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Truck North: Feast of Violence

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Truck North: Feast of Violence   Truck North’s fourth—yes,  fourth —release of 2022,  Feast of Violence  is a labyrinthine work of art.  His previous LP,  Where the Wolf Lives , was among other things a long-form meditation on laboring in obscurity despite being a master of his medium, like El Greco, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh.  On “The Asimov Cascade” he warns us that  Where the Wolf Lives  is “a work of art sculpted from the clay like I’m Rodin, the gates of hell for The Thinker who ain’t worked out his plan.”  On  Feast of Violence , Truck North, a master technician, must be headed to paradise because he has most definitely worked out his plan.     “Wrong Way Traffic” starts with a sample advising that this is “the type of music that needs a little concentrated listening, and I would request you to have a little patience. I know you are very impatient to hear your favorite stars, who will be in the second part, but we are trying to set the music to this special event.”  This sample per
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Review: "ocahaen" by ænorex

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This new ænorex release is outstanding.  All six tracks are detailed compositions driven by shifting moods and complex arrangements that, while they remain distinctly goth metal, have an orchestral or epic feel to them.  If you’re the type of person who needs a comparison, I’d say it’s something like  One Second -era Paradise Lost crossed with  Eclipse -era Amorphis.  The opener, title track “ocahaen,” is a pensive piece with a lot of space in it, that starts with a sedate, ride-heavy drum pattern that is almost like John Densmore’s work on “The End” or “When the Music’s Over.”  It develops a simple piano riff and shows off each facet of the riff by changing the music that underlies it, and precedes and succeeds it – and the changes are legion so even though it clocks in at 8:45 it is not too long.  “contemplations (on the many benefits of cosmic nonexistence)” is probably my favorite track here, and maybe my favorite ænorex track period.  It is based around the repetition of samples f
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Influence in Unpleasantness: Ghost Stories for the Depressed

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When I talk to people about my book , or listen to them talk to me, there are certain issues that come up again and again.  Sometimes they are more obvious, like Why did you choose such a peculiar title? or Why isn’t there a ghost in the titular story? or What exactly is a ghost story for the depressed?   Those are reasonable questions, but I think it’s more interesting to discuss some of the even more questionable choices I’ve made, especially as it relates to influence – where some of these questionable choices came from.     The story that I’m closest to in this collection is the story that’s been around the longest, “Goodbye, Ghost of Columbus.”  I wrote the very earliest version of this story in the summer and fall of 2007.  I had just spent two years reading ghost stories on-and-off and thought I would write a satire that would send them all up.  It’s a pompous idea and I’m justifiably ashamed of it.  Though I’ve grown up some since then, the narrator of the final version retai
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