I don't know if you're into the slower stuff, but the best discovery I made this month was Shape of Despair's 2015 album Monotony Fields. It's now my favorite funeral doom (or whatever it counts as) album. "The Blank Journey" and "The Distant Dream of Life" are just stunning.
Gosh, I love this album. I have fond memories of listening to this on repeat while reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales for the first time. A pretty great pairing.
Listening again now, the beginning of "Norway" still takes my breath away. Heck, just thinking about that song gives me tingles.
Uh... I don't mean to alarm you, but you might want to get an avatar, or cp will go berserk. I know you're just a spambot, but that doesn't mean he's going to let you off the hook.
Other than that, I totally get what you're saying. Makes perfect sense. Welcome to the team.
As soon as I finished it I thought "Spud's gonna love this!" For me, Burial Shrouds is still the one that best balances the heavy with the atmospheric. But I'm not averse to artists changing it up from album to album, and I think this one will grow on me.
A little off topic, but I just got a 3am email alerting me that the new Sivyj Yar is out now. A week earlier than expected! I don't know if it's because I preordered or what, but I'm streaming it on bandcamp now.
One of my all-time favorites. Saw Parasite tonight and loved it too. But Memories of Murder is still my favorite Bong Joon Ho film (of the now two that I've seen).
If I want to look for older coverage of a band on stereogum, I often have to google "[band name] Stereogum". Did this the other day when I wanted to see if King Woman had ever been covered here, and the top result I got was page 69 (lol!) of lobster's comment history.
Yeah, "Disorder" is my favorite of the bunch. The last part of the album kind of just washed over me, at least until that sweet wall of noise in "Transcience III" got my attention.
Think I still prefer Stars Wept to the Sea and Mosaic I, but it's cool to hear him move into darker territory on this one.
Dionna! There you are! What do you think about the Sylvaine / Unreqvited split? I'm not going to click on your link, but we can still be pals.
(I would like to record for posterity that I am replying to a spambot. If the spam gets deleted and my comment is subsequently left floating on its own, try not to be baffled.)
Ooh, I'm here, late as always! 👋😊
On first listen the Sylvaine split wasn't quite as heavy as I was hoping for. Definitely beautiful thought. Gonna give it another run-through, without preconceptions this time.
That Elvis cover is neat and unexpected! I say that as someone with no opinion on Elvis.
Yeah, I was kicking myself for leaving Remete off my 2019 list. I have now listened to (and am slowly working towards purchasing) all of D's projects on bandcamp. Love it all.
As the Stars has quickly ascended to my favorite metal album, and I have a feeling it will be my main winter album for years to come. It was just a matter of getting into the rough production, but now I crave that (other) WoD sound.
Great write-up. Glad to see a Maura Johnston article on the 'Gum. Old-school Idolator was one of my favorite sites, and helped develop my poptimism out of its larval phase.
For me, the journey involved looking it up on Metal Archives to find the album title, and then Googling that. (Thanks for the tip, might've flown under my radar otherwise.)
Then I pre-ordered using my mom's card cuz I'm out of money.
My copy of Dayal Patterson's Black Metal arrived the day after x-mas. Currently on chapter 17. Thrilling stuff! I've only listened to a few of the artists covered so far in the book. Liked Venom's Black Metal and Beherit's Drawing Down the Moon the most.
Can't think of much else to say. Looking forward to Karg, Fluisteraars, Turia, and Sylvaine/Unreqvited releases next year. Happy new year, everyone! I love this column.
My family has selected this as the movie we'll be seeing on Christmas day. I'm glad to hear there are some things that just can't be smoothed out. Hoping for a shit-show.
Oh, I've seen The Big Chill! Pretty recently, too, along with Agnes of God, another Meg Tilly movie. Victoria Lucas, who hosts Hollywood at Home on PBS (might just be an Arizona Public Media thing) must be a Meg Tilly fan.
Ooh, nice! I listened to You Take Nothing for the first time a couple weeks ago, definitely need to return to that. And I liked their split with Thou.
Also, oh no, I'm gonna end up buying another cassette aren't I?
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