Top 5 Records - VoS-related Metal-Adjacent: Pyrrhon - Exhaust | Willowtip Records | 06-09-24 — Tragedy + time = anger ≈ spice—in a resentful urban world burning with an eternal flame.
convulsing - perdurance | Independent | 01-03-24 — Raw emotion meets meticulous detail in a deep cauldron of self-reflection and dizzying ingenuity.
Henrik Palm - Nerd Icon | Svart Records | 19-04-24 — The sardonic party that never lets off the gas brought to earth by an alien life form.
Wędrowcy~tułacze~zbiegi - Droga Do Domu | 19-12-24 | Devoted Art Propaganda — The road home that twists harder than a whirling dervish at a meth discotheque.
Replicant - Infinite Mortality | 12-04-24 | Transcending Obscurity Records — Four men trying to wield chaos energy while power-lifting and spin-kicking drugged up zombies at a Hazlet Wawa.
Thunraz - Incineration Day | 22-11-24 | Independent — A cold obsidian night set to the march of mechanic boots and manic grooves.
Non-Metal Adjacent
Dabney Morris - Sometimes I Think About Dying (Original Score) | 26-01-24 | Oscilloscope — If death was a dream we had to continuously wake up from—kept warm by the illuminated bulbs of heavenly harps and the clamour of life’s dubious annoyances.
Nala Sinephro - Endlessness | 06-09-24 | Warp Records — Floating in a space far above the earth’s stratosphere on a cloud made of stardust and forgotten memory.
Tony Levin - Bringing It Down to the Bass | 13-09-24 | Flatiron Recordings — What if the bass was a sword, a mace, a machine gun, a petal of a lilac, a sunbeam, a chuckle, a roar, a whisper of a Duesenberg SJ coupe? Yes.
Thee Marloes - Perak | 09-08-24 | Big Crown Records — Silver tipped roller-skates hover around the carhop shoreline in the Surabaya Galaxy as the moon in the sunglasses melts like butter.
Ava Rasti - The River | 06-12-24 | FatCat Records — Drowning in a sea of tears as the tributaries carry the sorrow of a hundred thousand souls to their empyrean resting place.
Straw Man Army - Earthworks | 15-11-24 | D4MT Labs Inc — The bite of a dog on fire who’s corrosive fangs are dripping with the blood and kerosene of poets and charlatans alike.
Favorite Concert 2024
Altars, Artificial Brain [Trans-Pecos, 21-05-24] “This is a human? Dan is a machine…!”.
Favorite 2024 Theater Movies
Anora Sean Baker explores a community close to my heart, which yields both tragic and hilarious results.
Juror #2 Eastwood says goodbye with a heartbreaking morality tale that keeps you gripping the seat until the very last shot.
Blink Twice Kravitz’ directorial debut is bound to roll many eyes as art imitating life—imitating art piece, but hold the doubt until this Get-Out-Don’t-Worry-Darling-Parasite-esque fable makes you imagine what happens in the corporal simulation.
Favorite 2024 TV Shows
Bodkin Generally very weary and dismissive of the Big Red NX Shows as they tend to be formulaic and empty—but Bodkin impressed with a gritty and slick style that held attention and demanded some Shane Black-level laughs.
Shrinking Late to this party, but plenty of cheers and tears.
Favorite 2024 Book
Precious Metal - Darcy Van Poelgeest, Matt Hollingsworth, Ian Bertram | 05-06-24 Gorgeous, brutal and deep from the Eisner award-winning team that brought you Little Bird.
