I’m supposed to be drafting a new book right now this second so it is definitely time for a newsletter to procrastinate!
Because I’m supposed to be drafting a new book, this round’s playlist is definitely…. new book themed. You can infer what you will of that.
I don’t really have an insightful intro for this newsletter. I’m plodding away at a book that’s too smart for me to write and in full survival mode at the day job and my anxiety is Up To Here. Playing a lot of video games. Finally reading books. It is what it is. Last week (the week before?) I was watching a friend’s cat while they were on vacation which meant I walked the two miles to their house and sat on the floor petting the cat before walking two miles back and Ohio weather is still in that weird between stage where sometimes it feels like fall and the second you step out of the shade it feels like summer still. I ended up listening to both Piranesi by Susannah Clarke and The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher (both excellent) so that was nice.
As usual, if you just want the playlist without the editorial, here it is:
If I Could by Madder Mortem
I am hush hush about new book currently but a few things I can say about it is that I first got the idea for it in 2015 and it was the project I poked at when Wicked Saints was on submission. I don’t always have Singular Songs for projects, but this song has always been The Song for this book in particular. Which is… ominous, I suppose, but to be expected from me, to be fair.
And I've spent too many hours diving back down in the mud
to find some meaning in a madness that I never understood
I am tracing, step by step, the rot and where it first took hold,
back through the promises you've broken and the lies you must have told 'Cause something must have chased all the softness from your face Turned your eyes into a visor, pushed that hard mouth into place
Some doors, when they've been closed, will not open for a grin
There's no one on the outside
And there's no way back in
I'm so sorry
This will not turn out as it should
I'm so sorry
And I would change it if I could
:)
Truly the chorus of this song is one that elicits an Whole Emotional Response from me I just love it so much.
Madder Mortem is one of my favorite bands because Agente has such! an! interesting! voice! And all of Madder Mortem’s music has a particular atmosphere with their fascinating blend of doomy prog. They were a band I discovered through other metal friends a good ten years ago but also through this particular animated music video:
Ten years ago this was too groovy for me but I have matured into groovy prog metal. But Madder Mortem also tend to be my go to when I want… culty music. Can I explain this? Barely. It’s just… a Vibe in the music, I guess? The drone in Cold Stone (starts about 3:30 in) is so extremely good and something I reach for a lot.
Outlands by Sunnata
Speaking of drone!! (It’s an technical term and tends to go hand in hand with doom metal. It’s the slow moving, groove-type metal that, well, i-it. it drones. Bit self-explanatory, I suppose)
I love a cosmic horror album. I love a band from Poland. I love a cosmic horror album from a band from Poland (there are actually? So many cosmic horror tinged metal bands? Ultar from Russia is a fave, personally.) This whole song flows in a kind of mindless background drone but what I really love is at the very end (starts at 6:30), just, the monotone slightly off-kilter singing is very chef’s kiss for me.
Stay by Seven Spires
This is not a New Book song but this is a Blessed Monsters song. My brain does this thing where it Latches onto a song long before I understand why and, my god, my brain Latched onto this song as a Malachiasz song when I was writing Ruthless Gods and I could not for the life of my figure out why because none of the lyrics seemed to match up to anything at all.
Then I… wrote Blessed Monsters.
Did the song influence some of the choices I made because it was already in my brain as a ‘Malachiasz Song, Thanks’ or was I already leaning in those directions and I just didn’t realize it yet? I sure don’t know because I know extremely little of my own writing process.
Also if this makes you nervous about Blessed Monsters, well, I mean, it’s a Malachiasz Song, sure but I did not say it was, like, a POV song, you know? Different vibes.
Aside from all that, my god, my god, I love Seven Spires. I love love love Adrienne Cowen’s vocal style and how it’s oh so slightly black metal tinged while singing symphonic power metal. Incredible. Their second album is amazing but it’s a concept album about The Sea so I didn’t latch onto it quite like I did this album which is about…… demons……
“Hey emily, were you finally going to get to see Seven Spires this year?”
[I stare, dead eyed, out into the middle distance]
I sure was.
I sure was.
Dancing in the Ashes by Wormwitch
I think a reason I love black metal so much is because it’s just so… vast in what it encompasses? I always have a difficult time when someone who does not listen to metal asks me what black metal… is. Because I mean, sure, it’s what you’re thinking it sounds like. If you listened to any of the bands mentioned in the article about the origins of black metal, then, yes, all that. But it’s also… this? Which leans, i think, post-black metal (no, please i cannot explain the difference between [genre] and [post][genre] but i always know it when i hear it?? I can listen to two bands and tell you which is probably hardcore and which is post-hardcore but i don’t know if i could…. tell you why? i know there is a reason for these genre tags i know it i just do not hold that knowledge in my brain.)
Anyway this song is just so PRETTY.
Also yes I do buy any metal album on bandcamp with a Waterhouse cover. It’s a method that has not yet failed me.
The Sound of Hunger Rises by Xanthochroid
Black metal is also this. I love this band. I am a sucker for concept albums based on second world fantasies that the band has come up with themselves. Also this band’s harsh vocalist is one of my favorites.
You get a lot of the “I love Tolkien so DAMN MUCH” kinds of types in black metal. A lot of one man black metal bands that make music exclusively about Tolkien’s works (I do know how this sounds, yes, but I mean Summoning is rad.) But I highly recommend listening to both of Xanthochroid’s concept albums for Big Second World Fantasy Feelings.
Libera, Pt. I: Saturnine Spheres by Ne Obliviscaris
To be honest, the fact that they did not make an appearance on the inaugural newsletter is shocking seeing as how I would die for them.
I am going to tell a long story now.
It was… god, 2017, I think. I had moved into an apartment by myself a year prior but hadn’t quite gotten myself to the point where I was going to concerts alone. Before I would always take my extremely gracious roommate who wasn’t always necessarily into the music but went with me because I asked. Now I was living alone, everyone I knew that liked the same music as me existed solely on the internet, and going to concerts alone is, honestly, kind of a scary prospect? But I love going to show so so much and I was bopping around youtube and got a rec for this video and, being the supremely shallow individual I am, thought ‘lordy that man is attractive’ and clicked on it and, like, immediately fell in love with the music. Instantaneously. Discovered they had been in Cleveland like a handful of months prior and MOURNED only to discover they were touring North America again (which, they’re Australian so, wild.) and would be in Cleveland again.
At a venue I’d never been to.
And I would have to go alone.
But by that point I was in love and knew that I would regret it forever if I didn’t go. So I put on my bestest boots and prayed to the Parking Gods and set off for Cleveland.
(the Parking Gods did answer my prayers)
It was a tiny venue, which, love a tiny venue. I was merely a void person alone and thus was able to squirm my way right up to the front and ended up in what stood for the photographer’s nook at the venue. (The photographer was extremely chill about this and would pause and show me his pictures and it was just very wholesome all around).
Ya’ll if I had not gone to this show I wouldn’t have known what I missed but the only way I was able to describe it after was akin to a religious experience.
I love this band so much. The guys seem like a genuinely good, chill group o’ dudes and the shows they put on are just. Fucking spectacular. They have such incredible energy on the stage it was like nothing I had ever seen before.
I have another concert story with them but I will save it for a future newsletter. I love this band so much. I love that they were my nudge to just go to concerts by myself and now I will willingly drive to other states alone for concerts. It’s such a good and relaxing thing to do alone, truly. Metal fans are overwhelmingly chill as a group and I have never once had an issue.
Ding by Feuerschwanz
I really just want to talk about 1. this music video:
Everyone is having so much fun and also I love a music video that appears to be trying to be male gaze-y but has. just. profoundly failed. it has failed so hard. i love metal because it frequently fails at this. every queer femme metal fan i know loves this video. they got us.
2. giving Melissa Bonny the line “you wanna tell my wife?” and
3. the fact that it is a cover of a German hip hop song with the scariest music video of all time.
YES stop motion animals are one of my irrational fears but also WHY are their EYES GLOWING LIKE THAT.
The Fool by Fleshgod Apocalypse
I know I had Fleshgod Apocalypse in my last newsletter, yes, however comma this song too?
I spent YEARS not listening to Fleshgod Apocalypse because I JUDGED THEM BY THEIR NAME (and for some reason thought they were metalcore? i’m not sure why in hindsight) and this was the first song I heard by them and it knocked me FLAT on my FACE.
Also, this song is an example of how good one really well placed ‘fuck’ can be.
But the HARPSICHORD. the CHORUS.
A lot of metal bands these days include instrumental tracks of their albums as a bonus, which is super fun, but truly FA’s are the only one’s I actually listen to because goddddd the layers of instrumentation in these songs are incredible.
The Roots of the Mountain by Enslaved
In 2018 the Decibel Magazine tour had an absolutely mind boggling line up of Enslaved, Myrkur, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Khemmis. I, being someone who got into black metal via gentler means, was absolutely in it for Mykur and Wolves in the Throne Room but I ended up walking away loving every single band deeply. (God Khemmis is… so good.)
It was at a venue that I had never been to, and as I was wandering Cleveland trying to find it I met a couple from out of state and we ended up hanging out the whole evening (truly! metal fans! so chill! I will say this has been the only time I have ever spoken/had someone speak to me at a show. It was a wonderful experience but one that really doesn’t happen). I remember the guy mentioning how vital it was to catch all of the early extreme and black metal bands when they tour because a lot of them were starting to call it off, and Enslaved was one of those bands. Around since 1991 and still making incredible music. I admit! I had not really listened to them! And I couldn’t tell you the setlist they played because I was unfamiliar but damn this song struck me.
Also Wolves in the Throne room burned incense before they came on stage and YES Myrkur WAS fucking incredible. It was a spectacular night.
But also, Enslaved just released a new album! You should check it out!
Die Nänie by Folterkammer
A bandcamp find! Also, I am so sorry, this album doesn’t come out until December. If you are like me you will fall instantly in love with this song that is merging black metal and opera and there are only two songs out now.
I, personally, love whatever is happening with black metal now in the mixing of orthodox music with metal to make a Statement About Religion. Batushka is a favorite example in merging Russian Orthodox chants to black metal. The fact that the band had a literal schism is just…. c-coincidence, I swear. (I thought it was a bit when the news first came out, but no, no, they—they literally had a schism.)
Anyway I am extremely excited to hear what the rest of Folterkammer’s album sounds like. I bought the vinyl about 15 seconds into this song.
The Grace of the Dark by Deathwhite
Deathwhite is a Pittsburgh band, just continuing to really cement my sadness about the fact that 2020 was going to be the year I drove over to Pittsburgh for smaller venue shows and… now…
They’re one of my few really confident recs for what you should listen to if you like Katatonia (new Katatonia to be sure, I, personally, am a new Katatonia fan). They have a similar smooth melodiousness to them.
Also. that voice.
And that is the playlist this time around! It made the most aesthetically pleasing cover on spotify, it’s really lovely.
The books I’m currently reading don’t have covers yet, so no pretty images for this section, but I’m reading What We Devour by Linsey Miller (magic contracts and TERRIBLE NERDS) and All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman (what if the hunger games was about magic and EXTREMELY GOTH??????) and you should do yourself a favor and preorder those (when able, i’m not sure the preorders for All of Us Villains is up yet).
If you dug this you can leave a ko-fi (and i’ll uhhhhh figure out how to collect those s-sorry to those who sent me some coffee dollars and then i just. did not receive them. i’m a disaster. you’re all so appreciated.)
Or, even better, you can buy one of my books:
Wicked Saints // Ruthless Gods // Blessed Monsters (preorder)