With the way this is worded, I can only assume it was Our Ciel who actually invited Finny and not vice versa so this shows that he feels comfortable in Finny's presence. Again we are presented with parallels between these two characters and I'd like to think that it's not all just a coincidence. 

Bonus indications that Our Ciel is actually a Finnian/Finny:

1) I'm probably being a little too far-fetched here but both Our Ciel and Finny had injections during their time in captivity.

I know it's kind of a "So what?" point but knowing how Yana loves to add in obviously ridiculous and ridiculously obvious hints I thought this was worth taking note.

2) Take a look at this panel.

Judging by how Our Ciel says "Um..." before stating his name I assume he hasn't prepared himself for a situation like the one unfolding before him to occur. Also, he was unprepared for the first test that he had to pass through in order to become recruited as one of the circus members. He had no idea as to how or when Sebastian would help him until his darts were surprisingly hitting the target after every single throw. This means that Ciel was utterly and completely unaware of how things would play out when he arrived. So, back to my original statement, the fact that he paused and THEN claimed his name was Finnian could be an instinctive and reflex statement as again, he was caught off guard and responded with the first thing that came to his mind. Why Finnian? Perhaps because that was his name?

Then we have Joker responding with, "That's a grand name," and we know for a fact that Vincent mentioned this:

The fact that Joker says 'grand', not 'beautiful' or 'nice', could indicate that even he himself has not heard of the name often (if ever) and is amazed by how a mere 'pageboy' could possess such a name. Moreover, the word 'grand' itself has royal connotations to it, giving one the impression of something majestic and glorious just like how the Phantomhives are perceived as.

So there you have it! Of course, this is all mere speculation and nothing is confirmed, some of the points made could also be bias on my part so you may take this with a grain of salt. As always, you are free to tell me your own opinions on this if you want! Thanks for reading~

[thetygre]

30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #2: Favorite Frankenstein

1.) Mary Shelley/Bernie Wrightson

Put simply, there’s no beating the classic. Mary Shelley’s original monster is a landmark in literature, the coalescence of an idea about monstrosity and humanity that has been developing since the dawn of civilization. Alright, so that might be a little grandiose, but the point stands; the original Frankenstein’s monster is still the best. Like Dracula, every new generation brings a new interpretation, and makes new connections to him. The monster has, through his influence on culture, succeeded in becoming the father of his own race. He is a true monster of God, a divine omen, an abstract entity that conveys the importance of man’s reaching scientific knowledge. He makes us question our limits, our humanity, and how much we as a species are meant to stretch and bend away from the natural order. And to this day, nobody has managed to quite capture that ideal perfectly.

But the late great Bernie Wrightson came pretty close. Known mostly as a comics artist, Wrightson’s version of Frankenstein is the one that comes to mind for me whenever I envision the monster. He is simultaneously majestic, horrifying, and pitiful. Built like an Olympian god with a face like a corpse. Wrightson’s work on his expressions can convey anger, sadness, and the creature’s own weariness for existence. Wrightson’s monster, to me at least, comes the closest to invoking Shelley’s description of Frankenstein’s attempt at an ubermensch, and his subsequent failure.

2.) Boris Karloff

There’s a lot to be said against Karloff’s Frankenstein. It created a pop cultural image that is ultimately at odds with Shelley’s work. The monster’s eloquent suffering is replaced with a series of moans and grunts, and his arc is ultimately threadbare. And yet, Karloff’s Frankenstein brings something absolutely essential to the Frankenstein mythos; innocence. The creature is a victim of its own creation, too powerful and too strange for this world. The damage it causes is the byproduct of its father’s meddling in things man was not meant to know. That’s a perspective we didn’t get a lot of in Shelley’s original novel, and for all that the Universal movie is different from the novel, it meshes with the novel’s morality by reminding the audience of an important message; the value of humanity. Karloff’s monster appeals to our humanity on the most basic level, that of an innocent suffering. In that, I think even Mary Shelley would be proud.

3.) Shuler Hensley

Aaaaand now we’re back to Van Helsing. Okay, legitimately? I think the Frankenstein’s monster is the best part of Van Helsing. I am dead serious. Like Castlevania’s Dracula, the monster here is an amalgam of all the different parts of Frankenstein pop culture. There’s alchemy, mad science, and body horror, but there’s also a search for humanity and a desire to find meaning in life. Also, like everything in this movie, overacting. Just some grade-A overacting. Hensley screams his lungs out shouting Byronic prose, which I always took to be a kind of fun dig at the original monster’s own flair for the overdramatic.

4.) Peter Boyle

Boyle doesn’t bring a lot to the table as the creature in Young Frankenstein. The movie is a loving parody, and it clearly derives mostly from the Universal Studios movie. And yet, there are some subtle hints of brilliance in this portrayal of the creature and Frankenstein. The Universal movie was a source, yes, but Mel Brooks also drew from the novel for his own spin. At the end of the movie, Gene Wilder’s Frankenstein departs from Shelley’s (who is also the character’s grandfather) by taking responsibility and trying to help his creation. And in turn, the creature forgives and protects Frankenstein. I know it’s all just for good fun, but when you start viewing it through the classic metaphors applied to the novel, it creates a more optimistic picture about human progress. (Plus, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include one of my favorite movies on this list.)

5.) Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee’s Frankenstein is actually the version that turned me on to the character. When I was a kid, Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein did nothing for me; he was too sad, too sympathetic to be a monster. Frankenstein’s monster was supposed to be scary to me; stitched out of corpses, with greasy black hair and dead eyes, angry at all the world. (Also dressed in a stylish black suit.) Lee’s monster delivered that to me. The moment I first saw him, I knew that this was how Frankenstein’s monster was supposed to look. Now that I’m older, I can appreciate Boris Karloff’s performance more, but I’ll still always have a fondness for my first favorite Frankenstein.

6.) Rory Kinnear

The youngest monster on this list, Rory Kinnear played Frankenstein’s monster, referred to variously as Adam or Caliban, in Showtime’s Penny Dreadful. Think a cheaper, tawdrier League of Extraordianry Gentlemen. Appearance-wise, Kinnear’s Frankenstein is... it’s- it’s not great. This show had the special effects budget of some pocket lint and the grace of God. But the character is what stood out here. Kinnear’s creature, more than any other, struggles to find his identity, to find a means to turn his monstrosity towards good. His constant failure as people use him and reject him embitters him even more against his creator, but gives him a common bond to other characters. In the show’s last season, Kinnear’s Frankenstein reunites with the family of the man who’s body was used to create him, stepping in apparently returned from the dead. And that and what happens afterward with the character are, I think, worthy additions to the Frankenstein mythos.

7.) Junji Ito’s Frankenstein

Leave it to Junji Ito to create the first truly repulsive Frankenstein. Lee’s came close, but Ito’s portrayal of the monster is nothing short of revolting. In the novel, it’s never made clear why exactly people are repulsed by the creature’s appearance; it might even have been all in the character’s perception. But Ito’s Frankenstein is simply hideous; it’s the first Frankenstein I can think of where you can imagine what he smells like, and it’s like rotting meat. The monster is imposing, too; Ito, like Wrightson, didn’t skimp on making his creature gigantic in proportion. It’s hard to feel sympathy for this creature, and it almost seems to take pleasure in the evil it commits against its creator. It’s easily the nastiest version of the monster you’ll ever meet.

8.) The King of Toyland

Like Van Helsing, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is just something I’m going to keep coming back to during this challenge. League’s Frankenstein is mentioned only in passing, making an actual appearance only as a background cameo, but what little is given might just be the most heartwarming version of the character I’ve read. After the canon events of the novel, Frankenstein’s creature wanders the Arctic Circle, despondent and immortal, unable to kill himself. In his wandering, the creature finds a land populated entirely by sentient dolls and toys, hidden in the North Pole behind a magical field. This is Toyland, from the Noddy series of English children’s novels.

The residents of Toyland are ruled over by Olympia, the automaton girl from the opera The Tales of Hoffman. The toys, instead of rejecting the creature, ask him to stay, claiming they need his strength to protect the land. The toys don’t see the creature as unnatural; to them, he is simply another misfit toy, an oversized doll. In time, the creature and Olympia fall in love and marry, and they rule as the king and queen of Toyland. The creature, at last, has found a place and a people he can call his own, somewhere where he is accepted, a purpose for his strength. And somehow, this was all written by Alan “Old Man Yelling at a Cloud” Moore, without a shred of irony or cynicism. And if you don’t think that’s the most sentimental shit in all of Frankenstein lore, then I don’t know what to tell you.

9.) The Flesh Golem

Before even Christopher Lee, the first version of Frankenstein’s monster that I really loved was the one in the 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. Well, okay, it’s not actually Frankenstein’s monster; it’s just a ‘flesh golem’. But energized by electricity, afraid of fire, made of dead men cobbled together? Come on. My older cousin used to tell me that her idea for Frankenstein’s monster was that Frankenstein ran out of human parts, and had to resort to animal material to finish the creature. Frankenstein might have the nose of a pig, or the eyes of a horse; anything to finish the work. That idea never left me, and I thought of it every time I stared at the flesh golem, taking in the metal frame and oversized claw. I remember the first time I actually read the novel, I kept drifting back to that lanky, stitched-up construct with its monster parts and lop-sided face.

10.) The Prometheans

Another tabletop rpg rendition of Frankenstein’s monster, this was a whole game built around them. Promethean: The Created was the fourth of the New World of Darkness line or Chronicles of Darkness or whatever we call it these days. In it, players took on the role of artificially created beings, filled with supernatural energy, whose very presence twisted and corrupted the world around them. Normal humans can’t stand to look at them as a supernatural field makes them immediate targets of hatred, and they are hunted by their own twisted, monstrous bretheren who want to consume their divine power. And yet, for all that, it was a fundamentally optimistic game. Promethean marked a trend in the World of Darkness line that turned away from doom and gloom towards seeking salvation. The ultimate quest of the Prometheans is to gain their humanity, and their journey is about undertaking a pilgrimage to their ultimate realization. Promethean is about personal horror, and defining one’s own humanity.

[nuclearblastuk]

ENSLAVED | Ivar and Frode from Krakow dish the dirt on each other's bands

Black avantgarde Norwegians ENSLAVED recently toured across Europe and the United Kingdom alongside co-headliners High On Fire and support band KRAKOW. We caught up with Ivar from Enslaved and Frode from KRAKOW at the bands' sold out London show to see how the tour has gone and to find out who is willing to dish the dirt on each other's bands. Find out what happened, here: youtu.be/OFmLmVBHjgY 

Order ENSLAVED's latest album E here: nuclearblast.com/enslaved-e Order KRAKOW's latest album minus here: karismarecords.no/artists/krakow 

Formed in Bergen, Norway, in 1991, Enslaved had evolutionary zeal in their eyes from the start. Even as they emerged from the nascent Norwegian black metal scene of the early ‘90s, guitarist Ivar Bjørnson and vocalist/bassist Grutle Kjellson demonstrated a fervently idiosyncratic approach to making extreme music. By eschewing the wilful conservatism of their peers in favour of an outward-looking ethos, Enslaved’s reputation grew rapidly in the wake of extraordinary, epic albums like their primitive but insidious debut Vikingligr Veldi and its strident follow-up Frost (both 1994). By the late ‘90s, the band had morphed into a wildly progressive and adventurous beast, always retaining the core, aggressive tenets of their musical roots but increasingly in thrall to the limitless possibilities that music, in its entirety, truly presents. Widely acknowledged as a powerful and ferocious live band, Enslaved entered the 21st century by flexing new muscles on the acclaimed likes of 2003’s Below The Lights and its groundbreaking successor, Isa (2004). Now as much a part of the flourish progressive rock and metal realm as they were loyal servants of the extreme metal underground, Bergen’s finest hit a rich vein of form as the years passed, with albums as diverse and challenging as 2008’s Vertebrae and 2010’s Axioma Ethica Odini joyfully expanded the Enslaved musical universe, drawing in countless new acolytes along the way.   In 2015, Enslaved released their 13th studio album, In Times. A tour-de-force of hypnotic prog intensity and scabrous, blackened pomp, it exuded an air of completion and finality that led perfectly into 2016’s extravagant celebrations, as Enslaved marked their 25th anniversary with some truly life-changing shows that explored all shadows and hidden corners in the band’s colossal catalogue. In Times represented the end of an era and the opening of a gateway to somewhere entirely new.   Despite rarely pausing for breath – not just as a result of Enslaved’s hectic touring schedule, but also due to numerous extracurricular projects – the band somehow managed to piece together yet another full-length milestone in the shape of their 14th studio effort, the elegantly titled E. Written amid a burst of creativity, grabbed at the tail-end of the band’s 2016 US dates, the new album marks the majestic birth of a revitalised and newly inspired Enslaved. Against the logistical odds, a new dawn was coming.   An album full of revelatory moments, spine-tingling dynamics and exquisite but alien atmospheres, E showcases a refreshed Enslaved line-up via songs that take the band into unprecedented territory. From the grandiose, weather-beaten riff-scapes of 11-minute opener Storm Son to the wild, psychedelic frontier squall of Sacred Horse and the muscular, sax-powered shoegaze barrage of monstrous closer Hiindsiight, it is both a typically bold and fearless statement from this most inventive of modern metal bands and a thrilling sideways step that harnesses the spirit of old and sets it loose in a whirlwind of imagination. Conceptually, too, Enslaved are making giant forward strides. While past albums frequently focused on notions of individuality and isolation, E offers a transformative fresh perspective.   14 albums and 26 years into a career that shows no signs of losing neither momentum nor its magical, effervescent creative sheen, Enslaved are once again evolving before our ears and eyes. This time, however, even the sky is no limit. Stronger than ever and manifestly thrilled to be in such rude health, life in Enslaved has never been more rewarding. And the best is yet to come. 

KRAKOW was formed in Bergen, Norway in the fall of of 2005. The post metal collective received much praise and recognition for their special take on the genre with their second album diin, which was voted the 3rd best metal album of the year by Metal Hammer Norway in 2012. Their third album, amaran, saw the band develop their style even further. The band made a unique and atmospheric record that stands out against its competition. With this album, the band explored both the calmer side of their sound, as well as the more experimental and drone aspects. This makes amaran a highly varied album, filled with both dreamy soundscapes and sinister, harsh atmospheres. Following the laborious process of distilling two albums worth of material into one focused gem, the band then created their latest offering, minus. The pinnacle achievement of KRAKOW’s thirteen-year existence. After a year of recording, shaping, re-recording and refining, minus has been reduced to the bare essence of who KRAKOW are as individuals, as a group and as story tellers.  It's an album that defies any attempts at genre definition and covers the heavy, the subtle, the melodic, the atonal, the groovy, the sluggish, the dense, the airy, the naked and always, always, that wall of sound where no light can escape.  

With themes spanning from outer space to the hidden worlds deep below, travelling in time from the distant future to the near past like an inverted space odyssey, we are taken on a journey where “we all become stories”, in ways as much a reflection of the ones we tell, as a revelation of the ones we won’t.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 29/05/2021 (Eurovision, BTS, Olivia Rodrigo, Galantis/David Guetta/Little Mix, Anne-Marie & Niall Horan)

What better way to celebrate the end of a week in which I have been consistently ill and surprisingly busy? Sixteen new arrivals, of course! Shoot me, but first, congratulate Olivia Rodrigo for her second #1 as “good 4 u” gets the album boost to overthrow “Body” this week. I can safely say I think it’ll be there for a while. Let’s just start REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

Sixteen new arrivals and therefore, kind of a bloodbath. Why are there sixteen new arrivals? We’ll get to it. Other than six new arrivals from last week, we have a couple other drop-outs, the notable of which being those that spent five or more weeks in the UK Top 75 – which I cover – or those that peaked in the top 40. Therefore, those include, rather ironically on Olivia Rodrigo’s album week, former #1 “drivers license” (only dropping out because of a silly UK chart rule that only allows three songs per lead artist on the chart), as well as “Don’t Play” by Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals, “Another Love” by Tom Odell, “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK, “Heartbreak Anniversary” by Giveon, “Tonight” by Ghost Killer Track and D-Block Europe featuring OBOY and “Miss the Rage” by Trippie Redd and Playboi Carti. I’m not complaining about most of this, sorry, Giveon.

We have no returning entries – thankfully – so instead we can just focus on notable falls and climbers. I guess we’ll start with notable losses, songs that dropped five or more spots from their placement last week, and of course we do have a few of them at least as a result of, say it with me, sixteen new arrivals. The first few of these are all harsh drops because of ACR, which happened to coincide with the rest of the chaos, including “Little Bit of Love” by Tom Grennan at #24, “BED” by Joel Corry, David Guetta and RAYE at #25, “Friday” (Dopamine Re-Edit) by Riton and Nightcrawlers featuring Musafa & Hypeman at #26, “Peaches” by Justin Bieber featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon at #29 and “Let’s Go Home Together” by Ella Henderson and Tom Grennan at #33. We also have the losses for J. Cole staying surprisingly slim with “My Life” featuring 21 Savage and Morray at #27, “Pride is the Devil” featuring Lil Baby at #28 and “Amari” at #35. The rest are mostly just expected continuous fallers, like “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans and remixed by 220 KID and Billen Ted at #44, “Nice to Meet Ya” by Wes Nelson and Yxng Bane at #46, “Your Love (9PM)” by ATB, Topic and A7S at #50, “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)” by Fred again.. and the Blessed Madonna at #51, “Ferrari Horses” by D-Block Europe featuring RAYE at #53, “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals at #57, “Seeing Green” by Nicki Minaj, Drake and Lil Wayne at #58 off of the debut, “All You Ever Wanted” by Rag’n’Bone Man at #61, “Martin & Gina” by Polo G at #63, “Leave the Door Open” by Silk Sonic at #64, “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max at #65, Travis Scott’s remix of HVME’s remix of Travis Scott’s “Goosebumps” at #67, “Addicted” by Jorja Smith at #68, “Beautiful Mistakes” by Maroon 5 and Megan Thee Stallion at #70, “Sunshine (The Light)” by Fat Joe, DJ Khaled and Amorphous at #73, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi at #74 and finally “Believe Me” by Navos at #75. Phew.

Now what’s interesting is that we have nearly just as many gains, and they’re pretty unique, big surges in most cases, starting with “Cover Me in Sunshine” by P!nk and Willow Sage Heart at #52 thanks to the album boost that also prompted P!nk’s “All I Know So Far” to creep into the top 40 at #39, “Build a Bitch” by Bella Poarch at #32 off of the debut, “Starstruck” by Years & Years at #31 thanks to a bizarrely uncredited Kylie Minogue remix, “Little More Love” by AJ Tracey at #21, “Didn’t Know” by Tom Zanetti at #20, “Higher Power” by Coldplay at #19, “Black Hole” by Griff at #18, Majestic’s remix of Boney M.’s “Rasputin” at #16, “Good Without” by Mimi Webb soaring into the top 10 and hence becoming her first at #10, and Olivia Rodrigo getting her third thanks to the album boost as “deja vu” is at #4. I think that’s more than enough that needs to be said about music that was already on the chart last week, so welcome back to the part of this series where I get either increasingly frustrated or exhausted every time I have to list another song.

NEW ARRIVALS

#72 – “Life Goes On” – PS1 featuring Alex Hosking

Produced by PS1 and Mark Alston

So, what better way to start sixteen new arrivals? A generic piano-house club track, of course. PS1 is a New York DJ and for this track with a 90s-esque piano and synth melody, bassy drop and tight, bland percussion as well as oddly-mixed anonymous female vocals made to sound robotic regardless of genuine emotive performance, he’s enlisted Australian singer Alex Hosking as well as co-songwriting from hit-makers GOODBOYS, both of which make remarkably little difference to the fact that despite being a faux-inspirational club track, this song is incredibly joyless and flailing in as pathetic and one-note of a fashion as possible. Yes, that is one exhaustive sentence chugging on as long as possible, but there’s no better way to parallel this disposable garbage than that.

#71 – “What a Time” – Julia Michaels featuring Niall Horan

Produced by Ian Kirkpatrick and RKCB

Niall Horan coincidentally has two unrelated female-male duets debuting with him in this week. Thankfully, Julia Michaels only has the one track debuting, and for the love of God, I can’t even figure out why she has the one, as this is a track from a 2019 EP that flew massively under every radar except seemingly mine as whilst I have listened to this EP, I cannot remember for the life of me liking any of it besides “Anxiety”, which makes sense since Michaels is at best an uninteresting songwriter and at worst an insufferable vocal presence. Regardless, I’m going to assume the surge is due to TikTok or some kind of residual Niall Horan hype, whatever there is of that, and look at this song two years after the fact. Well, for what it’s worth, I appreciate the vaguely folkish guitar riff, even if it’s going to be drowned out immensely by Michaels’ approach to vocal takes, which is to put as little effort into that first take and then multi-track enough for it to sound listenable, particularly on that bizarrely unfitting chorus in which reminiscing on a wonderful, intimate time with your partner is demonstrated by rote piano chords, an awkward string swell and distant, reverb-drenched incoherency on the vocals. I guess I do like the switch in the final chorus as she changes “what a time” to “what a lie” to emphasise the bitterness of that break-up, but I don’t think that bitterness has to soak the entire master because this song is dripping in apathy that I just don’t have any time for personally in my pop power ballads. Wait, Niall Horan was on this song?

Eurovision Song Contest 2021

Whilst I may not do a special episode on this blog for the Eurovision Song Contest, I’d be lying if I didn’t confess to watching and enjoying it every year. This year’s, the first since 2019 for obvious reasons, was hosted in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and was won by an Italian rock band, with the United Kingdom infamously receiving zero points yet somehow more applause than Israel’s performance. Telling. It’s not all politics though, obviously: the reason songs win is not just the lighting, stage presence, vocal performance or grandiosity, but rather the songs themselves, or at least ostensibly so. The winner this year didn’t have the best of any of those factors in my opinion – no, not even the politics – so it’s clearly about a mixture of this success criteria. This year had some particularly good songs and the most consistency out of Eurovision in a while, naturally leading to quite a few new arrivals, also factored in by the charts being weak, so we essentially get an album bomb. Let’s pile up every new arrival related to Eurovision and talk somewhat more briefly about each song, starting with...

#66 – “Dark Side” – Blind Channel

Representing: FINLAND

The Finnish entry this year is one of two heavy rock entries, both of which charted, and this is a genre represented by about one country annually. There’s always a Gothic-influenced or industrial-esque band in the shortlist or national finals if not the semis and international final, but it doesn’t stop them from being some of the most interesting Eurovision contesters. It’s in English and came sixth with 301 points. Is it any good? Well, it’s far from bad with that pumping electronic groove before it’s crushed by metallic, distorted and rather ugly guitars that remind me of, if anything, scene-era nu metal and crunkcore, especially due to the clean and growling vocal dynamic. The song is still anthemic as all hell and if we ignore the dog barking and stuttering vocals, as well as the fact that these vocalists don’t have that much grit to their performance, we can appreciate the clamouring rock track this is, and I’d be lying if I said that final chorus isn’t pretty epic. Next!

#62 – “Voilá” – Barbara Pravi

Representing: FRANCE

The French entry this year is one my staunchly Italian nationalist online friend immediately had a distaste for, and as someone with British citizenship, I am also legally obliged to give this Worst of the Week. Sorry, Barbara but traditions are traditions. It’s in her native French and came second overall with 499 points. Is it any good? Well, like many French entries and French pop songs in general, it’s in a chanson style that adapts very well to the modern western art-pop sound, as Pravi’s cooing vocals are at full focus in the mix as they skate around more subtle pianos, wonderfully elegant strings and this wistful tone that may or may not make sense for the content. What? I’m not learning a word of French past what was grained into me during primary school. Overall, I think this is a pretty great song with a lot of that almost Bjork-esque swell especially in Pravi’s vocal performance that I think makes for a pretty excellent listen, especially by the time that abrupt finish hits. I’d probably prefer it being a bit less minimal and scattered so the hook hits harder but overall this is one of the best Eurovision entries this year. However, she is French so, next!

#59 – “SHUM” – Go_A

Representing: UKRAINE

The Ukrainian entry, always successful enough to get to the finals, was particularly hyped up prior due to its... eccentricity and ended up in fifth place with 364 points. It’s in their native Ukrainian so they might as well be garbling acid both verbally and as a written text, so I guess I have to judge it on the fact that this is pretty bonkers, with a charismatic and energetic vocal performance that yells over triumphant bassy horns perfectly blended with the 80s bass synths but not so much with those chirping flutes that, whilst cool on paper, kind of just give me a headache when faced against this thumping dance beat that remains decidedly strained for most of its runtime, and annoyingly so as it means the song never has that cathartic of a release, at least to me, but what drop it has ends up deconstructed and janky in something that might fit on PC Music but I’m not sure it does on Ukrainian Eurovision. This has something there, but I’m not into it. Sorry.

#47 – “Embers” – James Newman

REPRESENTING: United Kingdom

A catastrophic loss is British culture at Eurovision, and it’s not the first time in this century that we’ve gotten the infamous null points. James happens to be related to the more noteworthy John Newman, but that didn’t avoid a “nil points catastrophe”, coined by Jochan Embley, who reviewed the song for the Evening Standard and is now set in stone as an utter fool as his quote predicting that not to be the case this year is now forever preserved on the Wikipedia page for this very song. Nice one, Embley. We finished at twenty-sixth and Newman should honestly be glad this embarrassment is charting. The worst part of this whole ordeal is that the song’s actually fine and definitely representative of British pop music with its 90s-esque piano, bassy drop and anonymous vocal performance – if any of that sounds familiar – and I do love the plastic brass added here for the sake of bombast. It’s nothing interesting, and a tad too long considering how little it does with its musical premise, but it’s not worse than half of any given Eurovision. Maybe next year we submit a UK drill song, I’m sure that’ll get the people going. Tion Wayne, do you want to take a flight to Italy in 2022? Maybe bring Young Adz here while you’re at it; that could truly be a fascinatingly out of place Eurovision entry but at least one of these countries – probably Russia – would vote for it. As for now, at least this was funny to see absolutely bomb, and Graham Norton become increasingly hopeless for its success as the night went on.

#43 – “10 Years” – Daoi Freyr

REPRESENTING: Iceland

One part of this guy’s backing band tested positive for COVID-19 so they had to isolate and just show the dress rehearsal again but it didn’t stop them from charting and delivering a pretty damn unique entry, as Iceland is known for doing nowadays. It’s all in English and finished in fourth place with 378 points, and is it any good? Well, for one of the whitest concepts in television, this is the whitest song of this year’s entries, starting with some gentle violins before abruptly careening straight into this Daoi Freyr guy monotonously droning over bass-heavy nu-disco straight out of the 2000s with a level of irony balancing out whatever sincerity there is in the quasi-R&B breakdown, and, you know, it’s fun, at least? I do think the stage performance is remarkably more interesting than this funktronica mess in the studio, but this is catchy and inoffensive, two good ways to get people to care about your song in Eurovision, so it makes sense. Also,  that chiptune synth-solo borderline saves this song, even in all its brevity.

#17 – “ZITTI E BUONI” – Maneskin

REPRESENTING: Italy

So third place didn’t chart – sorry, Switzerland – but we do obviously get the winner charting as high as the top 20. The chart’s weak and the lead singer’s hot and probably does cocaine – it’s a recipe for success, especially when they probably have mafia connections and can threaten or buy their way into the charts. Unrealistic and possibly xenophobic stereotypes aside, this is the Italian entry and whilst I was personally gunning for Portugal, who came twelfth, I can see how this gathered 524 points, even if they had to censor the lyrics for the sake of the contest, not that I can tell because I do not know a lick of Italian. Sorry, Ignacio. Anyway, this song kicks ass and rather disrespectfully at that, as the lead singer breathily sings over garage rock-esque guitar licks and some pretty manic drumming that delivers not only a catchy hook but an undeniable groove, assisted by some slick rapping that comes out of the blue in the second verse and honestly fits the song – and the singer – a lot better than it has any right to. Congratulations, Italy – you’ll be paying out the ass for the next contest. Ciao!

Back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Well, that got a lot out of the way. Not all of it, though.

#60 – “Topshottas Freestyle” – Potter Payper

Produced by Chucks

Potter Payper is basically some guy from Barking, East London, and that’s all you need to sign a record deal with the same label that has Stormzy on payroll so that’s why he’s here. With that said, there’s something deeper here, or at least in the first few lines of this singular verse – without a chorus – in which Potter Payper narrates a street lifestyle, far too common for young working-class British men, retelling what is probably his truth about the consequences of ignoring motherly advices and finding yourself in a situation surrounded by gang violence, drug trafficking and all the paranoia that comes with it. Of course, he then brags about his wordplay, gunplay and fashion, and the rest of the verse just feels aimless with nothing exactly restraining the meandering checklist of clichés, and zilch returning it back to what I thought was going to be the point of the song. I guess this trap beat is okay but this same acoustic guitar and oddly-mastered bass is so common and uninteresting that I find it hard to care. I don’t have an issue with British music being Americanised as that’s just the result of musical evolution and the sharing of culture, but when the only way you can tell this isn’t from the States is the accent does make me question why this is charting amongst Dave and AJ Tracey instead of Lil Baby and Gunna.

#56 – “GANG GANG” – Polo G and Lil Wayne

Produced by Angelo Ferraro

Polo G, after just having the biggest hit of his career with the US #1 hit “RAPSTAR”, follows it up with a Lil Wayne collaboration and thanks to a busy and just misguided release date and timing, it makes a lot less noise than it should. It absolutely deserves that level of attention too, with its chopped-up borderline ambient melody that creates  a perfect foundation for this high-energy bass-heavy trap beat as well as Polo G delivering a lot more energy than on “RAPSTAR” (to the point where I think that’s the reason why his actually interesting songs don’t do as well). The chorus has a pretty great melodic switch-up by the end and whilst the flows are pretty rote, it’s hard to say they aren’t smoothly delivering all of the flexing and gunplay pretty typical of Polo G, and if anything that’s what it’s missing: an extra layer of depth, not that I care of course, because Lil Wayne’s on it. Wayne has been astonishingly great on features recently and this is one of his most impressive features to the point where I could barely write about it on first listen, with some of his slickest flow switches ever and whilst the content doesn’t get any more interesting than pouring his heart out for his lean, his pure charisma outshines anyone who could have been on this track and this means this ends up pretty excellent in terms of 2020s trap-rap. I don’t know when that Polo G album is coming but I hope it has more of this. Also, for the love of God, Wayne, keep this energy up for the next album. I’m begging you.

#42 – “SUN GOES DOWN” – Lil Nas X

Produced by Roy Lenzo, Omar Fedi and Take a Daytrip

As his follow up to “MONTERO”, we have a new, decidedly less sexual Lil Nas X hit debuting again surprisingly low on the chart considering the last single’s success, finally delivering in the musical department as for me, there’s a constant conflict between wanting to like Lil Nas as a character, performer and personality rather than actually enjoying any of the guy’s music. Last time I talked about Lil Nas, I did bring up the Pitchfork album review that questioned if he really liked music and whilst it’s funny, I do see how Lil Nas could have perhaps taken Pitchfork to heart as a result as he practically explains his love of popular music as a way for him to feel like he belonged in a community, which is especially meaningful for a man constantly left alienated because of his own mental health issues as a teenager and struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality, to the point of suicidal thoughts. I just love how the verse ends on a happy note where makes the leap of faith to come out and how now he’s proud of himself, he wants to make sure his fans are proud of him since they’re the people who got him there. For me, those last lines recontextualise the chorus as becoming less about contemplating death but more about ascending to a happier place and rejecting all your struggles that you’ve overcome. It helps that this is all sang pretty soulfully over an almost emo guitar melody with some basic flows but gorgeous multi-tracked vocal melodies accentuated by strings that elevate this song even higher, even if it seems underdeveloped. Sure, it doesn’t have that second verse, but does a victory lap need a re-over?

#38 – “Mask” – Dream

Produced by Perish Beats and Banrisk

Nope.

#22 – “Our Song” – Anne-Marie and Niall Horan

Produced by TMS

Okay, so this is a duet where two ex-lovers – only in the song – attempt to get over each other but end up hearing a song they held special to their relationship and all of the memories and pain comes flooding back. Without the youthful exuberance of Taylor Swift’s song of the same name, this duet should carry some bitterness and resentment but mostly capture a hesitant nostalgia... and despite being oddly Niall Horan-dominated, I guess it does that pretty effectively, or at least would if Niall wasn’t crushed by a misshapen trap beat that drowns this pathetically fluttering guitar loop into a mush that not even Anne-Marie can over-sell. Everything here is so utterly basic that it kind of screws itself over by trying for any energy or passion, and therefore kind of just doesn’t. I’m glad.

#9 – “Heartbreak Anthem” – Galantis, David Guetta and Little Mix

Produced by Bloodshy, Henrik Jonback, David Saint Fleur, Thom Bridges, David Guetta, Mike Hawkins, SONDR and Johnny Goldstein

It really speaks to the power of Little Mix that even with only three members and only one of them not expecting a child, they can bring Galantis back of all people. Although given that Galantis is already a duo, I fail to see why David Guetta needs to be here, and the same can go for any of the other seven credited producers of this song, which actually only includes one half of Galantis! I question if a song ever needs that many, despite the fact that in reality they probably contributed zilch to the song each, just enough to get a pay check. None of that should matter, however, if the song isn’t good and I’ll admit this is far from the worst that any of these guys have delivered, with a string melody and swell not unlike 2015-era house Galantis themselves made, and vocal deliveries from the girls that sound like they were located in vastly different locations from each other (to the point where anyone harmonising with Perrie sounds really awkward regardless of how many vocal manipulation effects you can put on them). For seven producers, that’s inexcusable, but as a song, it’s just a shallow post-break-up song that kind of feels like a dig towards Jesy if anything (although I hope it isn’t). I’m not a fan – I never was going to be – but it works for what it is as this colourful house jam, and not much else. This is Galantis’ first top 10 since 2016, by the way. Yeah, Little Mix are that big.

#7 – “traitor” – Olivia Rodrigo

Produced by Dan Nigro

It couldn’t have been “brutal”? Or “hope ur ok”? Okay, well, if we’re going to have the dullest track on the album bar one I guess we’ll go with the one that follows the “drivers license” formula to a T but without as much passion in the vocals, without as much interesting songwriting quirks and with a whole lot of rote fluff removed far from any indie-girl influence that undercuts what is essentially a teen-pop product. I’m not going to pretend I cannot get caught up in melodrama and embrace that, but this is a slog of a ballad with an almost sing-song, condescending vocal melody in that chorus, multi-tracked and studio-produced to rid her of any of that natural rasp she has when singing live. The song is about being annoyed by an ex finding someone new and the more toxic thoughts that come with being the ex-girlfriend in that situation, but with decidedly low stakes this time around that just make her more unlikeable than relatable. I’m sorry, I didn’t think that album was half-bad at all, but please don’t make this the post-release hit.

#3 – “Butter” – BTS

Produced by Ron Perry, Rob Grimaldi and Stephen Kirk

See, I value my personal information, and I don’t know about you but I’m as scared of these guys as I am Nicki Minaj stans, or Minecraft YouTuber stans, or serial killers, so whilst I doubt my platform is extensive enough to reach that level, I also know that these people are so online that they could easily find me somehow somewhere. With that said, just to clarify, when I say I wish I could “Nope” myself out of this one like I did with Dream because I have consistently little to say about this band, it’s not because I in any way dislike BTS or the band members within, or their record label that manages them and many other K-pop bands which I also do not dislike, or, because I’ve seen this happen, East Asians in general. Is that enough stalling to just say I don’t care about this basic pop fluff? When BTS are in Korean, their lyrics aren’t embarrassing and their production tends to be more experimental or at least catchier, more interesting. I like a fair few Korean BTS songs as a result but I just do not see the appeal in making another stiff, cleanly-produced 80s-esque funk-pop song with some chiptune synths that are admittedly kinda cool other than getting on US radio. There’s some interplay between the boys here but it just leads to a pretty homogenised track where none of them have enough personality to shine through, not even SUGA and RM on the tacked-on rap verse that so awkwardly ends. The synth solo sounds perfectly out of an era of dated 80s synths that I’m not sure anyone other than Bruno Mars actually had nostalgia for, and not even some pretty vocoder can save it. The writing is too clumsy, the production’s not equipped to handle it and there’s not much to speak of in terms of performance. I fear for my life when I say it but I think this is actually pretty bad.

Conclusion

Okay, so, we’re finally finished with this week and God, I’m glad, as there’s not that much quality here to speak of, although what is here is here in droves, so Best of the Week gladly goes to Polo G and Lil Wayne for “GANG GANG”, with “Sun Goes Down” by Lil Nas X following closely behind as an Honourable Mention. In terms of Worst of the Week, it doesn’t actually go to they who shall not or he who should not be named, instead going to the pathetic “Your Song” by Anne-Marie and Niall Horan, with a Dishonourable Mention going to BTS for “Butter”. It’s just “Dynamite” again but with considerably less reason to exist. Here’s this week’s top 10:

If I make it to next week, who knows what’s coming? This is a slower week – hopefully – and I don’t think black midi will chart, though it’d be comical, so I’ll hold off on predictions and just thank you for reading. See you next week!

[textsacc]

prompt: //

her curls fell into place when ren unbundled her hair. they unfurled like sunbeams on a summer's day; loose, tangled and golden, messy and wavy and volumous. only an artificial creation could have be so grandiose, so majestic, so perfect. every second ren focused her eyes off day's face was another she'd trace a new lock from midpoint to its end, heart pounding at the forefront of her throat.

all she wanted to do was find her hands lost in her mane, fingers sorting through the organized chaos, the unbelievable beast ren knew she wasn't going to be able to tame.

and that staggered breath she let out was only in response to the nuzzle that her other gifted her, hand pressed on one side of day's cheek. the gemini dipped her sights downwards if only to press her lips against ren's palms, and the woman couldn't help but relinquish the two sticks holding day's ponytail up from earlier away into cardinal's void.

ren was silent. she needed to be silent. she could only be silent, she decided, feeling that sledgehammer pound against the cavity in between her ribs, feeling like she was wanting to break. to fall apart instantly, in desperate intimacy with a dream come true, her hands carressed by the most delicate individual she'd known all her life and somehow yet still found a stranger, still all but a fragmentation to her mind and to her memory.

and then there was day still sitting here and kissing her hand like it was nothing to her. nothing to either of them that she played the part of a beloved soul, a kindly housewife, to serve her player only the best of what aincrad had to offer. she could've melted, getting lost in the tidepools of her eyes; lynn's eyes. could've found herself sinking, further. not into the watery depths but into day's arms, to wrap herself against a body she knew to be foreign and yet coveted for a lifetime, believing it to be hers. to share that secret in her, right between her ribs, that awesome thumping she'd wanted to wrest out, heart bleeding in her hands shoved into day's face. 'look at it', she'd demand, 'look at what you've done to me. is this what you wanted?'

she tasted that sip of her metal tang the moment day's eyes flicked back to meet hers, lips pressing downwards, following ren's hand noticing the player go stoic. a flush, a hastening of breaths; rens tells were always so simple, so obvious, she didn't need to wrangle her heart out of it was always worn on her sleeve. she daren't have broken eye contact with her predator, that fiend, as she felt her plush kisses meet her wrists, ren's fingers curling up and paln flexing backwards almost as though to offer it to her woman in need. she swallowed back a gulp, too, as day's tongue found a need to trace out the vein lines on her hand. fuck, she was in need just as much too.

one set of day's fingers were gripping ren's arm; tight, but not enough to restrain, only to stablize the amount of force she was exerting onto the player's form. the other slid past ren's forearm, pushing that tracksuit sleeve, a familiar shell, backwards in a roll. the feeling of cardinal's heat upon her own was cozy, to say the least. even if ren wanted to resist, she'd needed to break her silence; she couldn't break her silence, she had already decided from earlier. and so she let herself grow weak to her dopple waxing poetry on her limbs.