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St Javelin
“Let the woman be girt with a sword before me: let blood flow to my name.”— Chapter III Verse 11 in Liber AL vel Legis, Book of the Law
https://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib220#iii.11
#meme #SaintJavelin #StJavelin #LetTheWomanBeGirtWithASword #GirtWithASword #BookOfTheLaw #thelema #Aleister Crowley
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Stuck in the Filter: February 2025’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
February comes down the pipe about two or three months after February. A perfectly normal thing to experience here at AMG HQ, this Filter’s tardiness is brought to you in part by my body getting stuck in one of the tighter conduits that lines the concrete interior of this confounded bunker. My minions are elsewhere, trudging through similar environs, and report their findings to me via eldritch beast telepathy. Since I obviously don’t speak eldritch tongue, I have to use my Codex of Enspongification to decipher these antediluvian transmissions. I’m sure you can imagine, that takes no small measure of time, especially when you’re stuck in this galvanized prison of rusting sheetmetal.
Until my ungrateful minions can find me and rescue me—something I don’t expect to happen anytime soon considering I give them no workers benefits or pay of any kind—you’ll have to make do with the selections of rough-hewn and sharp, but valuable, ore provided below. OBSERVE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Kenstrosity’s Crusty Grab
Metaphobic // Deranged Excruciations [February 28th, 2025 – Everlasting Spew Records]
When Atlantan death metal quintet Metaphobic caught my attention with the megalithic riffs opening their debut LP Deranged Excruciations, I thought the stank face it brought out of me might be permanent. Nothing new and nothing sophisticated awaits here. Just brutalizing riffs delivered in a relentless sequence of destruction. Lead guitars squeal and scrape against the swampy ground underfoot, leaving a noxious slime trail behind “Mental Deconstruction” and “Execration” that tastes of Tomb Mold, Incantation, and Demilich to varying degrees. Guttural utterances and cacophonic—but accessibly structured—riffs offer the same infernal ferocity of the olden ways. However, in a similar manner to Noxis, their application here feels modern and fresh-ish (“Execration,” “Veiled Horizons,” “Hypnosis Engram”). Not nearly as nuanced as that comparison might suggest, Metaphobic are more than satisfied to use their brutish death metal as a cudgel for blunt force trauma. Nods to death doom in long-form wanderings like “Disciples of Vengeance” and “Insatiable Abyss” provide an appreciable variation in pace, though it doesn’t always work in Metaphobic’s favor. While those songs tend to meander too long on ideas unfit to support such mass for so long, livid outbursts like “Veiled Horizons” and “Reconstituted Grey Matter” more than make up for it. In short Deranged Excruciations commands my attention enough to earn my recommendation here, and my attention going forward.
Tyme’s Missing Minutes
Caustic Phlegm // Purulent Apocalypse [February 28, 2025 – Hells Headbangers]
Caustic Phlegm is the filth project helmed solely by Chestcrush main man Evan Vasilakos, who joyously employed his HM-2 and RAT pedals to create the utter disgustingness that is Purulent Apocalypse. A far cry from the angsty, I’d-rather-see-humanity-dead blackened death metal of his main outfit, Caustic Phlegm is a throwback to the days when Carnage walked the streets of Sweden and Impetigo was melting faces and killing brain cells. Purulent Apocalypse is a platter of pestiferous riffs (“Fouled, Infected & Infested,” “Soft Bones,” “Blister Bliss”), so many it’s like sitting on a death metal toilet puking and shitting riffs ad nauseam. Evan’s drum work, replete with the occasional but very satisfying St. Anger snare tone, drives the mindless fun forward, and the 80’s zombie giallo synth work would have Lucio Fulci himself clawing out of his grave to eat your face. Vasilakos’ vocals are a fine litany of belches, squelches, and gurgles that sound like a colony of maggots cleaning the putrid flesh from a corpulent corpse. Caustic Phlegm is the foul stench of death and will have you reaching for the soap and steel wool as you try to rid yourself of the Purulent Apocalypse infection.
Vermilia // Karsikko [February 14, 2025 – Self Release]
Had the incomparable Darkher not released The Buried Storm in 2022, Vermilia‘s Ruska would have garnered my top spot that year, which put her on my radar for the first time. When I saw Vermilia‘s follow-up, Karsikko had dropped in February—sadly we didn’t receive a promo—I jumped at the chance to filter it. While Karsikko is a bit more straightforward than Ruska, it’s full of liltingly beautiful pianos (“Karsikko”) that give way to icy black metal riffs (“Kansojen Kaipuu”) and gorgeously rendered folk metal melodies (“Koti,” “Veresi”). Comparisons with Myrkur and Suldusk would be appropriate, but Vermilia continues to carve out her own space in the folk black metal scene, marrying beatific melody with beastly aggression. Performing all of the music on Karsikko, as is her one-woman calling card, renders her finished products even more impressive. The highlight has always been the voice, though, as Vermilia deftly transitions between angelic cleans (“Suruhymni”) and frosty rasps (“Vakat”), completing a circle that makes each of her releases a joy to listen to. It’s confounding that another of Vermilia‘s albums is an independent release, which might be artistically intentional or the result of bone-headed label execs. Either way, don’t miss out on Karsikko, as Vermilia shouldn’t stay unsigned for long.
Killjoy’s Drowsy Discovery
Noctambulist // Noctambulist II: De Droom [February 7th, 2025 – These Hands Melt]
Although I love blackgaze, I must admit that it can be challenging to find artists who stand out in the genre, whether through quality songwriting or unexpected twists. It turns out that the Dutch band Noctambulist1 offers both. Noctambulist II: De Droom is a fun and fresh blend of Deafheaven-adjacent blackgaze with a Molotov cocktail of post-punk energy. The power chord-driven guitar lines prove to be an unexpectedly compatible fuel source to propel the shimmering, gazey tremolos and blackened rasps to new heights. Many songs (particularly “Aderlater” and “Lichteter”) start with neat intro melodies that catch the listener’s attention, then build and ride that momentum throughout the remainder. A faint sense of loss—stemming from the achingly relatable theme of homeownership drifting further out of many people’s reach—pervades the record, but there is also an infectious cheerfulness. Despite their name, Noctambulist are hardly sleepwalking as they tread along a well-worn genre.
Thus Spoke’s Disregarded Diamonds
Sacred Noose // Vanishing Spires [February 2nd, 2025 – Breath Sun Bone Blood]
My experience with Irish extreme metal has been that it is all incredibly dark, twisted, and supremely, gorgeously dissonant.2 Belfast3 duo Sacred Noose make absolutely no exception to this rule. Vanishing Spires’ ruthlessly brief 31 minutes are defined by stomach-tightening twisted blackened death designed to cut to the heart of misery and fear. The lurching sensation brought about by rapid tremolo descents and sudden accelerations of ever more dissonant chords, impenetrable drums, and pitch-shifting feedback is nauseating (“Entranced by Concrete Lathe,” “True Emancipation”). The pure horror of the inhuman, high-pitched shrieks answering the already fearsome bellows is anxiety-inducing (“”Black Tempests of Promise,” “Moribund”). The near-constant buzzing of noise is oppressive (“Terminal Prologue,” “True Emancipation”); the creeping, malevolent scales unnerving. And Sacred Noose play with their victim, luring them into a trap of deceptively familiar cavern-core (“Sacred Noose”) before throwing a hood over their head and yanking them backwards into more horrifying mania; or perhaps they’ll start with the assault (“True Emancipation”). This more ‘straightforward’ edge to Sacred Noose is most akin to a faster Sparagmos, while their dominant, demonic personality I can compare most faithfully to Thantifaxath, if Thantifaxath were more death-metal-inclined. Vanishing Spires is the first time since the latter’s 2023 Hive Mind Narcosis that a record has genuinely made me feel afraid.
Crown of Madness // Memories Fragmented [February 28th, 2025 – Transcending Obscurity Records]
Life unfortunately got in the way of me giving this a proper review, but Crown of Madness deserve better than to slip by unmentioned. Memories Fragmented is the duo’s debut, but Crown of Madness is one of several projects both are already in.4. The ominous yet colourful sci-fi/fantasy cover art and spiky logo scream ‘tech-death’ and that is indeed what Crown of Madness deliver. At base, there is some damn fine technical death metal here that’s impressive and acrobatic (), but snappy, not outstaying its welcome—the entire record barely stretches beyond 35 minutes. But there is more to Memories Fragmented, and as a result, it is memorable.5 A drawl to certain refrains (), the tendency to gently sway to a slow, near-pensiveness (), the atmospheric hanging of some tremolos over a warm, dense bass (). There is depth. And it reminded me quite starkly of early Ulcerate. In this vein, the record leans towards the more meandering side of the subgenre, gripping not with hooky riffs and heart-pumping tempos, but an intricate kind of intensity. Memories Fragmented arguably goes too far in the indistinct direction, and as a result, loses immediacy. But the churning, introspective compositions presage the potential for true brilliance on future releases.
Vacuous // In His Blood [February 28th, 2025 – Relapse Records]
Full of youthful vigour, London’s Vacuous demonstrate their willing ability to evolve with their sophomore, In His Blood. While debut Dreams of Dysphoria, which I covered back in 2022, played more or less by the disso-death book, here they are already experimenting. Strange, almost post-metal atmosphere now haunts the boundaries (“Hunger,” “Public Humiliation,” “No Longer Human”), combining brilliantly with the band’s already cavernous death metal sound, and amplifying its fearsomeness. Crowning example of this is the gem Vacuous save for the record’s final act in closer “No Longer Human.” In His Blood also sees them flirt with a punkier energy that borrows more than a little bit of malice from the blackened handbook (“In His Blood,” “Flesh Parade”), backed up by d-beats, and contrasting well with their now less frequent crawls. At its most explosive, In His Blood feels downright unhinged, in the best way (“Stress Positions,” “Immersion”), but it never feels messy, and there’s potential in here for Vacuous to evolve into yet another, incredibly potent form of unique, modern hybrid extreme metal. I wish there were more than 30 minutes of this.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Bottom o’ the Barrel Boons
Pissgrave // Malignant Worthlessness [February 21st, 2025 – Profound Lore Records]
Though it may appear, at a glance, that I have gold-colored glasses for bands of rank and urological reference, I’d call it more of a chance happening that such miscreant acts have created intriguing works. And, truthfully, PISSGRAVE has leaned closer to filth first, function second with the war-leaning crackle (and brazenly offensive cover art) that relegates their lineage to corners of listening ears who need therapy with a high tolerance for guts and grime. Malignant Worthlessness, of course, is not accessible by any means, though, despite these Philly boys packing these nine ode to a failed society in a package that doesn’t cause immediate squirm. But with grooves trapped in an endless skronk and blast, and vocals shifted and layered to reflect the sound of a swarm of Daffy Ducks with a serious disdain for life, PISSGRAVE still embodies an endless swirl of unleashed aggression rendered in riffed and regurgitated form. Malignant Worthlessness lives on the dry and crispy side with most of its tones, which allows copious hits of quick delay and reverb on OUGHs and EEEEEEEUGHs to land with an extra psychedelic knocking when you least expect it. Little slows down the pain train here, with tracks like “Heaping Pile of Electrified Gore” and “Internment Orgy” taking brief detours into chunky guitar builds that feel within grasp of normalcy just before dropping back into an intensified flaying. Elsewhere, a martial urgency that reminds of Paracletus-era Deathspell Omega or the industrial-tinged pummel of Concrete Winds, stirs a twitching movement response, all while retaining a grinding death snarl and chromatic fury, leading its fused-by-hatred structures toward an explosive and fuming conclusion. Humanity has no place in the PISSGRAVE environs, and Malignant Worthlessness, in its celebration of a hostile world, does everything it can to reinforce that.
終末回路 // 終端から引き剥がす [February 20th, 2025 – Self Release]
For things that wander around the math rock world, nailing a vibe remains essential to enjoyment. It’s all too easy in this day and edge to fall into the comfortable trap of ambient tapping and comfortable posty swirls to pleasant crescendos that renders many modern acts to high brow background music (even including bands I like, to a degree, like Covet or Jizue). New Japanese act 終末回路,6 however, chooses to imbue their nimble and tricky instrumental center with the searing emotion and urgency of a noisy post-hardcore, with searing vocal inclusions adding a gravitas to passages that would otherwise threaten to flutter away in glee (“誤殖,” “知らねぇよ”). On one end, 終末回路 delivers a bright playfulness that swings with the pedal power and psychedelia of a young Tera Melos. Yet, weighted with a punk urgency and rawer Japanese assembly of tones, which give a physical clang to tight kit heads and blazing squeal to shrill loops and feedback, 終末回路 finds a constant momentum in their shorter form excursion that makes my lack of understanding of its introspective lyrics a non-issue. Packing plaintive piano melodies (“ご自由に “), speaker blowing synth cranking (“dgdf++be”), and prog-tinged guitar flutters (“知らねぇよ”) into one listening session isn’t easy, but with this debut outing of 終端から引き剥がす,7 終末回路 makes it seem as if they’ve been honing the craft for years.
Saunders’ Salacious Skeeves
Möuth // Gobal Warning [February 14th, 2025 – Self Release)
Veteran rockers The Hellacopters returned with a typically rollicking, fun album in February. Elsewhere, dropping with little fanfare, fellow Swedes and unsung power trio Möuth emerged with an intriguing debut rock platter, entitled Global Warning. Featuring more than meets the eye and flashing a dynamic rock sound, Möuth embrace both retro and modern influences, whipped into an infectious concoction of styles, ranging from Sabbathian lurches, doomy grooves, stoner vibes, and elements of psych, punk and hard rock. For the most part it works a treat, creating a welcome change of pace. Fuzzy, upbeat rockers (“Dirt,” “Appetite”) snugly reside amongst moody, psych-bending numbers (“Alike,” “Mantra”), and heavier doom-laden rock, such as powerful opener “Holy Ground,” and brooding, emotive album centerpiece, “Sheep.” Vocally, the passionate, Ozzy-esque croons hit the spot, matching up well to the band’s multi-pronged rock flavors. Compact and infectious, varied in delivery and featuring enough tasty rhythms, fuzzy melodies and rock punch to satisfy, Global Warning marks an intriguing starting point for these Swedish rockers.
Chaos Inception // Vengeance Evangel [February 21st, 2025 – Lavadome Productions]
Emerging from a deep slumber in the depths of the underground, Alabama’s long dormant death metal crew Chaos Inception returned with their first album since 2012’s The Abrogation. Third album Vengeance Evangel went under the radar, festering unclaimed in the promo sump. After the fact, the album’s crushing, controlled chaos smacked me upside the skull with a violent modern interpretation of the classic Floridian death metal sound, with the musty hues of Tucker-era Morbid Angel most prevalent. This is blast-riddled, relentless stuff, played expertly by the trio of Matt Barnes (guitars), Gray White (vocals) and session drummer Kevin Paradis (ex-Benighted). Incredibly dense, atmospheric, and blazingly fast, Vengeance Evangel is a brutal, knotty, technical hammering, punctuated by sick, wildly inventive soloing. While not traditionally catchy, Vengeance Evangel is the kind of intense, layered death metal album that gets under the skin, grafting a deeper impression across repeated listens. The insane tempo shifts, jigsaw arrangements, and wickedly deranged axework delivers big time. From the violent, intricate throes of opener “Artillery of Humwawa,” and disturbed soundscapes of “La Niebla en el Cementerio Etrusco,” through to the brutish grooves of ‘Thymos Beast,” and exotic, tech death shards of “Empire of Prevarication,” Vengeance Evangel does not neatly fit into any one subgenre category but ticks many boxes to cast a wide appeal to death fans of varied equations.
Steel Druhm’s Viscous Biscuits
Ereb Altor // Hälsingemörker [ February 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]
Steel loves his epic metal. I was raised on the stirring odes to swordsmanship and ungovernable back hair from Manowar and Cirth Ungol, and in time, I took a place at the great table in Wotan’s Golden Halls to appreciate the Viking metal exploits of Bathory and later adherents like Falkenbach and Moonsorrow. Sweden’s Ereb Altor got in the game late with their epic By Honour debut in 2008, boasting a very Bathory-esque sound and emotional tapestry that felt larger-than-life and stirred the loins to begird themselves. 10th album Hälsingemörker is a glorious return to those halls of heroes and bravery. This is the large-scale songcraft first heard on Bathory albums like Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods, and it’s most welcome to these ape ears. Cuts like “Valkyrian Fate” are exactly the kind of sweeping, epic numbers the band’s excelled at over the years. It takes the core sound of Viking era Bathory and builds outward to craft bombastic and heroic compositions that feel HUUUGE. It’s the kind of metal song that embiggens the soul and makes you want to take on a marauding horde by your lonesome and usurp all their battle booty. On “Hälsingemörker,” you get a fat dose of Moonsorrow worship, and elsewhere, Primordial is strongly referenced to very good effect. Hälsingemörker is easily the best Ereb Altor album in a while and the most in line with their beloved early sound. Strap on the sword and get after it!
#AmericanMetal #Arboreal #Benighted #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #Blackgaze #BreathSunBoneBlood #Carnage #CausticPhlegm #ChaosInception #Chestcrush #ConcreteWinds #Coscradh #Covet #CrownOfMadness #Darkher #Deafheaven #DeathDoom #DeathMetal #DeathspellOmega #Demilich #DerangedExcruciations #DissonantDeathMetal #DustAge #EmbodimentOfDeath #ErebAltor #EverlastingSpewRecords #FolkMetal #GlobalWarning #Hälsingemörker #HellsHeadbangers #Impetigo #InHisBlood #Incantation #IrishMetal #JapaneseMetal #jizue #Karsikko #LavadomeProductions #MalignantWorthlessness #MathRock #MelodicBlackMetal #MemoriesFragmented #Metaphobic #MorbidAngel #Möuth #Myserion #Noctambulist #NoctambulistIIDeDroom #Noxis #OzzyOsbourne #Pissgrave #PostMetal #postPunk #ProfoundLoreRecords #PurulentApocalypse #RelapseRecords #Rock #SacredNoose #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #SermonOfFlames #Sparagmos #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TerZiele #TeraMelos #Thantifaxath #TheHelicopters #TheseHandsMelt #TombMold #TranscendingObscurityRecords #UKMetal #Ulcerate #Vacuous #VanishingSpires #VengeanceEvangel #Vermilia #VultureSVengeance #終末回路 #終端から引き剥がす
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Stuck in the Filter: February 2025’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
February comes down the pipe about two or three months after February. A perfectly normal thing to experience here at AMG HQ, this Filter’s tardiness is brought to you in part by my body getting stuck in one of the tighter conduits that lines the concrete interior of this confounded bunker. My minions are elsewhere, trudging through similar environs, and report their findings to me via eldritch beast telepathy. Since I obviously don’t speak eldritch tongue, I have to use my Codex of Enspongification to decipher these antediluvian transmissions. I’m sure you can imagine, that takes no small measure of time, especially when you’re stuck in this galvanized prison of rusting sheetmetal.
Until my ungrateful minions can find me and rescue me—something I don’t expect to happen anytime soon considering I give them no workers benefits or pay of any kind—you’ll have to make do with the selections of rough-hewn and sharp, but valuable, ore provided below. OBSERVE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Kenstrosity’s Crusty Grab
Metaphobic // Deranged Excruciations [February 28th, 2025 – Everlasting Spew Records]
When Atlantan death metal quintet Metaphobic caught my attention with the megalithic riffs opening their debut LP Deranged Excruciations, I thought the stank face it brought out of me might be permanent. Nothing new and nothing sophisticated awaits here. Just brutalizing riffs delivered in a relentless sequence of destruction. Lead guitars squeal and scrape against the swampy ground underfoot, leaving a noxious slime trail behind “Mental Deconstruction” and “Execration” that tastes of Tomb Mold, Incantation, and Demilich to varying degrees. Guttural utterances and cacophonic—but accessibly structured—riffs offer the same infernal ferocity of the olden ways. However, in a similar manner to Noxis, their application here feels modern and fresh-ish (“Execration,” “Veiled Horizons,” “Hypnosis Engram”). Not nearly as nuanced as that comparison might suggest, Metaphobic are more than satisfied to use their brutish death metal as a cudgel for blunt force trauma. Nods to death doom in long-form wanderings like “Disciples of Vengeance” and “Insatiable Abyss” provide an appreciable variation in pace, though it doesn’t always work in Metaphobic’s favor. While those songs tend to meander too long on ideas unfit to support such mass for so long, livid outbursts like “Veiled Horizons” and “Reconstituted Grey Matter” more than make up for it. In short Deranged Excruciations commands my attention enough to earn my recommendation here, and my attention going forward.
Tyme’s Missing Minutes
Caustic Phlegm // Purulent Apocalypse [February 28, 2025 – Hells Headbangers]
Caustic Phlegm is the filth project helmed solely by Chestcrush main man Evan Vasilakos, who joyously employed his HM-2 and RAT pedals to create the utter disgustingness that is Purulent Apocalypse. A far cry from the angsty, I’d-rather-see-humanity-dead blackened death metal of his main outfit, Caustic Phlegm is a throwback to the days when Carnage walked the streets of Sweden and Impetigo was melting faces and killing brain cells. Purulent Apocalypse is a platter of pestiferous riffs (“Fouled, Infected & Infested,” “Soft Bones,” “Blister Bliss”), so many it’s like sitting on a death metal toilet puking and shitting riffs ad nauseam. Evan’s drum work, replete with the occasional but very satisfying St. Anger snare tone, drives the mindless fun forward, and the 80’s zombie giallo synth work would have Lucio Fulci himself clawing out of his grave to eat your face. Vasilakos’ vocals are a fine litany of belches, squelches, and gurgles that sound like a colony of maggots cleaning the putrid flesh from a corpulent corpse. Caustic Phlegm is the foul stench of death and will have you reaching for the soap and steel wool as you try to rid yourself of the Purulent Apocalypse infection.
Vermilia // Karsikko [February 14, 2025 – Self Release]
Had the incomparable Darkher not released The Buried Storm in 2022, Vermilia‘s Ruska would have garnered my top spot that year, which put her on my radar for the first time. When I saw Vermilia‘s follow-up, Karsikko had dropped in February—sadly we didn’t receive a promo—I jumped at the chance to filter it. While Karsikko is a bit more straightforward than Ruska, it’s full of liltingly beautiful pianos (“Karsikko”) that give way to icy black metal riffs (“Kansojen Kaipuu”) and gorgeously rendered folk metal melodies (“Koti,” “Veresi”). Comparisons with Myrkur and Suldusk would be appropriate, but Vermilia continues to carve out her own space in the folk black metal scene, marrying beatific melody with beastly aggression. Performing all of the music on Karsikko, as is her one-woman calling card, renders her finished products even more impressive. The highlight has always been the voice, though, as Vermilia deftly transitions between angelic cleans (“Suruhymni”) and frosty rasps (“Vakat”), completing a circle that makes each of her releases a joy to listen to. It’s confounding that another of Vermilia‘s albums is an independent release, which might be artistically intentional or the result of bone-headed label execs. Either way, don’t miss out on Karsikko, as Vermilia shouldn’t stay unsigned for long.
Killjoy’s Drowsy Discovery
Noctambulist // Noctambulist II: De Droom [February 7th, 2025 – These Hands Melt]
Although I love blackgaze, I must admit that it can be challenging to find artists who stand out in the genre, whether through quality songwriting or unexpected twists. It turns out that the Dutch band Noctambulist1 offers both. Noctambulist II: De Droom is a fun and fresh blend of Deafheaven-adjacent blackgaze with a Molotov cocktail of post-punk energy. The power chord-driven guitar lines prove to be an unexpectedly compatible fuel source to propel the shimmering, gazey tremolos and blackened rasps to new heights. Many songs (particularly “Aderlater” and “Lichteter”) start with neat intro melodies that catch the listener’s attention, then build and ride that momentum throughout the remainder. A faint sense of loss—stemming from the achingly relatable theme of homeownership drifting further out of many people’s reach—pervades the record, but there is also an infectious cheerfulness. Despite their name, Noctambulist are hardly sleepwalking as they tread along a well-worn genre.
Thus Spoke’s Disregarded Diamonds
Sacred Noose // Vanishing Spires [February 2nd, 2025 – Breath Sun Bone Blood]
My experience with Irish extreme metal has been that it is all incredibly dark, twisted, and supremely, gorgeously dissonant.2 Belfast3 duo Sacred Noose make absolutely no exception to this rule. Vanishing Spires’ ruthlessly brief 31 minutes are defined by stomach-tightening twisted blackened death designed to cut to the heart of misery and fear. The lurching sensation brought about by rapid tremolo descents and sudden accelerations of ever more dissonant chords, impenetrable drums, and pitch-shifting feedback is nauseating (“Entranced by Concrete Lathe,” “True Emancipation”). The pure horror of the inhuman, high-pitched shrieks answering the already fearsome bellows is anxiety-inducing (“”Black Tempests of Promise,” “Moribund”). The near-constant buzzing of noise is oppressive (“Terminal Prologue,” “True Emancipation”); the creeping, malevolent scales unnerving. And Sacred Noose play with their victim, luring them into a trap of deceptively familiar cavern-core (“Sacred Noose”) before throwing a hood over their head and yanking them backwards into more horrifying mania; or perhaps they’ll start with the assault (“True Emancipation”). This more ‘straightforward’ edge to Sacred Noose is most akin to a faster Sparagmos, while their dominant, demonic personality I can compare most faithfully to Thantifaxath, if Thantifaxath were more death-metal-inclined. Vanishing Spires is the first time since the latter’s 2023 Hive Mind Narcosis that a record has genuinely made me feel afraid.
Crown of Madness // Memories Fragmented [February 28th, 2025 – Transcending Obscurity Records]
Life unfortunately got in the way of me giving this a proper review, but Crown of Madness deserve better than to slip by unmentioned. Memories Fragmented is the duo’s debut, but Crown of Madness is one of several projects both are already in.4. The ominous yet colourful sci-fi/fantasy cover art and spiky logo scream ‘tech-death’ and that is indeed what Crown of Madness deliver. At base, there is some damn fine technical death metal here that’s impressive and acrobatic (), but snappy, not outstaying its welcome—the entire record barely stretches beyond 35 minutes. But there is more to Memories Fragmented, and as a result, it is memorable.5 A drawl to certain refrains (), the tendency to gently sway to a slow, near-pensiveness (), the atmospheric hanging of some tremolos over a warm, dense bass (). There is depth. And it reminded me quite starkly of early Ulcerate. In this vein, the record leans towards the more meandering side of the subgenre, gripping not with hooky riffs and heart-pumping tempos, but an intricate kind of intensity. Memories Fragmented arguably goes too far in the indistinct direction, and as a result, loses immediacy. But the churning, introspective compositions presage the potential for true brilliance on future releases.
Vacuous // In His Blood [February 28th, 2025 – Relapse Records]
Full of youthful vigour, London’s Vacuous demonstrate their willing ability to evolve with their sophomore, In His Blood. While debut Dreams of Dysphoria, which I covered back in 2022, played more or less by the disso-death book, here they are already experimenting. Strange, almost post-metal atmosphere now haunts the boundaries (“Hunger,” “Public Humiliation,” “No Longer Human”), combining brilliantly with the band’s already cavernous death metal sound, and amplifying its fearsomeness. Crowning example of this is the gem Vacuous save for the record’s final act in closer “No Longer Human.” In His Blood also sees them flirt with a punkier energy that borrows more than a little bit of malice from the blackened handbook (“In His Blood,” “Flesh Parade”), backed up by d-beats, and contrasting well with their now less frequent crawls. At its most explosive, In His Blood feels downright unhinged, in the best way (“Stress Positions,” “Immersion”), but it never feels messy, and there’s potential in here for Vacuous to evolve into yet another, incredibly potent form of unique, modern hybrid extreme metal. I wish there were more than 30 minutes of this.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Bottom o’ the Barrel Boons
Pissgrave // Malignant Worthlessness [February 21st, 2025 – Profound Lore Records]
Though it may appear, at a glance, that I have gold-colored glasses for bands of rank and urological reference, I’d call it more of a chance happening that such miscreant acts have created intriguing works. And, truthfully, PISSGRAVE has leaned closer to filth first, function second with the war-leaning crackle (and brazenly offensive cover art) that relegates their lineage to corners of listening ears who need therapy with a high tolerance for guts and grime. Malignant Worthlessness, of course, is not accessible by any means, though, despite these Philly boys packing these nine ode to a failed society in a package that doesn’t cause immediate squirm. But with grooves trapped in an endless skronk and blast, and vocals shifted and layered to reflect the sound of a swarm of Daffy Ducks with a serious disdain for life, PISSGRAVE still embodies an endless swirl of unleashed aggression rendered in riffed and regurgitated form. Malignant Worthlessness lives on the dry and crispy side with most of its tones, which allows copious hits of quick delay and reverb on OUGHs and EEEEEEEUGHs to land with an extra psychedelic knocking when you least expect it. Little slows down the pain train here, with tracks like “Heaping Pile of Electrified Gore” and “Internment Orgy” taking brief detours into chunky guitar builds that feel within grasp of normalcy just before dropping back into an intensified flaying. Elsewhere, a martial urgency that reminds of Paracletus-era Deathspell Omega or the industrial-tinged pummel of Concrete Winds, stirs a twitching movement response, all while retaining a grinding death snarl and chromatic fury, leading its fused-by-hatred structures toward an explosive and fuming conclusion. Humanity has no place in the PISSGRAVE environs, and Malignant Worthlessness, in its celebration of a hostile world, does everything it can to reinforce that.
終末回路 // 終端から引き剥がす [February 20th, 2025 – Self Release]
For things that wander around the math rock world, nailing a vibe remains essential to enjoyment. It’s all too easy in this day and edge to fall into the comfortable trap of ambient tapping and comfortable posty swirls to pleasant crescendos that renders many modern acts to high brow background music (even including bands I like, to a degree, like Covet or Jizue). New Japanese act 終末回路,6 however, chooses to imbue their nimble and tricky instrumental center with the searing emotion and urgency of a noisy post-hardcore, with searing vocal inclusions adding a gravitas to passages that would otherwise threaten to flutter away in glee (“誤殖,” “知らねぇよ”). On one end, 終末回路 delivers a bright playfulness that swings with the pedal power and psychedelia of a young Tera Melos. Yet, weighted with a punk urgency and rawer Japanese assembly of tones, which give a physical clang to tight kit heads and blazing squeal to shrill loops and feedback, 終末回路 finds a constant momentum in their shorter form excursion that makes my lack of understanding of its introspective lyrics a non-issue. Packing plaintive piano melodies (“ご自由に “), speaker blowing synth cranking (“dgdf++be”), and prog-tinged guitar flutters (“知らねぇよ”) into one listening session isn’t easy, but with this debut outing of 終端から引き剥がす,7 終末回路 makes it seem as if they’ve been honing the craft for years.
Saunders’ Salacious Skeeves
Möuth // Gobal Warning [February 14th, 2025 – Self Release)
Veteran rockers The Hellacopters returned with a typically rollicking, fun album in February. Elsewhere, dropping with little fanfare, fellow Swedes and unsung power trio Möuth emerged with an intriguing debut rock platter, entitled Global Warning. Featuring more than meets the eye and flashing a dynamic rock sound, Möuth embrace both retro and modern influences, whipped into an infectious concoction of styles, ranging from Sabbathian lurches, doomy grooves, stoner vibes, and elements of psych, punk and hard rock. For the most part it works a treat, creating a welcome change of pace. Fuzzy, upbeat rockers (“Dirt,” “Appetite”) snugly reside amongst moody, psych-bending numbers (“Alike,” “Mantra”), and heavier doom-laden rock, such as powerful opener “Holy Ground,” and brooding, emotive album centerpiece, “Sheep.” Vocally, the passionate, Ozzy-esque croons hit the spot, matching up well to the band’s multi-pronged rock flavors. Compact and infectious, varied in delivery and featuring enough tasty rhythms, fuzzy melodies and rock punch to satisfy, Global Warning marks an intriguing starting point for these Swedish rockers.
Chaos Inception // Vengeance Evangel [February 21st, 2025 – Lavadome Productions]
Emerging from a deep slumber in the depths of the underground, Alabama’s long dormant death metal crew Chaos Inception returned with their first album since 2012’s The Abrogation. Third album Vengeance Evangel went under the radar, festering unclaimed in the promo sump. After the fact, the album’s crushing, controlled chaos smacked me upside the skull with a violent modern interpretation of the classic Floridian death metal sound, with the musty hues of Tucker-era Morbid Angel most prevalent. This is blast-riddled, relentless stuff, played expertly by the trio of Matt Barnes (guitars), Gray White (vocals) and session drummer Kevin Paradis (ex-Benighted). Incredibly dense, atmospheric, and blazingly fast, Vengeance Evangel is a brutal, knotty, technical hammering, punctuated by sick, wildly inventive soloing. While not traditionally catchy, Vengeance Evangel is the kind of intense, layered death metal album that gets under the skin, grafting a deeper impression across repeated listens. The insane tempo shifts, jigsaw arrangements, and wickedly deranged axework delivers big time. From the violent, intricate throes of opener “Artillery of Humwawa,” and disturbed soundscapes of “La Niebla en el Cementerio Etrusco,” through to the brutish grooves of ‘Thymos Beast,” and exotic, tech death shards of “Empire of Prevarication,” Vengeance Evangel does not neatly fit into any one subgenre category but ticks many boxes to cast a wide appeal to death fans of varied equations.
Steel Druhm’s Viscous Biscuits
Ereb Altor // Hälsingemörker [ February 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]
Steel loves his epic metal. I was raised on the stirring odes to swordsmanship and ungovernable back hair from Manowar and Cirth Ungol, and in time, I took a place at the great table in Wotan’s Golden Halls to appreciate the Viking metal exploits of Bathory and later adherents like Falkenbach and Moonsorrow. Sweden’s Ereb Altor got in the game late with their epic By Honour debut in 2008, boasting a very Bathory-esque sound and emotional tapestry that felt larger-than-life and stirred the loins to begird themselves. 10th album Hälsingemörker is a glorious return to those halls of heroes and bravery. This is the large-scale songcraft first heard on Bathory albums like Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods, and it’s most welcome to these ape ears. Cuts like “Valkyrian Fate” are exactly the kind of sweeping, epic numbers the band’s excelled at over the years. It takes the core sound of Viking era Bathory and builds outward to craft bombastic and heroic compositions that feel HUUUGE. It’s the kind of metal song that embiggens the soul and makes you want to take on a marauding horde by your lonesome and usurp all their battle booty. On “Hälsingemörker,” you get a fat dose of Moonsorrow worship, and elsewhere, Primordial is strongly referenced to very good effect. Hälsingemörker is easily the best Ereb Altor album in a while and the most in line with their beloved early sound. Strap on the sword and get after it!
#AmericanMetal #Arboreal #Benighted #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #Blackgaze #BreathSunBoneBlood #Carnage #CausticPhlegm #ChaosInception #Chestcrush #ConcreteWinds #Coscradh #Covet #CrownOfMadness #Darkher #Deafheaven #DeathDoom #DeathMetal #DeathspellOmega #Demilich #DerangedExcruciations #DissonantDeathMetal #DustAge #EmbodimentOfDeath #ErebAltor #EverlastingSpewRecords #FolkMetal #GlobalWarning #Hälsingemörker #HellsHeadbangers #Impetigo #InHisBlood #Incantation #IrishMetal #JapaneseMetal #jizue #Karsikko #LavadomeProductions #MalignantWorthlessness #MathRock #MelodicBlackMetal #MemoriesFragmented #Metaphobic #MorbidAngel #Möuth #Myserion #Noctambulist #NoctambulistIIDeDroom #Noxis #OzzyOsbourne #Pissgrave #PostMetal #postPunk #ProfoundLoreRecords #PurulentApocalypse #RelapseRecords #Rock #SacredNoose #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #SermonOfFlames #Sparagmos #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TerZiele #TeraMelos #Thantifaxath #TheHelicopters #TheseHandsMelt #TombMold #TranscendingObscurityRecords #UKMetal #Ulcerate #Vacuous #VanishingSpires #VengeanceEvangel #Vermilia #VultureSVengeance #終末回路 #終端から引き剥がす
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Stuck in the Filter: February 2025’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
February comes down the pipe about two or three months after February. A perfectly normal thing to experience here at AMG HQ, this Filter’s tardiness is brought to you in part by my body getting stuck in one of the tighter conduits that lines the concrete interior of this confounded bunker. My minions are elsewhere, trudging through similar environs, and report their findings to me via eldritch beast telepathy. Since I obviously don’t speak eldritch tongue, I have to use my Codex of Enspongification to decipher these antediluvian transmissions. I’m sure you can imagine, that takes no small measure of time, especially when you’re stuck in this galvanized prison of rusting sheetmetal.
Until my ungrateful minions can find me and rescue me—something I don’t expect to happen anytime soon considering I give them no workers benefits or pay of any kind—you’ll have to make do with the selections of rough-hewn and sharp, but valuable, ore provided below. OBSERVE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Kenstrosity’s Crusty Grab
Metaphobic // Deranged Excruciations [February 28th, 2025 – Everlasting Spew Records]
When Atlantan death metal quintet Metaphobic caught my attention with the megalithic riffs opening their debut LP Deranged Excruciations, I thought the stank face it brought out of me might be permanent. Nothing new and nothing sophisticated awaits here. Just brutalizing riffs delivered in a relentless sequence of destruction. Lead guitars squeal and scrape against the swampy ground underfoot, leaving a noxious slime trail behind “Mental Deconstruction” and “Execration” that tastes of Tomb Mold, Incantation, and Demilich to varying degrees. Guttural utterances and cacophonic—but accessibly structured—riffs offer the same infernal ferocity of the olden ways. However, in a similar manner to Noxis, their application here feels modern and fresh-ish (“Execration,” “Veiled Horizons,” “Hypnosis Engram”). Not nearly as nuanced as that comparison might suggest, Metaphobic are more than satisfied to use their brutish death metal as a cudgel for blunt force trauma. Nods to death doom in long-form wanderings like “Disciples of Vengeance” and “Insatiable Abyss” provide an appreciable variation in pace, though it doesn’t always work in Metaphobic’s favor. While those songs tend to meander too long on ideas unfit to support such mass for so long, livid outbursts like “Veiled Horizons” and “Reconstituted Grey Matter” more than make up for it. In short Deranged Excruciations commands my attention enough to earn my recommendation here, and my attention going forward.
Tyme’s Missing Minutes
Caustic Phlegm // Purulent Apocalypse [February 28, 2025 – Hells Headbangers]
Caustic Phlegm is the filth project helmed solely by Chestcrush main man Evan Vasilakos, who joyously employed his HM-2 and RAT pedals to create the utter disgustingness that is Purulent Apocalypse. A far cry from the angsty, I’d-rather-see-humanity-dead blackened death metal of his main outfit, Caustic Phlegm is a throwback to the days when Carnage walked the streets of Sweden and Impetigo was melting faces and killing brain cells. Purulent Apocalypse is a platter of pestiferous riffs (“Fouled, Infected & Infested,” “Soft Bones,” “Blister Bliss”), so many it’s like sitting on a death metal toilet puking and shitting riffs ad nauseam. Evan’s drum work, replete with the occasional but very satisfying St. Anger snare tone, drives the mindless fun forward, and the 80’s zombie giallo synth work would have Lucio Fulci himself clawing out of his grave to eat your face. Vasilakos’ vocals are a fine litany of belches, squelches, and gurgles that sound like a colony of maggots cleaning the putrid flesh from a corpulent corpse. Caustic Phlegm is the foul stench of death and will have you reaching for the soap and steel wool as you try to rid yourself of the Purulent Apocalypse infection.
Vermilia // Karsikko [February 14, 2025 – Self Release]
Had the incomparable Darkher not released The Buried Storm in 2022, Vermilia‘s Ruska would have garnered my top spot that year, which put her on my radar for the first time. When I saw Vermilia‘s follow-up, Karsikko had dropped in February—sadly we didn’t receive a promo—I jumped at the chance to filter it. While Karsikko is a bit more straightforward than Ruska, it’s full of liltingly beautiful pianos (“Karsikko”) that give way to icy black metal riffs (“Kansojen Kaipuu”) and gorgeously rendered folk metal melodies (“Koti,” “Veresi”). Comparisons with Myrkur and Suldusk would be appropriate, but Vermilia continues to carve out her own space in the folk black metal scene, marrying beatific melody with beastly aggression. Performing all of the music on Karsikko, as is her one-woman calling card, renders her finished products even more impressive. The highlight has always been the voice, though, as Vermilia deftly transitions between angelic cleans (“Suruhymni”) and frosty rasps (“Vakat”), completing a circle that makes each of her releases a joy to listen to. It’s confounding that another of Vermilia‘s albums is an independent release, which might be artistically intentional or the result of bone-headed label execs. Either way, don’t miss out on Karsikko, as Vermilia shouldn’t stay unsigned for long.
Killjoy’s Drowsy Discovery
Noctambulist // Noctambulist II: De Droom [February 7th, 2025 – These Hands Melt]
Although I love blackgaze, I must admit that it can be challenging to find artists who stand out in the genre, whether through quality songwriting or unexpected twists. It turns out that the Dutch band Noctambulist1 offers both. Noctambulist II: De Droom is a fun and fresh blend of Deafheaven-adjacent blackgaze with a Molotov cocktail of post-punk energy. The power chord-driven guitar lines prove to be an unexpectedly compatible fuel source to propel the shimmering, gazey tremolos and blackened rasps to new heights. Many songs (particularly “Aderlater” and “Lichteter”) start with neat intro melodies that catch the listener’s attention, then build and ride that momentum throughout the remainder. A faint sense of loss—stemming from the achingly relatable theme of homeownership drifting further out of many people’s reach—pervades the record, but there is also an infectious cheerfulness. Despite their name, Noctambulist are hardly sleepwalking as they tread along a well-worn genre.
Thus Spoke’s Disregarded Diamonds
Sacred Noose // Vanishing Spires [February 2nd, 2025 – Breath Sun Bone Blood]
My experience with Irish extreme metal has been that it is all incredibly dark, twisted, and supremely, gorgeously dissonant.2 Belfast3 duo Sacred Noose make absolutely no exception to this rule. Vanishing Spires’ ruthlessly brief 31 minutes are defined by stomach-tightening twisted blackened death designed to cut to the heart of misery and fear. The lurching sensation brought about by rapid tremolo descents and sudden accelerations of ever more dissonant chords, impenetrable drums, and pitch-shifting feedback is nauseating (“Entranced by Concrete Lathe,” “True Emancipation”). The pure horror of the inhuman, high-pitched shrieks answering the already fearsome bellows is anxiety-inducing (“”Black Tempests of Promise,” “Moribund”). The near-constant buzzing of noise is oppressive (“Terminal Prologue,” “True Emancipation”); the creeping, malevolent scales unnerving. And Sacred Noose play with their victim, luring them into a trap of deceptively familiar cavern-core (“Sacred Noose”) before throwing a hood over their head and yanking them backwards into more horrifying mania; or perhaps they’ll start with the assault (“True Emancipation”). This more ‘straightforward’ edge to Sacred Noose is most akin to a faster Sparagmos, while their dominant, demonic personality I can compare most faithfully to Thantifaxath, if Thantifaxath were more death-metal-inclined. Vanishing Spires is the first time since the latter’s 2023 Hive Mind Narcosis that a record has genuinely made me feel afraid.
Crown of Madness // Memories Fragmented [February 28th, 2025 – Transcending Obscurity Records]
Life unfortunately got in the way of me giving this a proper review, but Crown of Madness deserve better than to slip by unmentioned. Memories Fragmented is the duo’s debut, but Crown of Madness is one of several projects both are already in.4. The ominous yet colourful sci-fi/fantasy cover art and spiky logo scream ‘tech-death’ and that is indeed what Crown of Madness deliver. At base, there is some damn fine technical death metal here that’s impressive and acrobatic (), but snappy, not outstaying its welcome—the entire record barely stretches beyond 35 minutes. But there is more to Memories Fragmented, and as a result, it is memorable.5 A drawl to certain refrains (), the tendency to gently sway to a slow, near-pensiveness (), the atmospheric hanging of some tremolos over a warm, dense bass (). There is depth. And it reminded me quite starkly of early Ulcerate. In this vein, the record leans towards the more meandering side of the subgenre, gripping not with hooky riffs and heart-pumping tempos, but an intricate kind of intensity. Memories Fragmented arguably goes too far in the indistinct direction, and as a result, loses immediacy. But the churning, introspective compositions presage the potential for true brilliance on future releases.
Vacuous // In His Blood [February 28th, 2025 – Relapse Records]
Full of youthful vigour, London’s Vacuous demonstrate their willing ability to evolve with their sophomore, In His Blood. While debut Dreams of Dysphoria, which I covered back in 2022, played more or less by the disso-death book, here they are already experimenting. Strange, almost post-metal atmosphere now haunts the boundaries (“Hunger,” “Public Humiliation,” “No Longer Human”), combining brilliantly with the band’s already cavernous death metal sound, and amplifying its fearsomeness. Crowning example of this is the gem Vacuous save for the record’s final act in closer “No Longer Human.” In His Blood also sees them flirt with a punkier energy that borrows more than a little bit of malice from the blackened handbook (“In His Blood,” “Flesh Parade”), backed up by d-beats, and contrasting well with their now less frequent crawls. At its most explosive, In His Blood feels downright unhinged, in the best way (“Stress Positions,” “Immersion”), but it never feels messy, and there’s potential in here for Vacuous to evolve into yet another, incredibly potent form of unique, modern hybrid extreme metal. I wish there were more than 30 minutes of this.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Bottom o’ the Barrel Boons
Pissgrave // Malignant Worthlessness [February 21st, 2025 – Profound Lore Records]
Though it may appear, at a glance, that I have gold-colored glasses for bands of rank and urological reference, I’d call it more of a chance happening that such miscreant acts have created intriguing works. And, truthfully, PISSGRAVE has leaned closer to filth first, function second with the war-leaning crackle (and brazenly offensive cover art) that relegates their lineage to corners of listening ears who need therapy with a high tolerance for guts and grime. Malignant Worthlessness, of course, is not accessible by any means, though, despite these Philly boys packing these nine ode to a failed society in a package that doesn’t cause immediate squirm. But with grooves trapped in an endless skronk and blast, and vocals shifted and layered to reflect the sound of a swarm of Daffy Ducks with a serious disdain for life, PISSGRAVE still embodies an endless swirl of unleashed aggression rendered in riffed and regurgitated form. Malignant Worthlessness lives on the dry and crispy side with most of its tones, which allows copious hits of quick delay and reverb on OUGHs and EEEEEEEUGHs to land with an extra psychedelic knocking when you least expect it. Little slows down the pain train here, with tracks like “Heaping Pile of Electrified Gore” and “Internment Orgy” taking brief detours into chunky guitar builds that feel within grasp of normalcy just before dropping back into an intensified flaying. Elsewhere, a martial urgency that reminds of Paracletus-era Deathspell Omega or the industrial-tinged pummel of Concrete Winds, stirs a twitching movement response, all while retaining a grinding death snarl and chromatic fury, leading its fused-by-hatred structures toward an explosive and fuming conclusion. Humanity has no place in the PISSGRAVE environs, and Malignant Worthlessness, in its celebration of a hostile world, does everything it can to reinforce that.
終末回路 // 終端から引き剥がす [February 20th, 2025 – Self Release]
For things that wander around the math rock world, nailing a vibe remains essential to enjoyment. It’s all too easy in this day and edge to fall into the comfortable trap of ambient tapping and comfortable posty swirls to pleasant crescendos that renders many modern acts to high brow background music (even including bands I like, to a degree, like Covet or Jizue). New Japanese act 終末回路,6 however, chooses to imbue their nimble and tricky instrumental center with the searing emotion and urgency of a noisy post-hardcore, with searing vocal inclusions adding a gravitas to passages that would otherwise threaten to flutter away in glee (“誤殖,” “知らねぇよ”). On one end, 終末回路 delivers a bright playfulness that swings with the pedal power and psychedelia of a young Tera Melos. Yet, weighted with a punk urgency and rawer Japanese assembly of tones, which give a physical clang to tight kit heads and blazing squeal to shrill loops and feedback, 終末回路 finds a constant momentum in their shorter form excursion that makes my lack of understanding of its introspective lyrics a non-issue. Packing plaintive piano melodies (“ご自由に “), speaker blowing synth cranking (“dgdf++be”), and prog-tinged guitar flutters (“知らねぇよ”) into one listening session isn’t easy, but with this debut outing of 終端から引き剥がす,7 終末回路 makes it seem as if they’ve been honing the craft for years.
Saunders’ Salacious Skeeves
Möuth // Gobal Warning [February 14th, 2025 – Self Release)
Veteran rockers The Hellacopters returned with a typically rollicking, fun album in February. Elsewhere, dropping with little fanfare, fellow Swedes and unsung power trio Möuth emerged with an intriguing debut rock platter, entitled Global Warning. Featuring more than meets the eye and flashing a dynamic rock sound, Möuth embrace both retro and modern influences, whipped into an infectious concoction of styles, ranging from Sabbathian lurches, doomy grooves, stoner vibes, and elements of psych, punk and hard rock. For the most part it works a treat, creating a welcome change of pace. Fuzzy, upbeat rockers (“Dirt,” “Appetite”) snugly reside amongst moody, psych-bending numbers (“Alike,” “Mantra”), and heavier doom-laden rock, such as powerful opener “Holy Ground,” and brooding, emotive album centerpiece, “Sheep.” Vocally, the passionate, Ozzy-esque croons hit the spot, matching up well to the band’s multi-pronged rock flavors. Compact and infectious, varied in delivery and featuring enough tasty rhythms, fuzzy melodies and rock punch to satisfy, Global Warning marks an intriguing starting point for these Swedish rockers.
Chaos Inception // Vengeance Evangel [February 21st, 2025 – Lavadome Productions]
Emerging from a deep slumber in the depths of the underground, Alabama’s long dormant death metal crew Chaos Inception returned with their first album since 2012’s The Abrogation. Third album Vengeance Evangel went under the radar, festering unclaimed in the promo sump. After the fact, the album’s crushing, controlled chaos smacked me upside the skull with a violent modern interpretation of the classic Floridian death metal sound, with the musty hues of Tucker-era Morbid Angel most prevalent. This is blast-riddled, relentless stuff, played expertly by the trio of Matt Barnes (guitars), Gray White (vocals) and session drummer Kevin Paradis (ex-Benighted). Incredibly dense, atmospheric, and blazingly fast, Vengeance Evangel is a brutal, knotty, technical hammering, punctuated by sick, wildly inventive soloing. While not traditionally catchy, Vengeance Evangel is the kind of intense, layered death metal album that gets under the skin, grafting a deeper impression across repeated listens. The insane tempo shifts, jigsaw arrangements, and wickedly deranged axework delivers big time. From the violent, intricate throes of opener “Artillery of Humwawa,” and disturbed soundscapes of “La Niebla en el Cementerio Etrusco,” through to the brutish grooves of ‘Thymos Beast,” and exotic, tech death shards of “Empire of Prevarication,” Vengeance Evangel does not neatly fit into any one subgenre category but ticks many boxes to cast a wide appeal to death fans of varied equations.
Steel Druhm’s Viscous Biscuits
Ereb Altor // Hälsingemörker [ February 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]
Steel loves his epic metal. I was raised on the stirring odes to swordsmanship and ungovernable back hair from Manowar and Cirth Ungol, and in time, I took a place at the great table in Wotan’s Golden Halls to appreciate the Viking metal exploits of Bathory and later adherents like Falkenbach and Moonsorrow. Sweden’s Ereb Altor got in the game late with their epic By Honour debut in 2008, boasting a very Bathory-esque sound and emotional tapestry that felt larger-than-life and stirred the loins to begird themselves. 10th album Hälsingemörker is a glorious return to those halls of heroes and bravery. This is the large-scale songcraft first heard on Bathory albums like Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods, and it’s most welcome to these ape ears. Cuts like “Valkyrian Fate” are exactly the kind of sweeping, epic numbers the band’s excelled at over the years. It takes the core sound of Viking era Bathory and builds outward to craft bombastic and heroic compositions that feel HUUUGE. It’s the kind of metal song that embiggens the soul and makes you want to take on a marauding horde by your lonesome and usurp all their battle booty. On “Hälsingemörker,” you get a fat dose of Moonsorrow worship, and elsewhere, Primordial is strongly referenced to very good effect. Hälsingemörker is easily the best Ereb Altor album in a while and the most in line with their beloved early sound. Strap on the sword and get after it!
#AmericanMetal #Arboreal #Benighted #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #Blackgaze #BreathSunBoneBlood #Carnage #CausticPhlegm #ChaosInception #Chestcrush #ConcreteWinds #Coscradh #Covet #CrownOfMadness #Darkher #Deafheaven #DeathDoom #DeathMetal #DeathspellOmega #Demilich #DerangedExcruciations #DissonantDeathMetal #DustAge #EmbodimentOfDeath #ErebAltor #EverlastingSpewRecords #FolkMetal #GlobalWarning #Hälsingemörker #HellsHeadbangers #Impetigo #InHisBlood #Incantation #IrishMetal #JapaneseMetal #jizue #Karsikko #LavadomeProductions #MalignantWorthlessness #MathRock #MelodicBlackMetal #MemoriesFragmented #Metaphobic #MorbidAngel #Möuth #Myserion #Noctambulist #NoctambulistIIDeDroom #Noxis #OzzyOsbourne #Pissgrave #PostMetal #postPunk #ProfoundLoreRecords #PurulentApocalypse #RelapseRecords #Rock #SacredNoose #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #SermonOfFlames #Sparagmos #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TerZiele #TeraMelos #Thantifaxath #TheHelicopters #TheseHandsMelt #TombMold #TranscendingObscurityRecords #UKMetal #Ulcerate #Vacuous #VanishingSpires #VengeanceEvangel #Vermilia #VultureSVengeance #終末回路 #終端から引き剥がす
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Stuck in the Filter: February 2025’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
February comes down the pipe about two or three months after February. A perfectly normal thing to experience here at AMG HQ, this Filter’s tardiness is brought to you in part by my body getting stuck in one of the tighter conduits that lines the concrete interior of this confounded bunker. My minions are elsewhere, trudging through similar environs, and report their findings to me via eldritch beast telepathy. Since I obviously don’t speak eldritch tongue, I have to use my Codex of Enspongification to decipher these antediluvian transmissions. I’m sure you can imagine, that takes no small measure of time, especially when you’re stuck in this galvanized prison of rusting sheetmetal.
Until my ungrateful minions can find me and rescue me—something I don’t expect to happen anytime soon considering I give them no workers benefits or pay of any kind—you’ll have to make do with the selections of rough-hewn and sharp, but valuable, ore provided below. OBSERVE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Kenstrosity’s Crusty Grab
Metaphobic // Deranged Excruciations [February 28th, 2025 – Everlasting Spew Records]
When Atlantan death metal quintet Metaphobic caught my attention with the megalithic riffs opening their debut LP Deranged Excruciations, I thought the stank face it brought out of me might be permanent. Nothing new and nothing sophisticated awaits here. Just brutalizing riffs delivered in a relentless sequence of destruction. Lead guitars squeal and scrape against the swampy ground underfoot, leaving a noxious slime trail behind “Mental Deconstruction” and “Execration” that tastes of Tomb Mold, Incantation, and Demilich to varying degrees. Guttural utterances and cacophonic—but accessibly structured—riffs offer the same infernal ferocity of the olden ways. However, in a similar manner to Noxis, their application here feels modern and fresh-ish (“Execration,” “Veiled Horizons,” “Hypnosis Engram”). Not nearly as nuanced as that comparison might suggest, Metaphobic are more than satisfied to use their brutish death metal as a cudgel for blunt force trauma. Nods to death doom in long-form wanderings like “Disciples of Vengeance” and “Insatiable Abyss” provide an appreciable variation in pace, though it doesn’t always work in Metaphobic’s favor. While those songs tend to meander too long on ideas unfit to support such mass for so long, livid outbursts like “Veiled Horizons” and “Reconstituted Grey Matter” more than make up for it. In short Deranged Excruciations commands my attention enough to earn my recommendation here, and my attention going forward.
Tyme’s Missing Minutes
Caustic Phlegm // Purulent Apocalypse [February 28, 2025 – Hells Headbangers]
Caustic Phlegm is the filth project helmed solely by Chestcrush main man Evan Vasilakos, who joyously employed his HM-2 and RAT pedals to create the utter disgustingness that is Purulent Apocalypse. A far cry from the angsty, I’d-rather-see-humanity-dead blackened death metal of his main outfit, Caustic Phlegm is a throwback to the days when Carnage walked the streets of Sweden and Impetigo was melting faces and killing brain cells. Purulent Apocalypse is a platter of pestiferous riffs (“Fouled, Infected & Infested,” “Soft Bones,” “Blister Bliss”), so many it’s like sitting on a death metal toilet puking and shitting riffs ad nauseam. Evan’s drum work, replete with the occasional but very satisfying St. Anger snare tone, drives the mindless fun forward, and the 80’s zombie giallo synth work would have Lucio Fulci himself clawing out of his grave to eat your face. Vasilakos’ vocals are a fine litany of belches, squelches, and gurgles that sound like a colony of maggots cleaning the putrid flesh from a corpulent corpse. Caustic Phlegm is the foul stench of death and will have you reaching for the soap and steel wool as you try to rid yourself of the Purulent Apocalypse infection.
Vermilia // Karsikko [February 14, 2025 – Self Release]
Had the incomparable Darkher not released The Buried Storm in 2022, Vermilia‘s Ruska would have garnered my top spot that year, which put her on my radar for the first time. When I saw Vermilia‘s follow-up, Karsikko had dropped in February—sadly we didn’t receive a promo—I jumped at the chance to filter it. While Karsikko is a bit more straightforward than Ruska, it’s full of liltingly beautiful pianos (“Karsikko”) that give way to icy black metal riffs (“Kansojen Kaipuu”) and gorgeously rendered folk metal melodies (“Koti,” “Veresi”). Comparisons with Myrkur and Suldusk would be appropriate, but Vermilia continues to carve out her own space in the folk black metal scene, marrying beatific melody with beastly aggression. Performing all of the music on Karsikko, as is her one-woman calling card, renders her finished products even more impressive. The highlight has always been the voice, though, as Vermilia deftly transitions between angelic cleans (“Suruhymni”) and frosty rasps (“Vakat”), completing a circle that makes each of her releases a joy to listen to. It’s confounding that another of Vermilia‘s albums is an independent release, which might be artistically intentional or the result of bone-headed label execs. Either way, don’t miss out on Karsikko, as Vermilia shouldn’t stay unsigned for long.
Killjoy’s Drowsy Discovery
Noctambulist // Noctambulist II: De Droom [February 7th, 2025 – These Hands Melt]
Although I love blackgaze, I must admit that it can be challenging to find artists who stand out in the genre, whether through quality songwriting or unexpected twists. It turns out that the Dutch band Noctambulist1 offers both. Noctambulist II: De Droom is a fun and fresh blend of Deafheaven-adjacent blackgaze with a Molotov cocktail of post-punk energy. The power chord-driven guitar lines prove to be an unexpectedly compatible fuel source to propel the shimmering, gazey tremolos and blackened rasps to new heights. Many songs (particularly “Aderlater” and “Lichteter”) start with neat intro melodies that catch the listener’s attention, then build and ride that momentum throughout the remainder. A faint sense of loss—stemming from the achingly relatable theme of homeownership drifting further out of many people’s reach—pervades the record, but there is also an infectious cheerfulness. Despite their name, Noctambulist are hardly sleepwalking as they tread along a well-worn genre.
Thus Spoke’s Disregarded Diamonds
Sacred Noose // Vanishing Spires [February 2nd, 2025 – Breath Sun Bone Blood]
My experience with Irish extreme metal has been that it is all incredibly dark, twisted, and supremely, gorgeously dissonant.2 Belfast3 duo Sacred Noose make absolutely no exception to this rule. Vanishing Spires’ ruthlessly brief 31 minutes are defined by stomach-tightening twisted blackened death designed to cut to the heart of misery and fear. The lurching sensation brought about by rapid tremolo descents and sudden accelerations of ever more dissonant chords, impenetrable drums, and pitch-shifting feedback is nauseating (“Entranced by Concrete Lathe,” “True Emancipation”). The pure horror of the inhuman, high-pitched shrieks answering the already fearsome bellows is anxiety-inducing (“”Black Tempests of Promise,” “Moribund”). The near-constant buzzing of noise is oppressive (“Terminal Prologue,” “True Emancipation”); the creeping, malevolent scales unnerving. And Sacred Noose play with their victim, luring them into a trap of deceptively familiar cavern-core (“Sacred Noose”) before throwing a hood over their head and yanking them backwards into more horrifying mania; or perhaps they’ll start with the assault (“True Emancipation”). This more ‘straightforward’ edge to Sacred Noose is most akin to a faster Sparagmos, while their dominant, demonic personality I can compare most faithfully to Thantifaxath, if Thantifaxath were more death-metal-inclined. Vanishing Spires is the first time since the latter’s 2023 Hive Mind Narcosis that a record has genuinely made me feel afraid.
Crown of Madness // Memories Fragmented [February 28th, 2025 – Transcending Obscurity Records]
Life unfortunately got in the way of me giving this a proper review, but Crown of Madness deserve better than to slip by unmentioned. Memories Fragmented is the duo’s debut, but Crown of Madness is one of several projects both are already in.4. The ominous yet colourful sci-fi/fantasy cover art and spiky logo scream ‘tech-death’ and that is indeed what Crown of Madness deliver. At base, there is some damn fine technical death metal here that’s impressive and acrobatic (), but snappy, not outstaying its welcome—the entire record barely stretches beyond 35 minutes. But there is more to Memories Fragmented, and as a result, it is memorable.5 A drawl to certain refrains (), the tendency to gently sway to a slow, near-pensiveness (), the atmospheric hanging of some tremolos over a warm, dense bass (). There is depth. And it reminded me quite starkly of early Ulcerate. In this vein, the record leans towards the more meandering side of the subgenre, gripping not with hooky riffs and heart-pumping tempos, but an intricate kind of intensity. Memories Fragmented arguably goes too far in the indistinct direction, and as a result, loses immediacy. But the churning, introspective compositions presage the potential for true brilliance on future releases.
Vacuous // In His Blood [February 28th, 2025 – Relapse Records]
Full of youthful vigour, London’s Vacuous demonstrate their willing ability to evolve with their sophomore, In His Blood. While debut Dreams of Dysphoria, which I covered back in 2022, played more or less by the disso-death book, here they are already experimenting. Strange, almost post-metal atmosphere now haunts the boundaries (“Hunger,” “Public Humiliation,” “No Longer Human”), combining brilliantly with the band’s already cavernous death metal sound, and amplifying its fearsomeness. Crowning example of this is the gem Vacuous save for the record’s final act in closer “No Longer Human.” In His Blood also sees them flirt with a punkier energy that borrows more than a little bit of malice from the blackened handbook (“In His Blood,” “Flesh Parade”), backed up by d-beats, and contrasting well with their now less frequent crawls. At its most explosive, In His Blood feels downright unhinged, in the best way (“Stress Positions,” “Immersion”), but it never feels messy, and there’s potential in here for Vacuous to evolve into yet another, incredibly potent form of unique, modern hybrid extreme metal. I wish there were more than 30 minutes of this.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Bottom o’ the Barrel Boons
Pissgrave // Malignant Worthlessness [February 21st, 2025 – Profound Lore Records]
Though it may appear, at a glance, that I have gold-colored glasses for bands of rank and urological reference, I’d call it more of a chance happening that such miscreant acts have created intriguing works. And, truthfully, PISSGRAVE has leaned closer to filth first, function second with the war-leaning crackle (and brazenly offensive cover art) that relegates their lineage to corners of listening ears who need therapy with a high tolerance for guts and grime. Malignant Worthlessness, of course, is not accessible by any means, though, despite these Philly boys packing these nine ode to a failed society in a package that doesn’t cause immediate squirm. But with grooves trapped in an endless skronk and blast, and vocals shifted and layered to reflect the sound of a swarm of Daffy Ducks with a serious disdain for life, PISSGRAVE still embodies an endless swirl of unleashed aggression rendered in riffed and regurgitated form. Malignant Worthlessness lives on the dry and crispy side with most of its tones, which allows copious hits of quick delay and reverb on OUGHs and EEEEEEEUGHs to land with an extra psychedelic knocking when you least expect it. Little slows down the pain train here, with tracks like “Heaping Pile of Electrified Gore” and “Internment Orgy” taking brief detours into chunky guitar builds that feel within grasp of normalcy just before dropping back into an intensified flaying. Elsewhere, a martial urgency that reminds of Paracletus-era Deathspell Omega or the industrial-tinged pummel of Concrete Winds, stirs a twitching movement response, all while retaining a grinding death snarl and chromatic fury, leading its fused-by-hatred structures toward an explosive and fuming conclusion. Humanity has no place in the PISSGRAVE environs, and Malignant Worthlessness, in its celebration of a hostile world, does everything it can to reinforce that.
終末回路 // 終端から引き剥がす [February 20th, 2025 – Self Release]
For things that wander around the math rock world, nailing a vibe remains essential to enjoyment. It’s all too easy in this day and edge to fall into the comfortable trap of ambient tapping and comfortable posty swirls to pleasant crescendos that renders many modern acts to high brow background music (even including bands I like, to a degree, like Covet or Jizue). New Japanese act 終末回路,6 however, chooses to imbue their nimble and tricky instrumental center with the searing emotion and urgency of a noisy post-hardcore, with searing vocal inclusions adding a gravitas to passages that would otherwise threaten to flutter away in glee (“誤殖,” “知らねぇよ”). On one end, 終末回路 delivers a bright playfulness that swings with the pedal power and psychedelia of a young Tera Melos. Yet, weighted with a punk urgency and rawer Japanese assembly of tones, which give a physical clang to tight kit heads and blazing squeal to shrill loops and feedback, 終末回路 finds a constant momentum in their shorter form excursion that makes my lack of understanding of its introspective lyrics a non-issue. Packing plaintive piano melodies (“ご自由に “), speaker blowing synth cranking (“dgdf++be”), and prog-tinged guitar flutters (“知らねぇよ”) into one listening session isn’t easy, but with this debut outing of 終端から引き剥がす,7 終末回路 makes it seem as if they’ve been honing the craft for years.
Saunders’ Salacious Skeeves
Möuth // Gobal Warning [February 14th, 2025 – Self Release)
Veteran rockers The Hellacopters returned with a typically rollicking, fun album in February. Elsewhere, dropping with little fanfare, fellow Swedes and unsung power trio Möuth emerged with an intriguing debut rock platter, entitled Global Warning. Featuring more than meets the eye and flashing a dynamic rock sound, Möuth embrace both retro and modern influences, whipped into an infectious concoction of styles, ranging from Sabbathian lurches, doomy grooves, stoner vibes, and elements of psych, punk and hard rock. For the most part it works a treat, creating a welcome change of pace. Fuzzy, upbeat rockers (“Dirt,” “Appetite”) snugly reside amongst moody, psych-bending numbers (“Alike,” “Mantra”), and heavier doom-laden rock, such as powerful opener “Holy Ground,” and brooding, emotive album centerpiece, “Sheep.” Vocally, the passionate, Ozzy-esque croons hit the spot, matching up well to the band’s multi-pronged rock flavors. Compact and infectious, varied in delivery and featuring enough tasty rhythms, fuzzy melodies and rock punch to satisfy, Global Warning marks an intriguing starting point for these Swedish rockers.
Chaos Inception // Vengeance Evangel [February 21st, 2025 – Lavadome Productions]
Emerging from a deep slumber in the depths of the underground, Alabama’s long dormant death metal crew Chaos Inception returned with their first album since 2012’s The Abrogation. Third album Vengeance Evangel went under the radar, festering unclaimed in the promo sump. After the fact, the album’s crushing, controlled chaos smacked me upside the skull with a violent modern interpretation of the classic Floridian death metal sound, with the musty hues of Tucker-era Morbid Angel most prevalent. This is blast-riddled, relentless stuff, played expertly by the trio of Matt Barnes (guitars), Gray White (vocals) and session drummer Kevin Paradis (ex-Benighted). Incredibly dense, atmospheric, and blazingly fast, Vengeance Evangel is a brutal, knotty, technical hammering, punctuated by sick, wildly inventive soloing. While not traditionally catchy, Vengeance Evangel is the kind of intense, layered death metal album that gets under the skin, grafting a deeper impression across repeated listens. The insane tempo shifts, jigsaw arrangements, and wickedly deranged axework delivers big time. From the violent, intricate throes of opener “Artillery of Humwawa,” and disturbed soundscapes of “La Niebla en el Cementerio Etrusco,” through to the brutish grooves of ‘Thymos Beast,” and exotic, tech death shards of “Empire of Prevarication,” Vengeance Evangel does not neatly fit into any one subgenre category but ticks many boxes to cast a wide appeal to death fans of varied equations.
Steel Druhm’s Viscous Biscuits
Ereb Altor // Hälsingemörker [ February 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]
Steel loves his epic metal. I was raised on the stirring odes to swordsmanship and ungovernable back hair from Manowar and Cirth Ungol, and in time, I took a place at the great table in Wotan’s Golden Halls to appreciate the Viking metal exploits of Bathory and later adherents like Falkenbach and Moonsorrow. Sweden’s Ereb Altor got in the game late with their epic By Honour debut in 2008, boasting a very Bathory-esque sound and emotional tapestry that felt larger-than-life and stirred the loins to begird themselves. 10th album Hälsingemörker is a glorious return to those halls of heroes and bravery. This is the large-scale songcraft first heard on Bathory albums like Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods, and it’s most welcome to these ape ears. Cuts like “Valkyrian Fate” are exactly the kind of sweeping, epic numbers the band’s excelled at over the years. It takes the core sound of Viking era Bathory and builds outward to craft bombastic and heroic compositions that feel HUUUGE. It’s the kind of metal song that embiggens the soul and makes you want to take on a marauding horde by your lonesome and usurp all their battle booty. On “Hälsingemörker,” you get a fat dose of Moonsorrow worship, and elsewhere, Primordial is strongly referenced to very good effect. Hälsingemörker is easily the best Ereb Altor album in a while and the most in line with their beloved early sound. Strap on the sword and get after it!
#AmericanMetal #Arboreal #Benighted #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #Blackgaze #BreathSunBoneBlood #Carnage #CausticPhlegm #ChaosInception #Chestcrush #ConcreteWinds #Coscradh #Covet #CrownOfMadness #Darkher #Deafheaven #DeathDoom #DeathMetal #DeathspellOmega #Demilich #DerangedExcruciations #DissonantDeathMetal #DustAge #EmbodimentOfDeath #ErebAltor #EverlastingSpewRecords #FolkMetal #GlobalWarning #Hälsingemörker #HellsHeadbangers #Impetigo #InHisBlood #Incantation #IrishMetal #JapaneseMetal #jizue #Karsikko #LavadomeProductions #MalignantWorthlessness #MathRock #MelodicBlackMetal #MemoriesFragmented #Metaphobic #MorbidAngel #Möuth #Myserion #Noctambulist #NoctambulistIIDeDroom #Noxis #OzzyOsbourne #Pissgrave #PostMetal #postPunk #ProfoundLoreRecords #PurulentApocalypse #RelapseRecords #Rock #SacredNoose #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #SermonOfFlames #Sparagmos #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TerZiele #TeraMelos #Thantifaxath #TheHelicopters #TheseHandsMelt #TombMold #TranscendingObscurityRecords #UKMetal #Ulcerate #Vacuous #VanishingSpires #VengeanceEvangel #Vermilia #VultureSVengeance #終末回路 #終端から引き剥がす
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A very deliberate decline: the thread about the last days of the Edinburgh Corporation Tramway
On the 16th November 1956, (64 years ago, on this day when this was first written), at around 720PM, the last of the old electric trams in Edinburgh and Leith set off on their final journey.
Commemorative tickets from the last week of trams in Edinburgh, November 1956. © Edinburgh City LibrariesA specially painted and illuminated car – no. 172 – had been touring the network for the previous week in an odd celebration of the future. Here is a colour photo of that car, taken at Shrubhill Works off Leith Walk.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127340508@N05/31685991143/
Edinburgh, Leith and Musselburgh’s tramway networks had grown steadily since the first line in 1871. Right up until the outbreak of war in 1939, the Corporation was still planning for its expansion. However, after the war, the network had very quickly gone through a politically-motivated crash course in running down in the 3 years from 1953-56. The last service to run was no. 23, from the Braids to Shrubhill depot via. Morningside Station.
The rise and rise and fall of Edinburgh, Leith & Musselburgh’s tram networksIn the 3 years to 1956, Edinburgh’s tram network was cut back from 28 routes to just 2 after the Council’s decision in 1951 to abandon the trams. The peak year was 1948, when 330 cars worked from 5 depots. The system was deliberately run into the ground and shut down at the peak of its efficiency and popularity. Contrary to popular narrative, it wasn’t clapped out; maintenance during the war was good, new rolling stock had been built and 1948 was a record year for passengers.
Public Transport passengers on the Corporation/Council owned networks, 1920-2016The Corporation shut down tram routes by “busification”; it had bought in large numbers of new buses, and they replaced the trams routes as they were withdrawn, running the same routes and numbers. Buses initially enjoyed a surge in use; but they were never as popular or convenient and people quickly abandoned them for personal cars. Despite the heroic efforts of Lothian Buses to run a quality bus service over the last 30 or so years since deregulation, they have never recovered their share of the market.
Over that short, 3-year run-down period, hundreds of trams were driven unceremoniously over the rails to Maybury to be hauled onto low loaders and taken by road to Connel’s in Coatbridge to be cut up.
Loading a tram onto a low loader for scrapping at Maybury. Still from a video in the NLS Moving Image Archive film, “Into the Mists”.After the line to Corstorphine was lifted, cars were loaded in north Leith, and when that too was cut back they directly left the gates of Shrubhill depot on the lorry.
Leaving Shrubhill for the last time. Still from a video in the NLS Moving Image Archive film, “Into the Mists”.In the ultimate indignity, the tram cars bodies were first set on fire to burn out the wooden components prior to salvaging the metalwork.
As soon as the services over a section of route were cancelled, the cutters came in to pull down the overhead wires for scrap. Shortly after they would come and lift the rails, or even just tarmac directly over them in some cases. One of the issues facing the tramway network was that it had the liability for repairs and maintenance of the carriageway on which the tram tracks were laid; this meant it not only had to do its own maintenance but was also facing a greater burden as a result of the increasing weight and volume of private motor vehicle traffic using the roads.
Lifting the rails on Portobello High Street. in 1956. © Edinburgh City LibrariesThe trams very nearly got a temporary stay of execution due to the Suez Crisis (Glasgow did get a deferral in their run down for this reason), but the Council’s mind was set and not for changing. 16th November 1956 was to be the day. Here is a gloomily atmospheric photo of one of the last scheduled services on route 23, leaving Granton Square in the chilly murk of a cold November evening. The car looks bright and warm in contrast.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127340508@N05/38687900281/
Special yellow ticket rolls were used in the final week with “LAST TRAM” printed on the back. The trams flew pennants from their current poles. Everyone and their dog took a final ride and requests were taken for invites on the last run.
Last run invite and Last Week commemorative ticket. Picture via Heart RadioOn the final day, a restored horse bus (not a horse tram) appeared, hauled by two horses from the St. Cuthbert’s Cooperative Association’s delivery stable. Special tours were given and the crew wore vintage uniform.
The Horse Bus. Still from a video in the NLS Moving Image Archive film, “Into the Mists”.By this time, services number 23 (Granton Square to Morningside via the Mound) and 28 (Newhaven to Braid Hills via Pilrig Street and Lothian Road) were all that remained, and ran as usual that day. People patronised them as usual, as if it was all a bad dream and they would wake up and get the tram again tomorrow as they always had done.
At 8 minutes past 6, an ominous figure appeared at Granton Road Station. It was a bus, running the first bus-replacement service 23. Trams continued to run as usual for the next hour and 21 minutes though. At 7:29PM the last service tram ran only as far as the Mound.
Driver James Kay and Conductor Andrew Birrell, pose with the last service tram before running its last service. © Edinburgh City LibrariesThe remaining cars on the network and at Tollcross depot then turned out their lights and rolled their route and service numbers blinds to show a blank screen and headed quietly to Shrubhill depot for the last time. A pool of cars headed the other way to Braids terminus to start the special final runs. Ten cars made the run up to Braids, including that in the special “last week” livery. A further car, no. 217, left from Morningside Station “carrying town councillors and their invited guests“.
The Lord Provost Sir John Garnett Banks with some tramway drivers in their best and the microphones of the BBC infront of the commemorative white tram. Note the horse bus in the background. © Edinburgh City LibrariesHuge crowds lined the route, and people came from far and wide to the Mound to see the convoy go down the hill. Buses had to be diverted and the trams were halted as the crowds were managed. The horse bus lead the way, pulled by a pair of white horses. The BBC were present. A brief ceremony was conducted at the foot of the Mound, when the Lady Provost handed over specially inscribed control keys to the crew of tram 217 carrying the councillors. They then ran onto Shrubhill, unceremoniously ejected their passengers, and rolled on into the depot by Dryden Street.
The crowds are reported to have been well behaved and there was no surge of souvenir hunters, but many people put pennies down on the tracks in order that they were flattened by the last trams. The switch was pulled in Shrubhill at 9:40PM and the traction current was turned off for the last time. The Scotsman ran an evening editorial wondering if “electric traction might not return again in time“. And out into the night went the gangs of workmen, and pulled down the cables on Princes Street, dug up the boarding islands. Early the following morning they started loading the final cars onto the scrappies’ lorries. Only one, No., 35, would survive to be preserved. For many years it lived in a small transport museum at Shrubhill Depot, but has now passed on to the Crich Tramway Museum.
No. 35 at Crich Tramway. CC-by_SA 3.0 THTRail2013So why was a popular, comprehensive and seemingly good quality system run down with quite such enthusiasm? There are a number of factors, a big one of which was money. The Ministry of Transport would not give or lend or allow the Corporation to borrow for required capital works. But another was will. Despite having cut his teeth on the Edinburgh trams, the General Manager W. M. Little had gone to St. Helens Corporation in 1941 – who had closed their tramway in 1936 and replaced it with a combination of diesel and electric trolley buses. He returned to Edinburgh in 1948, chomping at the bit of a bus-first future.
It was Little, the man in charge of the Corporation’s trams, who put forward a proposal in 1950 recommending that no further extension be considered and 25% of the route and services be replaced by buses. And Little had an ally in the form of Councillor George Learmonth Harkess, newly elected in 1949 to the Liberton ward for the “Progressives” (the small-c conservative, anti-Labour coalition who dominated Edinburgh politics into the 1970s.) Let’s be clear here that the Progressives were a municipal party and do not have a straight ancestral lineage with either the Conservatives (or Unionsts as they then were) or the Liberals who formed much of their core. It would be wrong and simplistic to lay the blame for the demise of the tramway at the foot of the current parties in that space.
Despite being a funeral director by trade Harkess found himself propelled into the chair of the Transport Convenor (or perhaps – it was appropriately?). Despite immense popular and press opposition, Harkess and Little between them conspired to carry the dominant Progressives with them and vote for scrapping. If one of the authoritative sources on the subject is to be believed, the tactics of the “antis” delved deep into “alternative facts” and steadfastly refusing to countenance any alternatives. There are certainly plenty of articles quoting Harkess and/or Little in the Edinburgh local papers at the time carrying a clear pro-bus, anti-tram rhetoric.
The Last Week tram. Still from a video in the NLS Moving Image Archive film, “Into the Mists”.In a 1952 local election, the councillor for Dalry stood on an anti-tram ticket and lost his seat. Harkess, his job done, had stepped down from the Transport committee by this time. His unfortunate successor lost his seat at the 1955 election. With the Ministry of Transport financially strangling the Corporation though, they didn’t realistically have an alternative. They simultaneously had fares capped at a below-cost level – so were running a loss – and were unable to borrow for capital funding. Once the initial round of cutbacks were completed, total closure was inevitable as every time it was cut back, the financial position would just get worse and not better. Any economies of scale were lost, and the remaining tram services found themselves competing against the Corporation’s own buses.
I will leave this with a link to a wonderful 10 min home movie called “Into the Mists”, a colour record of the final few days of the network, preserved by the National Library of Scotland’s Moving Image Archive. You can watch it all for yourself and mull over a great public folly committed all those years ago.
Sardonic destination blind for Coatbridge. Still from a video in the NLS Moving Image Archive film, “Into the Mists”.Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
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It is easy to look at the early days of Suzanne Vega’s adult years as being a Bohemian dream. In the early 1980s she was enrolled at a liberal arts college in Manhattan called Barnard College. She was majoring in English. Between classes, she wrote poetry and participated in writers’ groups that eventually evolved into coffeehouse folk music sessions on open mic nights throughout the city. While working on her writing and her school work, Vega would frequent a restaurant called Tom’s Restaurant. This is the restaurant made famous in the Seinfeld comedy show. While inside this real restaurant, alone with her creative thoughts, Vega would take note of the patrons who came and went, creating characters out of them based on their fashion, their mannerisms, the interactions they had with the staff and with each other and so on. Not far from Tom’s Restaurant is a church known as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. In front of that cathedral is a series of large stone steps. Many people use those steps to stop and rest from the hustle and bustle of walking in such a busy city. For Vega, she used those steps as a rendezvous point where she and her boyfriend would meet. They would have picnics and sip wine at midnight under the glow of whatever moonlight happened to filter down to street level. Together, they would talk about the purity of poetry and of Art and the corrupting influence of wealth and commerce upon the creative process. It was all a very heady and idealistic time in her life.
Singer Suzanne Vega.It was also a time when Vega decided that she wanted to try to turn some of her poetry into song lyrics and perhaps try to record some songs. She took to trying out her original material during her coffeehouse sessions. While Vega was by no means becoming a star, she did start to develop a bit of a name for herself in local folk circles. Not long afterwards, she was offered the chance to record some of her songs on an album. That self-titled debut album was released in 1985. Due to the groundwork that she had laid on the coffeehouse circuit, her album ended up in the hands of some music critics from influential New York publications. Her album failed to generate any hit songs, but it did earn Vega some positive reviews from those music critics. Armed with those reviews and the confidence that they inspired, Suzanne Vega began work on a follow up album. All the while this was happening, she and her boyfriend began finding themselves more at odds with each other. While Vega had certainly not become rich from sales of her debut album, she was earning a modest income. In addition, she hired a manager and started having to think in terms of the business of making music her career. This change in mindset led to a breakup with her boyfriend. After this happened, Suzanne Vega found herself feeling a sense of disconnect from the world around her. As she continued to visit places like Tom’s Restaurant, she began to view the world there differently. Those same customers who once were merely characters in her poems took on new meaning. As she watched them, she felt a sense of alienation taking hold of her. Her observations took on a sharper focus as she watched who actually spoke to whom, who sat alone in silence, which people were always looking wistfully out of the window at a world that didn’t include them and so on. It is easy to be alone among the crowd. So many people around her seemed to be on their own, either by choice or by circumstance. And now she was like them, too. Channeling that feeling of solitude into music resulted in a song being written called “Tom’s Diner”. It was originally going to be called “Tom’s Restaurant” in tribute to the place that had become like a second home to her and those around her, but in the end, she thought that the word “Diner” sounded better, so the song became “Tom’s Diner”.
In 1987, Vega had put together enough material for a new album that became known as Solitude Standing. The songs on this album reflected a growing sense of maturity in Vega’s writing. A sense of social consciousness began to appear in the form of her first single, “Luka”. This song was about child abuse as told from the perspective of the child being abused. In later years, Suzanne Vega admitted that the song was inspired by her own life. However, when “Luka” was released, the message that child abuse was an experience that scarred its victims and, furthermore, was an experience for which children were not to blame became something of a social phenomenon. It was a song that caused victims who had previously suffered in silence to finally feel heard and seen. The national conversations that arose regarding the nature of how child abuse happens and what can be done about it changed the lives of many people who had being bearing the weight of guilt and shame their whole lives. The song also made a star out of Suzanne Vega. The followup single to “Luka” was “Tom’s Diner”.
“Tom’s Diner” holds a unique place in the history of modern music for several reasons. First of all, Suzanne Vega decided to write the lyrics of this song as she would a poem. Furthermore, when she thought about how best to perform this song, she felt that since it was written like a poem that she should deliver it like one. Thus, “Tom’s Diner” is sung almost as a spoken word poem and is delivered completely a capella. After this song was released, it became almost as big a hit as “Luka”, making it one of the most successful a capella songs in music history. As people grew familiar with the content and cadence of “Tom’s Diner”, Vega began to notice a curious trend appear during her live shows. For all of her other songs, the audience would be chatty and would dance and sway to her music as she sang. However, when it came time for the opening notes of “Tom’s Diner”, the crowd would still and become silent as if under a spell. To this day, whenever Suzanne Vega has performed “Tom’ Diner” at some of the world’s largest music festivals such as Glastonbury and Coachella, the crowd always stills and listens hard. A sense of calm envelops them as Vega reads/sings her story of how it was to sit in Tom’s Restaurant all those years ago watching so many people she came to know so well yet never spoke to, going about their lives, alone in one of the most populated cities on earth.
Solitude Standing became an album that sold millions of copies. It helped Suzanne Vega to become a household name in the music business. But a funny thing happened because of the song “Tom’s Diner” that helped solidify that song as one of the most special songs of all time, and it didn’t really involve Suzanne Vega at all. The world of audio technology was evolving all through the 1980s, just as Suzanne Vega’s career was evolving, too. The 1980s was the time period when the ability to digitize sound was becoming more refined and commonplace and, most importantly, more economical to produce on a mass scale. Without going into a detailed scientific explanation, the evolution of audio engineering that took us from record albums to cassette tapes and on to digital compact discs involved something known as sound compression. In order to be able to reproduce sounds in smaller physical properties such as computer processors, engineers had to figure out a way to compress sounds in a way to make them fit in a smaller area yet still retain the full breadth and depth of the original sound. Along the way, an audio engineer named Karlheinz Brandenburg was attempting to create a new audio compression system that ended up becoming known as MP3 technology. MP3 technology was what led to things such as iPod Shuffles and other portable listening devices becoming a thing. In any case, as Brandenburg was trying to fine tune his audio compression design, he happened to hear “Tom’s Diner” playing in a room adjacent to where he was working. The crystal clear clarity of Suzanne Vega’s voice on this song had previously been used to test drive high end speakers for home stereo systems. Brandenburg wondered how the audio quality would sound after being processed through his MP3 system. Once he played “Tom’s DIner”, he found that his MP3 technology made it sound awful. By tweaking his own design to make “Tom’s Diner” sound wonderful again, Brandenburg discovered that his system now worked for all other songs, too. Thus, “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega is credited with being the song that launched MP3 technology, that, in turn, changed the way in which all of us potentially interact with our music.
The folks who created MP3 technology..Solitude Standing has turned out to be the highwater mark in terms of sales for Suzanne Vega. But that hasn’t stopped her from touring and singing and bringing people together because of her words. She is always good to support causes related to social justice and the environment, as well as numerous issues termed “women’s issues”. Vega has also collaborated several times with one of my favourite singers, Joe Jackson (who you can read more about here). However, the most recent wave of success that she has achieved came from her old song, “Tom’s Diner”, and again, it had little to do with her. A new band that called themselves DNA remixed “Tom’s Diner” and mashed it together with the song “Keep On Movin’” by Soul II Soul and created a dance hit from Vega’s original a capella rendering. As seems to be becoming a trend, modern artists reaching back into the music vaults of the 1980s for inspiration has resulted in Suzanne Vega’s career being placed in the social media spotlight of an entirely new generation of music fans. Just like with Kate Bush and “Running Up That Hill”, “Tom’s Diner” has been given a new lease on life thanks to DNA.
DNA and their remix of “Tom’s Diner”.And so we come to the end of a post about a song that describes what it is like to feel alone while watching the world pass by from within the confines of one of America’s most recognizable cultural touchstones, Tom’s Restaurant. This song, initially about alienation, has ended up endearing Suzanne Vega to the world in more ways than she could have possibly imagined. For me, it is also another clear example of trusting your own instincts. She charted her own course in life, refusing to stay with a boyfriend who would have been satisfied if she had limited herself to singing in coffeehouses for the money in tip jars. Suzanne Vega understood the power of poetry and refused to alter the structure of her song to make it more verse-chorus, verse-chorus style as many pop songs are. Finally, Vega could have recorded “Tom’s Diner” with a band, as I’m sure was suggested to her at the time. But she stuck to her guns and insisted that a capella was the way for that song to be properly sung. As a result, the clarity and cadence of her spoken word song/poem was viewed as being perfect to help design a sound compression system that helped usher in the era of portable audio devices, and it acted as the foundation for a very successful dance remix. All because Suzanne Vega trusted her own instincts. There is such a lesson in all of that for the rest of us. Stay true to your vision. Trust your gut. The purity of art is what comes from possessing a mindset such as that.
The link to the official website for Suzanne Vega can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to a video for the song “Tom’s Diner” as remixed by DNA can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to a video that explains how the song “Tom’s Diner” helped to create the MP3 sound compression system can be found here. ***This short video is more interesting than you might think. Check it out. 🙂
***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2024 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com
#DNA #KarlheinzBrandenburg #MP3 #ReadersChoiceTomsTopTunes #SuzanneVega #TomsDiner #TomsRestaurant
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It is easy to look at the early days of Suzanne Vega’s adult years as being a Bohemian dream. In the early 1980s she was enrolled at a liberal arts college in Manhattan called Barnard College. She was majoring in English. Between classes, she wrote poetry and participated in writers’ groups that eventually evolved into coffeehouse folk music sessions on open mic nights throughout the city. While working on her writing and her school work, Vega would frequent a restaurant called Tom’s Restaurant. This is the restaurant made famous in the Seinfeld comedy show. While inside this real restaurant, alone with her creative thoughts, Vega would take note of the patrons who came and went, creating characters out of them based on their fashion, their mannerisms, the interactions they had with the staff and with each other and so on. Not far from Tom’s Restaurant is a church known as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. In front of that cathedral is a series of large stone steps. Many people use those steps to stop and rest from the hustle and bustle of walking in such a busy city. For Vega, she used those steps as a rendezvous point where she and her boyfriend would meet. They would have picnics and sip wine at midnight under the glow of whatever moonlight happened to filter down to street level. Together, they would talk about the purity of poetry and of Art and the corrupting influence of wealth and commerce upon the creative process. It was all a very heady and idealistic time in her life.
Singer Suzanne Vega.It was also a time when Vega decided that she wanted to try to turn some of her poetry into song lyrics and perhaps try to record some songs. She took to trying out her original material during her coffeehouse sessions. While Vega was by no means becoming a star, she did start to develop a bit of a name for herself in local folk circles. Not long afterwards, she was offered the chance to record some of her songs on an album. That self-titled debut album was released in 1985. Due to the groundwork that she had laid on the coffeehouse circuit, her album ended up in the hands of some music critics from influential New York publications. Her album failed to generate any hit songs, but it did earn Vega some positive reviews from those music critics. Armed with those reviews and the confidence that they inspired, Suzanne Vega began work on a follow up album. All the while this was happening, she and her boyfriend began finding themselves more at odds with each other. While Vega had certainly not become rich from sales of her debut album, she was earning a modest income. In addition, she hired a manager and started having to think in terms of the business of making music her career. This change in mindset led to a breakup with her boyfriend. After this happened, Suzanne Vega found herself feeling a sense of disconnect from the world around her. As she continued to visit places like Tom’s Restaurant, she began to view the world there differently. Those same customers who once were merely characters in her poems took on new meaning. As she watched them, she felt a sense of alienation taking hold of her. Her observations took on a sharper focus as she watched who actually spoke to whom, who sat alone in silence, which people were always looking wistfully out of the window at a world that didn’t include them and so on. It is easy to be alone among the crowd. So many people around her seemed to be on their own, either by choice or by circumstance. And now she was like them, too. Channeling that feeling of solitude into music resulted in a song being written called “Tom’s Diner”. It was originally going to be called “Tom’s Restaurant” in tribute to the place that had become like a second home to her and those around her, but in the end, she thought that the word “Diner” sounded better, so the song became “Tom’s Diner”.
In 1987, Vega had put together enough material for a new album that became known as Solitude Standing. The songs on this album reflected a growing sense of maturity in Vega’s writing. A sense of social consciousness began to appear in the form of her first single, “Luka”. This song was about child abuse as told from the perspective of the child being abused. In later years, Suzanne Vega admitted that the song was inspired by her own life. However, when “Luka” was released, the message that child abuse was an experience that scarred its victims and, furthermore, was an experience for which children were not to blame became something of a social phenomenon. It was a song that caused victims who had previously suffered in silence to finally feel heard and seen. The national conversations that arose regarding the nature of how child abuse happens and what can be done about it changed the lives of many people who had being bearing the weight of guilt and shame their whole lives. The song also made a star out of Suzanne Vega. The followup single to “Luka” was “Tom’s Diner”.
“Tom’s Diner” holds a unique place in the history of modern music for several reasons. First of all, Suzanne Vega decided to write the lyrics of this song as she would a poem. Furthermore, when she thought about how best to perform this song, she felt that since it was written like a poem that she should deliver it like one. Thus, “Tom’s Diner” is sung almost as a spoken word poem and is delivered completely a capella. After this song was released, it became almost as big a hit as “Luka”, making it one of the most successful a capella songs in music history. As people grew familiar with the content and cadence of “Tom’s Diner”, Vega began to notice a curious trend appear during her live shows. For all of her other songs, the audience would be chatty and would dance and sway to her music as she sang. However, when it came time for the opening notes of “Tom’s Diner”, the crowd would still and become silent as if under a spell. To this day, whenever Suzanne Vega has performed “Tom’ Diner” at some of the world’s largest music festivals such as Glastonbury and Coachella, the crowd always stills and listens hard. A sense of calm envelops them as Vega reads/sings her story of how it was to sit in Tom’s Restaurant all those years ago watching so many people she came to know so well yet never spoke to, going about their lives, alone in one of the most populated cities on earth.
Solitude Standing became an album that sold millions of copies. It helped Suzanne Vega to become a household name in the music business. But a funny thing happened because of the song “Tom’s Diner” that helped solidify that song as one of the most special songs of all time, and it didn’t really involve Suzanne Vega at all. The world of audio technology was evolving all through the 1980s, just as Suzanne Vega’s career was evolving, too. The 1980s was the time period when the ability to digitize sound was becoming more refined and commonplace and, most importantly, more economical to produce on a mass scale. Without going into a detailed scientific explanation, the evolution of audio engineering that took us from record albums to cassette tapes and on to digital compact discs involved something known as sound compression. In order to be able to reproduce sounds in smaller physical properties such as computer processors, engineers had to figure out a way to compress sounds in a way to make them fit in a smaller area yet still retain the full breadth and depth of the original sound. Along the way, an audio engineer named Karlheinz Brandenburg was attempting to create a new audio compression system that ended up becoming known as MP3 technology. MP3 technology was what led to things such as iPod Shuffles and other portable listening devices becoming a thing. In any case, as Brandenburg was trying to fine tune his audio compression design, he happened to hear “Tom’s Diner” playing in a room adjacent to where he was working. The crystal clear clarity of Suzanne Vega’s voice on this song had previously been used to test drive high end speakers for home stereo systems. Brandenburg wondered how the audio quality would sound after being processed through his MP3 system. Once he played “Tom’s DIner”, he found that his MP3 technology made it sound awful. By tweaking his own design to make “Tom’s Diner” sound wonderful again, Brandenburg discovered that his system now worked for all other songs, too. Thus, “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega is credited with being the song that launched MP3 technology, that, in turn, changed the way in which all of us potentially interact with our music.
The folks who created MP3 technology..Solitude Standing has turned out to be the highwater mark in terms of sales for Suzanne Vega. But that hasn’t stopped her from touring and singing and bringing people together because of her words. She is always good to support causes related to social justice and the environment, as well as numerous issues termed “women’s issues”. Vega has also collaborated several times with one of my favourite singers, Joe Jackson (who you can read more about here). However, the most recent wave of success that she has achieved came from her old song, “Tom’s Diner”, and again, it had little to do with her. A new band that called themselves DNA remixed “Tom’s Diner” and mashed it together with the song “Keep On Movin’” by Soul II Soul and created a dance hit from Vega’s original a capella rendering. As seems to be becoming a trend, modern artists reaching back into the music vaults of the 1980s for inspiration has resulted in Suzanne Vega’s career being placed in the social media spotlight of an entirely new generation of music fans. Just like with Kate Bush and “Running Up That Hill”, “Tom’s Diner” has been given a new lease on life thanks to DNA.
DNA and their remix of “Tom’s Diner”.And so we come to the end of a post about a song that describes what it is like to feel alone while watching the world pass by from within the confines of one of America’s most recognizable cultural touchstones, Tom’s Restaurant. This song, initially about alienation, has ended up endearing Suzanne Vega to the world in more ways than she could have possibly imagined. For me, it is also another clear example of trusting your own instincts. She charted her own course in life, refusing to stay with a boyfriend who would have been satisfied if she had limited herself to singing in coffeehouses for the money in tip jars. Suzanne Vega understood the power of poetry and refused to alter the structure of her song to make it more verse-chorus, verse-chorus style as many pop songs are. Finally, Vega could have recorded “Tom’s Diner” with a band, as I’m sure was suggested to her at the time. But she stuck to her guns and insisted that a capella was the way for that song to be properly sung. As a result, the clarity and cadence of her spoken word song/poem was viewed as being perfect to help design a sound compression system that helped usher in the era of portable audio devices, and it acted as the foundation for a very successful dance remix. All because Suzanne Vega trusted her own instincts. There is such a lesson in all of that for the rest of us. Stay true to your vision. Trust your gut. The purity of art is what comes from possessing a mindset such as that.
The link to the official website for Suzanne Vega can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to a video for the song “Tom’s Diner” as remixed by DNA can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to a video that explains how the song “Tom’s Diner” helped to create the MP3 sound compression system can be found here. ***This short video is more interesting than you might think. Check it out. 🙂
***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2024 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com
#DNA #KarlheinzBrandenburg #MP3 #ReadersChoiceTomsTopTunes #SuzanneVega #TomsDiner #TomsRestaurant
-
It is easy to look at the early days of Suzanne Vega’s adult years as being a Bohemian dream. In the early 1980s she was enrolled at a liberal arts college in Manhattan called Barnard College. She was majoring in English. Between classes, she wrote poetry and participated in writers’ groups that eventually evolved into coffeehouse folk music sessions on open mic nights throughout the city. While working on her writing and her school work, Vega would frequent a restaurant called Tom’s Restaurant. This is the restaurant made famous in the Seinfeld comedy show. While inside this real restaurant, alone with her creative thoughts, Vega would take note of the patrons who came and went, creating characters out of them based on their fashion, their mannerisms, the interactions they had with the staff and with each other and so on. Not far from Tom’s Restaurant is a church known as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. In front of that cathedral is a series of large stone steps. Many people use those steps to stop and rest from the hustle and bustle of walking in such a busy city. For Vega, she used those steps as a rendezvous point where she and her boyfriend would meet. They would have picnics and sip wine at midnight under the glow of whatever moonlight happened to filter down to street level. Together, they would talk about the purity of poetry and of Art and the corrupting influence of wealth and commerce upon the creative process. It was all a very heady and idealistic time in her life.
Singer Suzanne Vega.It was also a time when Vega decided that she wanted to try to turn some of her poetry into song lyrics and perhaps try to record some songs. She took to trying out her original material during her coffeehouse sessions. While Vega was by no means becoming a star, she did start to develop a bit of a name for herself in local folk circles. Not long afterwards, she was offered the chance to record some of her songs on an album. That self-titled debut album was released in 1985. Due to the groundwork that she had laid on the coffeehouse circuit, her album ended up in the hands of some music critics from influential New York publications. Her album failed to generate any hit songs, but it did earn Vega some positive reviews from those music critics. Armed with those reviews and the confidence that they inspired, Suzanne Vega began work on a follow up album. All the while this was happening, she and her boyfriend began finding themselves more at odds with each other. While Vega had certainly not become rich from sales of her debut album, she was earning a modest income. In addition, she hired a manager and started having to think in terms of the business of making music her career. This change in mindset led to a breakup with her boyfriend. After this happened, Suzanne Vega found herself feeling a sense of disconnect from the world around her. As she continued to visit places like Tom’s Restaurant, she began to view the world there differently. Those same customers who once were merely characters in her poems took on new meaning. As she watched them, she felt a sense of alienation taking hold of her. Her observations took on a sharper focus as she watched who actually spoke to whom, who sat alone in silence, which people were always looking wistfully out of the window at a world that didn’t include them and so on. It is easy to be alone among the crowd. So many people around her seemed to be on their own, either by choice or by circumstance. And now she was like them, too. Channeling that feeling of solitude into music resulted in a song being written called “Tom’s Diner”. It was originally going to be called “Tom’s Restaurant” in tribute to the place that had become like a second home to her and those around her, but in the end, she thought that the word “Diner” sounded better, so the song became “Tom’s Diner”.
In 1987, Vega had put together enough material for a new album that became known as Solitude Standing. The songs on this album reflected a growing sense of maturity in Vega’s writing. A sense of social consciousness began to appear in the form of her first single, “Luka”. This song was about child abuse as told from the perspective of the child being abused. In later years, Suzanne Vega admitted that the song was inspired by her own life. However, when “Luka” was released, the message that child abuse was an experience that scarred its victims and, furthermore, was an experience for which children were not to blame became something of a social phenomenon. It was a song that caused victims who had previously suffered in silence to finally feel heard and seen. The national conversations that arose regarding the nature of how child abuse happens and what can be done about it changed the lives of many people who had being bearing the weight of guilt and shame their whole lives. The song also made a star out of Suzanne Vega. The followup single to “Luka” was “Tom’s Diner”.
“Tom’s Diner” holds a unique place in the history of modern music for several reasons. First of all, Suzanne Vega decided to write the lyrics of this song as she would a poem. Furthermore, when she thought about how best to perform this song, she felt that since it was written like a poem that she should deliver it like one. Thus, “Tom’s Diner” is sung almost as a spoken word poem and is delivered completely a capella. After this song was released, it became almost as big a hit as “Luka”, making it one of the most successful a capella songs in music history. As people grew familiar with the content and cadence of “Tom’s Diner”, Vega began to notice a curious trend appear during her live shows. For all of her other songs, the audience would be chatty and would dance and sway to her music as she sang. However, when it came time for the opening notes of “Tom’s Diner”, the crowd would still and become silent as if under a spell. To this day, whenever Suzanne Vega has performed “Tom’ Diner” at some of the world’s largest music festivals such as Glastonbury and Coachella, the crowd always stills and listens hard. A sense of calm envelops them as Vega reads/sings her story of how it was to sit in Tom’s Restaurant all those years ago watching so many people she came to know so well yet never spoke to, going about their lives, alone in one of the most populated cities on earth.
Solitude Standing became an album that sold millions of copies. It helped Suzanne Vega to become a household name in the music business. But a funny thing happened because of the song “Tom’s Diner” that helped solidify that song as one of the most special songs of all time, and it didn’t really involve Suzanne Vega at all. The world of audio technology was evolving all through the 1980s, just as Suzanne Vega’s career was evolving, too. The 1980s was the time period when the ability to digitize sound was becoming more refined and commonplace and, most importantly, more economical to produce on a mass scale. Without going into a detailed scientific explanation, the evolution of audio engineering that took us from record albums to cassette tapes and on to digital compact discs involved something known as sound compression. In order to be able to reproduce sounds in smaller physical properties such as computer processors, engineers had to figure out a way to compress sounds in a way to make them fit in a smaller area yet still retain the full breadth and depth of the original sound. Along the way, an audio engineer named Karlheinz Brandenburg was attempting to create a new audio compression system that ended up becoming known as MP3 technology. MP3 technology was what led to things such as iPod Shuffles and other portable listening devices becoming a thing. In any case, as Brandenburg was trying to fine tune his audio compression design, he happened to hear “Tom’s Diner” playing in a room adjacent to where he was working. The crystal clear clarity of Suzanne Vega’s voice on this song had previously been used to test drive high end speakers for home stereo systems. Brandenburg wondered how the audio quality would sound after being processed through his MP3 system. Once he played “Tom’s DIner”, he found that his MP3 technology made it sound awful. By tweaking his own design to make “Tom’s Diner” sound wonderful again, Brandenburg discovered that his system now worked for all other songs, too. Thus, “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega is credited with being the song that launched MP3 technology, that, in turn, changed the way in which all of us potentially interact with our music.
The folks who created MP3 technology..Solitude Standing has turned out to be the highwater mark in terms of sales for Suzanne Vega. But that hasn’t stopped her from touring and singing and bringing people together because of her words. She is always good to support causes related to social justice and the environment, as well as numerous issues termed “women’s issues”. Vega has also collaborated several times with one of my favourite singers, Joe Jackson (who you can read more about here). However, the most recent wave of success that she has achieved came from her old song, “Tom’s Diner”, and again, it had little to do with her. A new band that called themselves DNA remixed “Tom’s Diner” and mashed it together with the song “Keep On Movin’” by Soul II Soul and created a dance hit from Vega’s original a capella rendering. As seems to be becoming a trend, modern artists reaching back into the music vaults of the 1980s for inspiration has resulted in Suzanne Vega’s career being placed in the social media spotlight of an entirely new generation of music fans. Just like with Kate Bush and “Running Up That Hill”, “Tom’s Diner” has been given a new lease on life thanks to DNA.
DNA and their remix of “Tom’s Diner”.And so we come to the end of a post about a song that describes what it is like to feel alone while watching the world pass by from within the confines of one of America’s most recognizable cultural touchstones, Tom’s Restaurant. This song, initially about alienation, has ended up endearing Suzanne Vega to the world in more ways than she could have possibly imagined. For me, it is also another clear example of trusting your own instincts. She charted her own course in life, refusing to stay with a boyfriend who would have been satisfied if she had limited herself to singing in coffeehouses for the money in tip jars. Suzanne Vega understood the power of poetry and refused to alter the structure of her song to make it more verse-chorus, verse-chorus style as many pop songs are. Finally, Vega could have recorded “Tom’s Diner” with a band, as I’m sure was suggested to her at the time. But she stuck to her guns and insisted that a capella was the way for that song to be properly sung. As a result, the clarity and cadence of her spoken word song/poem was viewed as being perfect to help design a sound compression system that helped usher in the era of portable audio devices, and it acted as the foundation for a very successful dance remix. All because Suzanne Vega trusted her own instincts. There is such a lesson in all of that for the rest of us. Stay true to your vision. Trust your gut. The purity of art is what comes from possessing a mindset such as that.
The link to the official website for Suzanne Vega can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to a video for the song “Tom’s Diner” as remixed by DNA can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The link to a video that explains how the song “Tom’s Diner” helped to create the MP3 sound compression system can be found here. ***This short video is more interesting than you might think. Check it out. 🙂
***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2024 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com
#DNA #KarlheinzBrandenburg #MP3 #ReadersChoiceTomsTopTunes #SuzanneVega #TomsDiner #TomsRestaurant
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CW: CW for violence to the tune of Danny Boy
In honour of St Patrick's Day, here's my favorite use of diegetic music in a movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgz-CKRzs-4 -
🎯 NOW PUBLISHING: On-Location Coverage from Black Hat USA 2025!
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If it continues to grow at this pace, #DS1 will become predominant in Ireland right around St. Patrick's Day, a huge event for travel and crowds. Last year's St. Pat's caused #Ireland's 2nd-highest surge of hospitalizations of the #COVID19 pandemic. We could be more cautious as we wait to see what this new variant does, but instead, mass transit, pubs, and events are jammed with maskless people. Living with COVID means accepting illness, disabilities, and hospitalizations.
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Who Is Tyler Robinson?
Good Afternoon!!
By Natália Elizete Franco Pedroso
It has been a terrible week in the news, and it has also been a difficult week for me personally. I’m having trouble thinking clearly today. It all seems like a bad dream. Today I’m going to focus on Tyler Robinson and why he might have hated Charlie Kirk. I know there’s plenty of other news, but I’m still trying to understand this awful event and its aftermath.
Since it’s Caturday, and since we all likely could use some comfort, I’m going to begin with this article about people and cats by neuroscientist Laura Elin Pigott: The Conversation: What owning a cat does to your brain (and theirs).
Cats may have a reputation for independence, but emerging research suggests we share a unique connection with them – fuelled by brain chemistry.
The main chemical involved is oxytocin, often called the love hormone. It’s the same neurochemical that surges when a mother cradles her baby or when friends hug, fostering trust and affection. And now studies are showing oxytocin is important for cat-human bonding too.
Oxytocin plays a central role in social bonding, trust and stress regulation in many animals, including humans. One 2005 experiment showed that oxytocin made human volunteers significantly more willing to trust others in financial games.
Oxytocin also has calming effects in humans and animals, as it suppresses the stress hormone cortisol and activates the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest system) to help the body relax.
Scientists have long known that friendly interactions trigger oxytocin release in both dogs and their owners, creating a mutual feedback loop of bonding. Until recently, though, not much was known about its effect in cats.
Cats are more subtle in showing affection. Yet their owners often report the same warm feelings of companionship and stress relief that dog owners do – and studies are increasingly backing these reports up. Researchers in Japan, for example, reported in 2021 that brief petting sessions with their cats boosted oxytocin levels in many owners.
In that study, women interacted with their cats for a few minutes while scientists measured the owners’ hormone levels. The results suggested that friendly contact (stroking the cat, talking in a gentle tone) was linked to elevated oxytocin in the humans’ saliva, compared with a quiet resting period without their cat.
Many people find petting a purring cat is soothing, and research indicates it’s not just because of the soft fur. The act of petting and even the sound of purring can trigger oxytocin release in our brains. One 2002 study found this oxytocin rush from gentle cat contact helps lower cortisol (our stress hormone), which in turn can reduce blood pressure and even pain.
Click on the link to read more about oxytocin’s effect on the human-cat relationship.
Yesterday, we learned that the man who murdered Charlie Kirk on Wednesday is the product of a gun-owning, Republican family who for the past couple of years spent most of his time on-line. There are suggestions that he may have been a follower of Nicholas Fuentes, who hated Kirk because he wasn’t far right enough. Fuentes followers call themselves “groypers.” Regardless of whether that hypothesis pans out, Robinson clearly was not a “far left lunatic,” as Trump claimed the murderer must be. We can’t be sure of Robinson’s motives, because he is not talking to investigators.
What we know about Tyler Robinson
The New York Times (gift link): From Scholarship Winner to Wanted Man: The Path of the Kirk Shooting Suspect.
In the conservative southern Utah city where Tyler Robinson grew up, neighbors and classmates described him as a reserved, intelligent young man raised in a Republican family who was deeply interested in video games, comic books and current events.
On Friday afternoon, people who knew Mr. Robinson struggled to reconcile their memories of him and his seemingly ordinary suburban upbringing with his notorious new image: the latest face of political violence, accused of fatally shooting the conservative influencer Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus earlier this week in what the authorities have called a political assassination.
By Irina Babichenko
“It’s really sad that someone with his mind put it to that sort of use,” said Keaton Brooksby, 22, a former high school classmate of Mr. Robinson’s.
Mr. Robinson had recently spoken with a family member about the fact that Mr. Kirk was going to hold an event in Utah, according to a police affidavit, and he and his relative discussed “why they didn’t like him and the viewpoints he had.”
But as elements of the nation’s political left and right scrambled for motives, the image that has initially emerged of Mr. Robinson is not at all clear. Neither is his trajectory from a scholarship-winning high school student to an apprentice electrician to a suspect.
Mr. Brooksby said that Mr. Robinson was generally considered a quiet pupil when they were growing up in the conservative St. George area, but one day in high school, the topic of the 2012 attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, came up during lunch. Few there knew exactly what had happened, but Mr. Robinson was sure of himself.
“He gave us a whole spiel on what happened,” Mr. Brooksby said. “I just remember thinking, he’s got a lot of information on this for someone who’s 14.”
A bit more info:
Mr. Robinson is registered to vote in Utah, but he is not affiliated with a political party and had never voted in an election, according to the Washington County Clerk. His parents are registered Republicans, both with active hunting licenses in a part of the country known for its outdoor life, near Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks.
Social media photos posted by his family over the years show Mr. Robinson and his two younger brothers shooting and posing with guns….
Adrian Rivera, 22, who had been in a high school woodworking class with him, said that Mr. Robinson would often hang around the area designated for the Junior R.O.T.C., or Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, with other students who were interested in the military program. It was unclear whether Mr. Robinson had actually been a member of the corps.
Mr. Rivera said that Mr. Robinson was a “massive Halo guy,” referring to the popular science fiction game, and that he also liked to play Call of Duty, and other shooter games.
Sam New, 23, remembered a different video game, Minecraft, which Mr. Robinson, an introvert from a conservative family, played obsessively.
Use the gift link to read more, if you’re interested.
The Wall Street Journal: Tyler Robinson’s Descent From Promising Student to Murder Suspect.
Tyler Robinson was the pride of his Utah family. He was a 4.0 high-school student who won a prestigious college scholarship, according to social-media posts.
“His options are endless,” his mother wrote on Facebook.
Four years later, authorities say the 22-year-old Robinson used an old bolt-action rifle to fire a single shot that killed Charlie Kirk while the conservative activist spoke Wednesday at Utah Valley University. He allegedly had ammunition etched with phrases borrowed from internet and gaming culture like “Hey, fascist! Catch!” and “If you read this, you are gay, lmao.”
Authorities, friends and even his own family were trying to understand how Robinson went from a top student raised by parents who were registered Republicans in a Mormon stronghold in southwest Utah to a suspected assassin who authorities said targeted one of the country’s most popular conservative youth leaders. Robinson was in the past registered as nonpartisan….
As everyone knows by now, Robinson’s family turned him in to authorities after he confessed to his father.
Robinson was from the small city of Washington, nestled in southwest Utah between red-rock canyons and snow-capped mountains. Striking national parks like Zion and Bryce Canyon aren’t far.
Like many boys in this area, Robinson grew up hunting and was well-versed in the use of firearms, according to law-enforcement officials. Photos shared on social media show the family shooting rifles.
State records show his parents own a custom-countertop business, and his mother is a licensed clinical social worker. The family lives on a suburban street that a neighbor described as quiet with many households attending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Robinson, who has two brothers, was a stellar student, according to his mother’s posts on her Facebook account. He had a perfect GPA and scored a 34 out of a possible 36 on his ACT….
Robinson’s mother hoped he would stay close for college, and in the fall of 2021, she posted pictures of him in his dorm room at Utah State, a 5-hour drive north of the family home in Washington. He arrived with a scholarship worth $32,000 over four years.
But he wasn’t there long. Utah State said he attended the school for just one semester. More recently he has been enrolled in the electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College, where he is a third-year student, according to the Utah Board of Higher Education.
On the speculation about Robinson’s political leanings:
One thing is apparent about Robinson: He lived much of life on the internet. By age 15, he had developed enough of an online presence that he dressed up as “some guy from a meme” for Halloween, according to his mother. Writings on the bullet casings found by police appeared to reference various memes and online culture.
One unfired casing was inscribed with lyrics from “Bella Ciao,” an Italian song dedicated to those who fought against fascism during World War II that has been revived on TikTok.
“It’s very clear to us and to the investigators that this was a person who was deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology,” Cox said in an interview with the Journal.
Online, however, X users have noted that a version of the song also appears on a Spotify playlist for Groypers, the name for followers of Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist personality who has criticized Kirk, including for his support of Israel. Fuentes has publicly condemned the shooting of Kirk and posted on X that “my followers and I are currently being framed” for Kirk’s killing “based on literally zero evidence.”
The Daily Beast: Charlie Kirk Suspect’s Grandma Says Family Is All MAGA.
Tyler Robinson, 22, the man arrested in connection with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, comes from a MAGA family, his grandmother has revealed.
Yoga with my cat, Sharyn Bursic
Although MAGA figureheads have been quick to point fingers at the left for Kirk’s death, Tyler’s grandmother, Debbie Robinson, 69, insisted that they come from a family of Trump supporters.
She spoke with the Daily Mail on Friday after news of Robinson’s arrest broke. “My son, his dad, is a Republican for Trump,” Debbie told the outlet. “Most of my family members are Republican. I don’t know any single one who’s a Democrat.”
According to the outlet, Robinson’s father, Matt, 48, was the one to turn Tyler into the authorities after he confessed to the grisly crime. Debbie has not been able to get in touch with her son since news of her grandson’s arrest went public.
“I’m just so confused,” Debbie said of her grandson’s arrest. “[Tyler] is the shyest person,” she said. “He has never, ever spoke politics to me at all.”
Extreme right groups, Charlie Kirk, and Tyler Robinson
It ideologies of far right groups are more complex than us “normies” generally realize.
David Gilbert at Wired: Extremist Groups Hated Charlie Kirk. They’re Using His Death to Radicalize Others.
For years, extremist groups, white nationalists, and militias like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers saw Charlie Kirk not as their ally, but as their enemy.
Though Kirk denigrated trans people, Muslims, unmarried women, and many minorities and advocated for an America with Christianity at the center of every aspect of life, he was, in their view, a moderate. For some, his staunch support of Israel’s government made Kirk a target rather than a friend.
But in the immediate aftermath of Kirk being fatally shot while speaking at a Turning Point USA event Wednesday at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, these same groups were quick to frame the incident as an attack on one of their own, portraying Kirk’s death as part of what they see as an ongoing war against white, Christian men. The same groups were relatively quiet on Friday after police announced they had arrested a 22-year-old from Utah for the killing who had no obvious ties to the left.
By Giuseppe Mariotti
These groups, many of which have been relatively dormant since the mass arrests surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol, have used the outpouring of grief around Kirk’s death as a lightning rod, a signal that they need to mobilize and take action. Many of them, including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, have used Kirk’s death as a recruitment and radicalizing tool to convince his supporters to take a more extreme worldview.
“Nothing can stop what is coming,” Ryan Sánchez, the leader of the far-right National Network, who was caught on video giving a Nazi salute during last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, wrote on his Telegram channel. “We are mobilizing young Nationalists to defend our communities against the Radical Left—we need your help!”
The appeals appear to be at least somewhat working: Sánchez’s post was accompanied by a screenshot showing a $1,000 donation he received on Christian crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo.
“This is the beginning of a movement that may define our nation,” the donor wrote on the site. “Use it for good and purge the country of these insane ideologies.”
Read more at Wired.
Also from Wired: Bullets Found After the Charlie Kirk Shooting Carried Messages. Here’s What They Mean.
On Friday, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah native, was identified by federal law enforcement as a suspect in the murder of Charlie Kirk. During Friday’s press conference, officials said that several bullet casings recovered from a hunting rifle found near the crime scene had messages inscribed on them.
During the press conference, officials appeared to take the inscriptions literally, to the extent they ascribed meaning to them at all. But the four messages apparently written by the alleged shooter instead seem to invoke a variety of memes and video game references.
One of the casings was said to be engraved with the phrase “Hey Fascist! Catch!” followed by an up arrow, a right arrow, and three downward-facing arrows. That sequence is an apparent reference to the “Eagle 500kg bomb” in the popular third-person-shooter game Helldivers 2. The bomb has become a meme in the Helldivers community for being comically excessive.
By Elias-Mollineaux-Bancroft
Arrowhead Game Studios, the developers of Helldivers 2, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED. Launched in 2024, the game has grown a cult following for its Starship Troopers–like storyline. The cooperative shooter allows teams of up to four players, called “Helldivers,” to spread “freedom” across a fictional universe—fighting bugs, robots, and squid-like aliens rather than other humans. Their form of managed democracy is “basically fascism,” says independent extremism researcher Harry Batchelor, who works with the Extremism and Gaming Research Network.
Helldivers 2 is satire, and the vast majority of players are in on it. The game, says Batchelor, “takes “the whole ‘pretending to be democracy while actually being a fascist government’ so seriously, it’s obviously a joke.” The community around the game has generally maintained a positive reputation, even working together to combat “review bombing”—coordinated negative reviews intended to hurt a game’s chance of success.
The arrows that activate the Eagle 500kg bomb have been used in other memes to show that a user is “going to do a big, violent action,” Don Caldwell, editor in chief of Know Your Meme, tells WIRED. “That’s maybe a cheeky way of expressing it on the casing.”
More bullet engravings and their meanings:
One of the other alleged memes on the casings says, “If you read this you are gay LMAO,” which seems to be more of a common online insult than a specific reference. “I believe this person is genuinely just always online,” Batchelor says.
“They knew that they’d be discovered and posted about,” says Caldwell of the decision to include meme references on the casings. “People understand that memes are very powerful and get a lot of attention. As soon as people read them, they’re going to desperately try to figure out what the reference means. It makes it more interesting.”
At Vanity Fair, Joshua Rivera write about the on-line culture that Robinson may have tapped into: Groypers, Helldivers 2, Furries: What Do the Messages Left by Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Killer.
As of yet, little is known about Robinson’s alleged motivations or ideology. But the few details surrounding the 22-year old point toward a troubling trend: young shooter suspects who communicate primarily via obtuse memes and digitally inflected irony.
All sorts of young adults are familiar with the culture of video games, Twitch streamers, and YouTube, speaking a language completely foreign to those who do not spend as much time online. Is that language inherently sinister? No more than, say “Skibidi Toilet,” a series of crude animated shorts about toilets from which talking heads emerge. (There’s a movie in the works.) None of the phrases Robinson allegedly wrote are known code words for anything nefarious; they signal little beyond a connection to a contextless internet, where memes take on a life of their own and are used by the benign and malignant alike.
By Tatyana Ornisana
Some memes, however, aren’t so neutral. The young men who admired, and still admire, Charlie Kirk tend to be extremely online—which doesn’t necessarily mean that they all share exactly the same ideology. Internecine conflict between conservative factions is common, both on social media and at events for young conservatives. The most notable of these are the “Groyper Wars” of 2019. “Groypers” are fans of white nationalist agitator Nick Fuentes who like to hide their racism behind ironic jokes; when Kirk began making an effort to mainstream his ultra-right-wing Turning Point USA movement, Fuentes instructed them to publicly troll Kirk.
A Facebook photo in which Robinson appears to reference a Groyper meme has led to early speculation that Kirk’s killing may have been an outgrowth of these intra-far-right skirmishes. But another feature of the modern far-right is an embrace of the post-truth huckster. In these circles, it’s always possible that someone is playing a character—or will claim to be doing so, muddying the waters so no one can accuse them of having a sincere belief beyond the desire to rile up their targets. For people like this, the whole world is a forum board, where lewd public comments and real-world violence are becoming increasingly interchangeable. (Consider the messages left behind by the deceased shooter of Annunciation Catholic School, which were full of references to both other shooters and innocuous memes.)
I think Rivera’s last paragraph is important:
In every respect, the circumstances surrounding Kirk’s murder are alarming for those with the understandable impulse to make some kind of sense out of terrifying events. It is true that real-life violence is the end result of our cultural coarsening. It is also important to remember that Robinson’s generation is entering public life with frames of reference that are totally foreign to its elders, regardless of individual ideology. We cannot properly comprehend the harm of bad actors or the concerns of the innocent until we have taken the time to learn their language—and sometimes, even then we won’t understand.
I’ve tried to gather the latest speculation about Tyler Robinson’s possible motives and ideology. We’ll likely learn more in the coming days, especially if he begins talking to investigators. We are dealing with a right wing culture that is very dangerous.
Related stories to check out if you’re interested
Justin Glawe at Public Notice: Kash Patel’s FBI is a total mess.
The New York Times: Hasan Piker on Charlie Kirk.
Mother Jones: Streaming Star Hasan Piker Was Set to Debate Charlie Kirk. Now He’s Warning of a “Reichstag Fire Moment.”
Zeteo: Charlie Kirk in His Own Words.
NBC News: Pete Hegseth tells Pentagon staff to hunt for negative Charlie Kirk posts by service members.
USA Today: ‘No idea what you have unleashed’: Charlie Kirk’s wife delivers first public address.
That’s all I have for you today. I hope your weekend is a peaceful one.
#bulletEngravings #catArt #cats #caturday #CharlieKirk #Groypers #Helldivers2 #internetMemes #murderOfCharlieKirk #NickFuentes #oxytocin #TylerRobinson
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Comic Crusaders Podcast #657 - Laurie Calcaterra/Path of the Pale Rider
Indie comics powerhouse Laurie Calcaterra returns to the Comic Crusaders Podcast to discuss her new LIVE Kickstarter campaign for Path of...
https://comiccrusaders.com/podcast/comic-crusaders-podcast-657-laurie-calcaterra-path-of-the-pale-rider/
#Laurie Calcaterra #Path of the Pale Rider #indie comics #Kickstarter campaign #Western comic #Jude St Clair #independent comics #crowdfunding #Comic Crusaders #graphic novel series -
Comic Crusaders Podcast #657 - Laurie Calcaterra/Path of the Pale Rider
Indie comics powerhouse Laurie Calcaterra returns to the Comic Crusaders Podcast to discuss her new LIVE Kickstarter campaign for Path of...
https://comiccrusaders.com/podcast/comic-crusaders-podcast-657-laurie-calcaterra-path-of-the-pale-rider/
#Laurie Calcaterra #Path of the Pale Rider #indie comics #Kickstarter campaign #Western comic #Jude St Clair #independent comics #crowdfunding #Comic Crusaders #graphic novel series -
Comic Crusaders Podcast #657 - Laurie Calcaterra/Path of the Pale Rider
Indie comics powerhouse Laurie Calcaterra returns to the Comic Crusaders Podcast to discuss her new LIVE Kickstarter campaign for Path of...
https://comiccrusaders.com/podcast/comic-crusaders-podcast-657-laurie-calcaterra-path-of-the-pale-rider/
#Laurie Calcaterra #Path of the Pale Rider #indie comics #Kickstarter campaign #Western comic #Jude St Clair #independent comics #crowdfunding #Comic Crusaders #graphic novel series -
“From the Three R’s to Transistors”: the thread about Dean Public School
Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (1872-1918) hold a particular fascination for me, one most profound where they have been “deconsecrated” and are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but soon snowballed into an alphabetical deep-dive into each.
Part six of the series of posts looking at “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” pays a visit to the former Dean Public School. Judging by the crowds of tourists on phones who gather daily in crowds outside, this must be one of the most Instagrammed of schools. I wonder how many stop for a moment to consider its history and its claim to a unique first in the story of education in the city. So let us take a moment for ourselves to do just that.
Following the Education (Scotland) Act 1872 (which made schooling compulsory in Scotland between the ages of 5 and 13) the newly elected School Boards undertook a flurry of construction to rationalise, modernise and expand the existing provision. At its formation in 1873 the Edinburgh School Board (ESB) took stock of the situation it had inherited in the city and found there were almost twenty-two thousand pupils being taught in one hundred schools, with the majority run by the various churches. Unsurprisingly the Presbyterians dominated, educating forty-three percent of scholars.
ProviderSchoolsPupilsShareFree Church174,28219.7%Church of Scotland164,22219.4%Heriot’s Hospital163,74217.2%Non-denominational & private203,65416.8%R. C. Church82,0149.3%Episcopal Church91,5187.0%Industrial & free schools, etc.81,4266.6%U. P. Church68573.9%Total10021,715Elementary Edinburgh Schooling in 1873, census by Edinburgh School BoardIn 1873 the Board held a survey of teachers in the city to help prioritise where new schools should be built and the following year held a competition to find architects for its first batch of seven purpose-built schools; Bristo, Causewayside, Leith Walk, North Canongate, Stockbridge, West Fountainbridge and the Water of Leith Village*. The work was divided between the successful applicants, that for the Water of Leith was awarded to Robert Wilson, who would later become the Board’s house architect.
* = The naming and jurisdiction of this school is somewhat confusing. While the area today is widely known as the Dean Village, well into the 20th century it was always known as Water of Leith village. “Dean” referred instead to the old Village of Dean slightly to the north. Both Water of Leith and Dean villages were in the Edinburgh School Board catchment and while the new school was in the former village it was christened Dean Public School at opening. This was most probably in recognition that it served the Dean quoad sacra Parish (an ecclesiastical division, but not a municipal one). To add further confusion, until 1895 there was also a separate St Cuthbert’s and Dean School Board. This covered the western hinterland outwith the city’s municipal boundaries as they then stood and was responsible for schools such as Gorgie, Roseburn, and South Morningside (extension of the city boundary in 1882 meant that the former two schools were actually now in Edinburgh but served by the St Cuthbert’s and Dean Board!)
Water of Leith village, looking northeast past the Bell’s Brae Bridge to Holy Trinity Episcopal Church pre-1875. The school would be built in front of the tall mill building with the circular windows on the left, where the low range sits in this picture. Thomas Vernon Begbie glass negative dated 1887 (incorrect). The Cavaye Collection of Thomas Begbie Prints; City of Edinburgh Council Museums & GalleriesPerhaps because it was the smallest, the Dean Public School was the first of the batch to complete. The opening took place on Wednesday December 8th 1875 making it the first purpose-built school by the Board in the city. The Scotsman reported that at two o’clock, the 150 children of the older division were assembled in the upper classroom in front of the Board and “a large number of gentlemen interested in the work“, including Lord Provost James Falshaw, James Cowan the MP for Edinburgh and numerous town councillors. Following the singing of a psalm and a prayer led by the Rev. Whyte of Free St George’s Church, the Lord Provost gave an opening address and observed that “it was to him a most gratifying circumstance that an auspicious event like the present had occurred during his term of office.”
The roundel of the Edinburgh School Board, “the female figure of education” dispensing knowledge to the young at Dean Public School. © SelfThe Chairman of the Board, Professor Henry Calderwood, mentioned that at this time they had 7,386 children in public education at the nineteen schools under their charge but that most of these were small and overcrowded and there was much work ahead to provide purpose-built accommodation for them. Thanks were given to the kirk session of Dean Free Church for allowing the continued use of their schoolhouse since the 1872 act before the new school was ready.
OS Town Surveys of Edinburgh in 1849 and 1876, before and after the Dean Public School was built. Note that at this time the village itself was referred to as “Water of Leith”, as it always had been. Note the Dean Free Church on the old Queensferry Road where schooling took place before 1875. Move the slider to compare. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe new school was arranged over two storeys with accommodation for 400 children (using a formula of 10 square feet of space per child). The infants were accommodated on the ground floor and the older children upstairs, each level having a principal large school room (57ft by 23ft, or 17m by 7m) which could be divided by movable glass partitions, as well as smaller classrooms. There were separate entrances for boys on one side and girls and infants on the other, with the playgrounds being similarly segregated. The total cost was £5,740 5s 2d; £1,030 9s 9d for the site and £4,709 15s 5d for the construction work.
Dean Public School in 1950, looking south. The squat gable of Drumsheugh Baths can be seen in the middle distance. Picture CC-by-NC-SA Dean Village Memories, via Edinburgh CollectedAs early as 1878, in a report to the School Board the Inspector complained of overcrowding and a lack of writing desks in the school (those available were sufficient for only 1/3 of the children). This had “spoiled the writing, wasted time in the classes and has prevented the highest discipline grant through the copying traceable to over-crowding“. Failure to remedy these defects would result in the school’s government grant being cut. The school roll at this time was 311, with 200 children qualifying for the Examination in Standard – but the pass rates in these qualifications of 82% for Reading, 84% for Writing and 71% for Arithmetic were the lowest in the School Board. Headmaster Waddell was however praised for his organisation and discipline and the infant department was “in many respects a model one“.
Class portrait of older girls at Dean Public School, with the headmistress Miss Mary Mackenzie (labelled as Hunter). 1883 photograph by J. & S. Sternstein of Glasgow. Note that at least one girl has very short hair, likely the result of it being shaved to combat headlice. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection of Edinburgh City Libraries.Class portrait of boys at Dean Public School, with the headmistress Miss Mary Mackenzie (labelled as Hunter). 1883 photograph by J. & S. Sternstein of Glasgow. Note the boy on the left of Mary seems notably older, taller and better dressed than his peers and may be one of the pupil teachers. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection of Edinburgh City Libraries.Class portrait of boys at Dean Public School with (probably) their headmaster, Esdaile Duncan. 1883 photograph by J. & S. Sternstein of Glasgow. The boy to the left of her is notably taller, older and better dressed than the others and may be one of the pupil teachers,1883 class photos from Dean Public SchoolThe lack of accommodation was remedied in 1888 with a 3-storey extension for 132 additional children added to the rear, comprising a play-room, a sewing room and an infant classroom. The space beneath was left open and served as a covered part of the playground.
1907 photograph showing the extension added at the rear of the school on the right, adjacent to the bridge. The apparently 17th century structure on the left is Well Court, in fact a late 1880s model workers housing complex in a Scottish Vernacular Revival style by architect Sydney Mitchell. 1907 photograph, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.When education was made free of charge in 1889 (the 1872 act had introduced fees, although assistance could be provided by the Parish Poor Boards for those who could not afford them), the headmaster at Dean wrote to the School Board to say that the hoped for improvement in attendance rates had not materialised within his district and that “the parents who before were indifferent, are now equally or more so“. In 1894, 120 children were sent to the school from the nearby Dean Orphanage, being reported as “perfect models of cleanliness and order” by the Scotsman and commended in the Evening News for making the school football eleven “a combination to be feared and respected“. They were moved to the new Flora Stevenson School in Comely Bank when it opened in 1901, before being moved back to Dean in 1913 when the new Parish Children’s Home on Crewe Road opened, putting pressure on capacity at Flora’s when there were 115 vacant places at Dean School.
The Dean Orphanage in 1850, recently relocated from its old location beneath the North Bridge where it been in the way of the North British Railway. The community of Bells’s Mill lies beneath and children from both of these locations would attend the Dean Public School. Salt paper print, unknown photographer. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection of Edinburgh City Libraries.With no playing fields or local park to call its own, the school sports days were held at Warriston Playing Fields. In June 1912 the Edinburgh Evening News reported that the pupils from Dean – for the first time in the history of the ESB – had performed mass dancing as part of the day. One hundred and sixty pupils danced “with great zest… danc[ed] a reel to the music of the pipes.”
Pupils of the Dean Public School perform a maypole dance at Warriston Playing Fields as part of their annual sports day, June 28th 1913, Edinburgh Evening News.In December 1914, the staff of the school contributed £1 4s 6t to the Edinburgh Belgian Relief Fund. The following year Robert Peter Smith, assistant teacher, was wounded during at the Dardanelles when serving as a lieutenant with the 1/4th King’s Own Scottish Borderers.
Officers of the 1/4th KOSB in 1915. Robert P. Smith is in the 3rd row, third from the left, the shorter man sporting a moustache. Photo via UK Photo and Film Archive.In 1939 the school was requisition by the War Office and temporarily relocated “for the duration” to the St Mary’s Cathedral Mission Hall on Bell’s Brae, the ancient convening house of the Incorporation of Baxters (bakers) of Edinburgh. It was returned to educational use and in 1953 was placed under the charge of Dorothy Edmond. The new headmistress was determined to raise the school’s profile and instituted a uniform, having a school badge specially commissioned for the blazers.
Dean School badge, showing the castle of the arms of Edinburgh, open books symbolising learning, the blue of the Water of Leith running through the centre. The Boar’s Head is from the arms of the Nisbet of Dean family, The Cock’s Head may refer to the Poultry Lands of Dean, which in the 17th century conferred the holder the hereditary title of Poulterer to the King. From Kathleen Glancy by Dean Village Memories, CC-by-NC-SA via Edinburgh Collected.She rallied parents together and asked for support financially. Although it would not be a lot, it was a lot to some folks and it caused some controversy… Miss Edmund was strict and eventually was held in high regard by both parents and children.
Recollection by pupil Kathleen Glancy of Dorothy Edmond. Via Edinburgh Collected.But not even the determination of Miss Edmond could counter the significant long term depopulation in the neighbourhood, the result of much of the housing stock being decrepit and condemned combined with the decline of the remaining traditional industries of milling and tanning. In January 1961 the school closed, its roll having reduced to just 37 pupils, less than 10% of capacity. Those remaining were transferred to Flora Stevenson’s and the empty building was leased to the defence electronics company Ferranti Ltd. of Crewe Toll for a period of seven years as a training centre for apprentices and assembly line staff. The Evening News felt it an appropriate symbol of the city’s growing demand for specialist technical education that its oldest public school should have made the transition “from the Three R’s to transistors“.
Christine Robertson, age 10, photographed alone in the school on its last day, 20th January 1961,Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
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Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.Explore Threadinburgh by map:
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Ferranti did not require the two basement rooms and these were given over to the use of the Edinburgh Union of Boys Clubs as a base for an outdoor education scheme, the Adventure Centre for Use. A number of Ferranti staff were involved in this, including the works’ own Mountain Climbing Adventure Group for its younger employees. This provided equipment and specialist training to established clubs in activities such as climbing, mountaineering, canoeing and dingy sailing. After Ferranti’s lease was up, in 1969 the school became an annexe to Telford College, whose domestic courses were based nearby at the Dean Education Centre, the former Dean Orphanage.
Dean School in the 1960s. Picture from Dean Village Memories, CC-by-NC-SA via Edinburgh CollectedIn May 1984 the school was disposed of on the open market (offers over £100,000) by Lothian Regional Council and was converted into flats in 1986 by James Potter Developments. Eighteen two, three and four-bedroom properties were created which would have cost between £39,000 and £55,000 when completed.
Former Dean Public School in 2025. Comparison of the photo with that further up the page shows how extra floors were cleverly inserted by reducing the window heights significantly from those of the Victorian schoolrooms. Photo by Fiona Coutts, via Britishlistedbuildings.The previous instalment in this series looked at the Davie Street School(s) in the Southside. The next looks at Gilmore Place Public School.
Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.Explore Threadinburgh by map:
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If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
#April20 #Army #BritishArmy #EdinburghCastle #Gaelic #Leith #May29 #Military -
#STANDUP #MidtermsMatter #Nebraska Omaha Nebraska No Kings Action Day Crowd Canvass Omaha Saturday, March 28 12 – 4pm CDT Gallagher Park 2936 N 52nd St Omaha, NE 68104 www.mobilize.us/mobilize/eve...
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https://www.alojapan.com/1337774/worlds-busiest-train-station-serves-3-million-mega-city-passengers-world-news/ World’s busiest train station serves 3 million mega city passengers | World | News #BusiestTrainStationInTheWorld #cities #CrowdManagement #Japan #railway #RailwayTechnicalResearchInstitute #ShinjukuStation #Tokyo #TokyoTopics #Tokyo'sBiggestTrainStation #trains #WhatIsTheWorld'sBusiestTrainStation #東京 #東京都 When someone thinks of a busy train station, a few places come to mind. In the UK there’s London St Pancras or Paddington, and in E
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https://www.alojapan.com/1337774/worlds-busiest-train-station-serves-3-million-mega-city-passengers-world-news/ World’s busiest train station serves 3 million mega city passengers | World | News #BusiestTrainStationInTheWorld #cities #CrowdManagement #Japan #railway #RailwayTechnicalResearchInstitute #ShinjukuStation #Tokyo #TokyoTopics #Tokyo'sBiggestTrainStation #trains #WhatIsTheWorld'sBusiestTrainStation #東京 #東京都 When someone thinks of a busy train station, a few places come to mind. In the UK there’s London St Pancras or Paddington, and in E
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March is #LongCovidAwarenessMonth
It’s also my birthday.
Can I please get out of this #abusive hell? I can’t take much longer.
Anybody got a spare room in #Australia? I’m in #Melbourne but need anywhere quiet & safe. Can pay $250/wk board. Info in Crowdfund and Canary article.
Help if you can & please #boost
💸Crowdfund: https://chuffed.org/project/161937-help-anna-escape
☕️BMaC: https://buymeacoffee.com/Halcionandon
🎁Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/hz/wishlist/ls/1B9A74NSROTQZ
ᯓ➤Beem: Halcionandon
📰Story: https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2025/04/01/anna-severe-me-cfs/#MutualAid #FediAid
@mecfs
@[email protected] @[email protected] -
#HowToThing #024 — 2.5D hidden line DEM heightmap visualization featuring: image pre-filtering (customizable gaussian blur), bicubic subpixel image sampling, timesliced geometry generation and hidden line clipping, canvas drawing & SVG export from the same source geometry etc. All in ~85 lines of code (rest is comments & imports)
For the #GIS crowd: The attached images are of DEMs sourced from USGS (https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/) and are showing regions near/around two of my fave mountains[1]: Mt St. Helens (WA), Mt. Jefferson (OR), plus Amargosa Valley (NV) north-east of Death Valley
Demo:
https://demo.thi.ng/umbrella/geom-terrain-viz/Source code:
https://github.com/thi-ng/umbrella/tree/develop/examples/geom-terrain-viz/src/index.tsIf you have any questions about this topic or packages used here, please reply here or use the discussion forum (or issue tracker):
https://github.com/thi-ng/umbrella/discussions
I hope this (and other parts) of this ongoing #HowToThing series are interesting & educational. If so, please consider boosting to increase reach and/or supporting my #OpenSource work via GitHub or Patreon. Thank you very much in advance!
https://github.com/sponsors/postspectacular
https://patreon.com/thing_umbrella#ThingUmbrella #GIS #DEM #Heightmap #DataViz #ImageProcessing #SVG #Geometry #GenerativeArt #TypeScript #JavaScript #Tutorial
[1] cc/ @andrewbriscoe: "your" mountains too...
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#FiveYearsAgoToday #AreWeGreatYet
June 29, 2020 – Trump retweeted a video of a white couple threatening peaceful protesters outside their St. Louis mansion. The man brandished a semi-automatic rifle, and the woman pointed a handgun at the crowd.
# MarkMcCloskey #PatriciaMcCloskey #Fugly #Impeach #Convict #Remove #Indict #NoRepublicansEverAgain #USPol
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Guilt Trip Announce Roadrunner Records Signing And Share New Song “Burn”
Photo by Amy HaghebaertManchester metal/hardcore outfit Guilt Trip have signed with Roadrunner Records and unveiled their explosive new single “Burn,” accompanied by an official video. The track captures the band’s blend of thrash, hardcore, and stadium-ready riffs, setting the stage for their forthcoming debut LP on the label.
“Burn” is a metal anthem infused with hardcore grit. “It felt a little bit like old Machine Head,” says guitarist Jak Maden. “As soon as we finished it, I knew it needed a repeated line until the drop and wall of death section. We won’t even need to tell the crowd what to do.” Vocalist Jay Valentine adds that the Roadrunner partnership “always felt inevitable,” given the label’s influence on shaping the band’s sound.
This fall, Guilt Trip will tour with Kublai Khan and appear at Louder Than Life (September 18) and New England Metal and Hardcore Fest (September 20). With millions of streams, a growing festival presence, and past collaborations with LANDMVRKS, the band is poised to bring Manchester’s intensity to a global stage.
https://youtu.be/ap2MTuWaGbc?feature=shared
GUILT TRIP ON TOUR:
WITH KUBLAI KHAN:9/21 — Sayreville, NJ — Starland Ballroom
9/23 — Buffalo, NY — Buffalo RiverWorks
9/24 — Silver Spring, MD — The Fillmore
9/26 — Mckees Rocks, PA — Roxian Theatre
9/27 — Lakewood, OH — The Roxy
9/28 — Philadelphia, PA — Franklin Music Hall
9/30 — Chicago, IL — The Salt Shed
10/1 — Detroit, MI — The Fillmore Detroit
10/3 — Birmingham, AL — Furnace Fest 2025
10/4 — Charlotte, NC — The Fillmore Charlotte
10/5 — North Myrtle Beach, SC — House of Blues Myrtle Beach
10/7 — Atlanta, GA — The Eastern
10/8 — St Petersburg, FL — Jannus Live
10/10 — San Antonio, TX — Vibes Event Center
10/11 — Houston, TX — White Oak Music Hall
10/12 — Dallas, TX — The Factory In Deep Ellum
10/14 — Kansas City, MO — Uptown Theater
10/15 — Denver, CO — Fillmore Auditorium
10/16 — Albuquerque, NM — Sunshine Theater
10/17 — Tempe, AZ — Marquee Theatre
10/20 — Salt Lake City, UT — Rockwell @ The Complex
10/21 — Boise, ID — Knitting Factory
10/23 — Sacramento, CA — Ace Of Spades
10/24 — San Jose, CA — San Jose Civic
10/25 — Riverside, CA — Riverside Municipal Auditorium
10/26 — Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Palladium -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@ellespeaks/116570379380066429
I need 75$ by TOMORROW
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V: d_fay
P: peach77#mutualaid #MutualAidSavesLives #MutualAidRequest #maboost #helpfolkslive #helpfolkslive2026 #disabled #spoonie #chronicillness #chronicpain #leftist #lesbian #sapphic #lgbtq #lgbtqia #kofi #helpneeded #crowdfunding #gofundme #directaid #queer #diabetic #hunger #poverty
@disabledvoices
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@lgbtq -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@ellespeaks/116570379380066429
I need 75$ by TOMORROW
for meds
This is crisis level. Been trying for a week and now im at the deadline.7 people w 10$ is life saving. Pls dont forget me
V: d_fay
P: peach77#mutualaid #MutualAidSavesLives #MutualAidRequest #maboost #helpfolkslive #helpfolkslive2026 #disabled #spoonie #chronicillness #chronicpain #leftist #lesbian #sapphic #lgbtq #lgbtqia #kofi #helpneeded #crowdfunding #gofundme #directaid #queer #diabetic #hunger #poverty
@disabledvoices
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@lgbtq -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@ellespeaks/116570379380066429
I need 75$ by TOMORROW
for meds
This is crisis level. Been trying for a week and now im at the deadline.7 people w 10$ is life saving. Pls dont forget me
V: d_fay
P: peach77#mutualaid #MutualAidSavesLives #MutualAidRequest #maboost #helpfolkslive #helpfolkslive2026 #disabled #spoonie #chronicillness #chronicpain #leftist #lesbian #sapphic #lgbtq #lgbtqia #kofi #helpneeded #crowdfunding #gofundme #directaid #queer #diabetic #hunger #poverty
@disabledvoices
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@lgbtq -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@ellespeaks/116570379380066429
I need 75$ by TOMORROW
for meds
This is crisis level. Been trying for a week and now im at the deadline.7 people w 10$ is life saving. Pls dont forget me
V: d_fay
P: peach77#mutualaid #MutualAidSavesLives #MutualAidRequest #maboost #helpfolkslive #helpfolkslive2026 #disabled #spoonie #chronicillness #chronicpain #leftist #lesbian #sapphic #lgbtq #lgbtqia #kofi #helpneeded #crowdfunding #gofundme #directaid #queer #diabetic #hunger #poverty
@disabledvoices
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@lgbtq -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@ellespeaks/116568671463983381
95$ needed by tomorrow for meds
Urgent! 2$ helps Anything helpsexhausted but i have to at least try to make this goal. My body needs relief
#mutualaid #MutualAidSavesLives #MutualAidRequest #maboost #helpfolkslive #helpfolkslive2026 #disabled #spoonie #chronicillness #chronicpain #disabledartist #leftist #lesbian #sapphic #lgbtq #lgbtqia #kofi #helpneeded #crowdfunding #gofundme #directaid #queer #diabetic #hunger #poverty
@lgbtq
@disabledvoices
@[email protected] @[email protected] @povertyandinequality -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@ellespeaks/116568671463983381
95$ needed by tomorrow for meds
Urgent! 2$ helps Anything helpsexhausted but i have to at least try to make this goal. My body needs relief
#mutualaid #MutualAidSavesLives #MutualAidRequest #maboost #helpfolkslive #helpfolkslive2026 #disabled #spoonie #chronicillness #chronicpain #disabledartist #leftist #lesbian #sapphic #lgbtq #lgbtqia #kofi #helpneeded #crowdfunding #gofundme #directaid #queer #diabetic #hunger #poverty
@lgbtq
@disabledvoices
@[email protected] @[email protected] @povertyandinequality