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764 results for “metamorphosis30”
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Seeing damselflies in the swamps episode of #PrehistoricPlanet2 makes me think, arthropods are so often depicted as sort of unchanging background detail, when their story is far longer and grander than any vertebrates'.
I would love to see arthropod evolution get the #PrehistoricPlanet treatment—although maybe things are too speculative for a narrative treatment.
The alien Cambrian sea, the journeys onto (and off of) land, the heady atmosphere of the Carboniferous, the great flowering of, well, flowers, and all the ecological possibilities that opened up, and of course the obligatory depressing last chapter on contemporary land arthropod declines.
Some key evolutionary developments that would be covered: wings, metamorphosis, eusociality, venom, spider silk (and webs! Aerial capture webs are a surprisingly late arrival), eyes and other sensory organs, sex (e. g. extreme sexual size dimorphism, parthenogenesis, thelytoky/arrhenotoky, all the weird shit mites get up to), parasitism.
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Seeing damselflies in the swamps episode of #PrehistoricPlanet2 makes me think, arthropods are so often depicted as sort of unchanging background detail, when their story is far longer and grander than any vertebrates'.
I would love to see arthropod evolution get the #PrehistoricPlanet treatment—although maybe things are too speculative for a narrative treatment.
The alien Cambrian sea, the journeys onto (and off of) land, the heady atmosphere of the Carboniferous, the great flowering of, well, flowers, and all the ecological possibilities that opened up, and of course the obligatory depressing last chapter on contemporary land arthropod declines.
Some key evolutionary developments that would be covered: wings, metamorphosis, eusociality, venom, spider silk (and webs! Aerial capture webs are a surprisingly late arrival), eyes and other sensory organs, sex (e. g. extreme sexual size dimorphism, parthenogenesis, thelytoky/arrhenotoky, all the weird shit mites get up to), parasitism.
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Seeing damselflies in the swamps episode of #PrehistoricPlanet2 makes me think, arthropods are so often depicted as sort of unchanging background detail, when their story is far longer and grander than any vertebrates'.
I would love to see arthropod evolution get the #PrehistoricPlanet treatment—although maybe things are too speculative for a narrative treatment.
The alien Cambrian sea, the journeys onto (and off of) land, the heady atmosphere of the Carboniferous, the great flowering of, well, flowers, and all the ecological possibilities that opened up, and of course the obligatory depressing last chapter on contemporary land arthropod declines.
Some key evolutionary developments that would be covered: wings, metamorphosis, eusociality, venom, spider silk (and webs! Aerial capture webs are a surprisingly late arrival), eyes and other sensory organs, sex (e. g. extreme sexual size dimorphism, parthenogenesis, thelytoky/arrhenotoky, all the weird shit mites get up to), parasitism.
-
Seeing damselflies in the swamps episode of #PrehistoricPlanet2 makes me think, arthropods are so often depicted as sort of unchanging background detail, when their story is far longer and grander than any vertebrates'.
I would love to see arthropod evolution get the #PrehistoricPlanet treatment—although maybe things are too speculative for a narrative treatment.
The alien Cambrian sea, the journeys onto (and off of) land, the heady atmosphere of the Carboniferous, the great flowering of, well, flowers, and all the ecological possibilities that opened up, and of course the obligatory depressing last chapter on contemporary land arthropod declines.
Some key evolutionary developments that would be covered: wings, metamorphosis, eusociality, venom, spider silk (and webs! Aerial capture webs are a surprisingly late arrival), eyes and other sensory organs, sex (e. g. extreme sexual size dimorphism, parthenogenesis, thelytoky/arrhenotoky, all the weird shit mites get up to), parasitism.
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Hello
Learning how to use mastadon #newbie
I dance between Voluntary and Community Sector, movement curation, seasonal practices, Earth wisdom and festivals, wild-hearted connection, family life and gently journeying home.
I craft my days through:
Daily Rhythms, Meditation, Yoga, Journaling, Intentions and PrinciplesCurrent archetype: Mystic
Guiding word for this year: MetamorphosisCurrent lenses:
#DoughnutEconomics
#EarthWisdom
#TheWildAcademy
#CulturalEmergence -
Hello
Learning how to use mastadon #newbie
I dance between Voluntary and Community Sector, movement curation, seasonal practices, Earth wisdom and festivals, wild-hearted connection, family life and gently journeying home.
I craft my days through:
Daily Rhythms, Meditation, Yoga, Journaling, Intentions and PrinciplesCurrent archetype: Mystic
Guiding word for this year: MetamorphosisCurrent lenses:
#DoughnutEconomics
#EarthWisdom
#TheWildAcademy
#CulturalEmergence -
Hello
Learning how to use mastadon #newbie
I dance between Voluntary and Community Sector, movement curation, seasonal practices, Earth wisdom and festivals, wild-hearted connection, family life and gently journeying home.
I craft my days through:
Daily Rhythms, Meditation, Yoga, Journaling, Intentions and PrinciplesCurrent archetype: Mystic
Guiding word for this year: MetamorphosisCurrent lenses:
#DoughnutEconomics
#EarthWisdom
#TheWildAcademy
#CulturalEmergence -
Hello
Learning how to use mastadon #newbie
I dance between Voluntary and Community Sector, movement curation, seasonal practices, Earth wisdom and festivals, wild-hearted connection, family life and gently journeying home.
I craft my days through:
Daily Rhythms, Meditation, Yoga, Journaling, Intentions and PrinciplesCurrent archetype: Mystic
Guiding word for this year: MetamorphosisCurrent lenses:
#DoughnutEconomics
#EarthWisdom
#TheWildAcademy
#CulturalEmergence -
Jotting this down: Flarians, an alien species I am making up
I have been tasked with making up an alien species for a sf/fantasy campaign. This is what I have so far.
Variously called twelfors, flarians, or often called "reefers" due to the creches their youngest and oldest live in. These are all exonyms; most flarians use their state or nation as a demonym, so when speaking of themselves as a species, when necessary they refer to themselves using an exonym.[1]Their homeworld orbits a small, k-class red dwarf star catalogued by humans as 124 Zhou, though the majority of flarians live elsewhere, having colonized multiple other worlds some time ago. 124 "Twelve-Four" Zhou is a flare star, prone to solar storms that bathe the planet in what would nominally be very deadly radiation in not-infrequent bursts. Much of the planet's surface lifeforms have adapted with a strategy not unlike banksia, using the energy and chaos of the flares to flourish at the expense of most of them dying off in the flare and leaving seeds. Life underwater, such as in the seas, is more varied in this regard, depending on the depth it's adapted to.
Flarians generally have two arms and four legs; they are primarily bipedal, using the other two legs only as occasional support or for long periods of standing.
People who have never met flarians, but know of them, almost certainly are aware of their life cycle. The terms "infant," "child," "adult," and "senior" don't apply very well to flarians. If an outsider meets a flarian, they're almost certainly meeting a "youth," somewhat equivalent to adulthood. Infant or larval stage flarians live in creches, and are very much an r-strategy matter; like in sea turtles, most die. Infants who grow to the child/teenage stage and grow limbs for walking on land are cared for to a far, far more significant degree. Most disabilities have their origins either in genetics or from the conditions of the creche. There are differing cultural notions of how to approach this, including augmentation toward a mean level of ability, or simply having an unusually wide cultural expectation of what constitutes able. In the latter case, such societies tend to be very accessible, and not only physically. Such societies are also more easily able to incorporate members of other species, as differences of abilities are already normalized and accounted for as best they can.
The most common cause of disability is various forms of water pollution. The politics of such matters should be familiar to the reader. This is part of why many creches are moved out of the ocean and into other, smaller environments. The quality of these artificial waters and their conditions varies somewhat, depending on means, needs, and motives.
The child stage is a time when they learn the basics of their cultures and is generally when schooling takes place. During that time, flarian hind legs grow bigger and stronger, and the hips and back develop to make them nearly obligate bipeds. Once they have reached full physical maturity, growing in size and usually in lower body strength and endurance, they become what could reasonably be called adults, which is the "youth" stage.
Flarians have a final life stage where they go into a chrysalis, and most of their body turns into a creature that resembles a tunicate. They have a whole set of concepts around the "soul," which is the English word that is closest to how they refer to their blood. ("Internal sea" is pretty clunky, and misses some spiritual nuances.) The final stage is mindless; while flarians may talk to them, and there are beliefs about what happens to the mind, the body has changed shape and hollowed out, and its "soul" has joined the wider seasoul, mingling generally with the souls of other sessiles in the creche. (There is no scientific basis for believing the blood of a flarian carries thoughts and minds, and how a given flarian belief system talks about blood varies as well.)
This sessile stage is also sexual maturity; while younger motile "youths" may engage in play with others, especially with other species, and are functionally what one might call adults in another species, there is no sexual maturity without becoming what amounts to a sea sponge, so the equivalent to teenage years, adulthood, physical maturity and senescence of a sort, and decades-long careers all come before the age when mating and having children occurs.
One result is that flarians are also known for frequently having a rather odd bimboification kink. It's far from universal, but becoming a mindless breeding creature with sufficient intelligence and mindfulness to enjoy it is an appealing fantasy for some.
Youths sometimes put off becoming sessile, perhaps because of their career, the caretaking of a child, or sometimes personal preference. Understandably, some youths also have a fear of sessility, which is also the end of mindfulness in flarians. Most do not fear sessility, and the fear can be symptomatic of mental illness. Illness or not, that fear has driven some social movements toward actions and policies intended to eliminate the death of the mind. A sessile body is too simple to support a nervous system, much less a mind. One such social movement, Consciousers, intends to utterly remove the brain from infant-aged flarians and replace it with a growing, adaptive artificial intelligence, which might be joined with the sessile form in the creche. The research is not far along in this regard, and it is not a commonly high priority, and many flarians are horrified by the idea, and the movement is sometimes allied with technocratic conservative movements in other, extraspecies cultures.
In terms of general beliefs, the mingling of the internal sea with that of all the other flarians of the creche and of history, or at least with an immediate local sea of an artificial environment, is identified with the dissolution of the mind. Making a mind that has no part in that sea is not an entirely popular idea.
Choosing where to go once sessile is not exactly treated like end of life care; it is an advance directive, but is seldom treated as funerary. Sessile flarians in fact may live thousands and thousands of years. Talking to them may be akin to talking to a house plant, and certain things might be mourned, but by many flarian standards they aren't dead.
Some bodily alterations remain a part of sessile flarians. While augments usually cease to even be attached as the body becomes simple and hollow, tattoos and similar body modifications generally remain discernible, and part of flarian body art is planning for the sessile stage.
Flarian marriages vary in number, but if married flarians become sessile, they usually wish to go to the same local creche or family creche. Marriages into other places, moving to other cities or planets or countries, can complicate these plans. Likewise, the sessility chrysalis can have mishaps or strangeness, including (rarely) bifurcation. In some cases, the actual death of a flarian is handled by simply taking some portion of their blood and releasing it into the creche that seems most appropriate, or even multiple creches. In the dominant culture the main character was born into, intermarriage between states or nations was encouraged; theoretically, it was thought to make it harder to go to war or create conflict. In practice, the main effect of this is that damaging a creche in an act of violence is considered a very heinous war crime. It also helps avoid the equivalents of Hapsburg jaws.
Sessile flarians have numerous sexes, not dissimilar to Earthly mushrooms. What a youth's eventual sex will be is often unknown, as it is not as simple a thing to define as simply a set of chromosomes. (Flarians do have genetic material, but it is not DNA per se, and their genes are not encoded on chromosomes quite like Earth creatures' are. The molecules and structure differ meaningfully. I will not explain further, but those genes are only part of what defines a sessile flarian's sex and sexual characteristics.)
One sessile sex translates to "simply extant," and produces no nutrients for others nor takes part in mating. Some sessile sexes only produce nutrients for infants; some only mate; most strike some balance; and some have morphology that's advantageous in some environmental conditions, such as defensibility.
Some cultures like to keep trinkets made from the bodily fluids of ancestors. Some think that's a terrible idea and complicates the soul's transition and metamorphosis. It is common for those who keep trinkets to speak to them when troubled, and to ask for help with specific known strengths the flarians whose material is encapsulated were good at. Often these ancestors are alive as sessiles somewhere. In some cases, sessiles are kept in large tanks in small numbers, to keep a family close with their sessile members, or to facilitate travel, whether on a planet's surface or in space or to other planets.
On the subject of blood, flarians have two vascular systems, one for carrying oxygen and the other for carrying most nutrients. (Some nutrients are in both systems, and some are in the same system as is used for oxygenation.) They have a single, complex heart. Blood transfusions are a thing, and while there are some subcultures that get a little finicky about the idea, and some social movements which believe the internal sea should remain Pure, mostly blood banks exist, are helpful and necessary, and people in that sense mingle souls without hesitation. Bleeding to death is the soul leaving the body improperly and tragically, with a long journey before it has any chance of joining the greater sea.
Pilgrimages are common, both on a planet and to other planets, and are often not religious at all. They're treated a bit like visiting grandparents, even if the grandparents (that is, the community of sessile elders) is long gone. In spiritual peoples, this often accompanies a belief that the memories and mind of the motile stages lives on in some manner on a non-physical plane.[1] Usually, if they aren't talking about the immediate culture they're from, and are referring to a mixed group of individuals, they just call them "people," which can be ambiguous when referring to matters such as medical needs; while generally one's home state or nationality is used in place of that term, it can be necessary to be more specific. (This can vary, and is all true only of the dominant languages spoken by most spacefaring flarians; some languages do have species-level endonyms, but as the languages they study to speak with others all do not have native endonyms for flarians as a whole, flarian has become the commonly accepted term.)
#ARetreadFromMy #Cohost #cohost-migration #worldbuilding #flarian #making-shit-up #I'm-bad-at-naming-conventions-so-a-lot-of-terminology-hasn't-been-given-names-here #yes-they're-psychologically-presently-annoyingly-human #I-may-refine-that-later #but-they're-for-a-tabletop-game-so-it's-gotta-be-something-I-can-actively-portray #I-did-have-an-alien-character-whose-whole-sense-of-humor-revolved-around-secrets-because-what-could-be-more-absurd-than-a-secret-when-your-whole-species-is-telepathic #greyfellow-was-a-weirdo-by-every-standard-and-I-miss-playing-it #original-species #open-species #not-closed #not-that-I-expect-this-to-be-the-next-yinglet-or-something #yinglets-are-cool #flarian #making #i #yes #I #but #I #greyfellow -
Sontag’s Two Doors, Campbell’s Underworld
In a television interview that has circulated for years, Susan Sontag offers a small theory of storytelling. She points out that the English word “story” carries a double valence. We say “tell me the real story” to demand truth, and we say “that’s only a story” to dismiss invention. Stories, she argues, face two directions at once, toward fact and toward fantasy, and this doubleness sits at the center of what stories do.
The observation is correct as far as it travels, and the format of a televised exchange does not give a thinker of Sontag’s caliber room to develop the qualifications she would have written into print. Sontag is reliable on the surface phenomena. The deathbed scene she describes, where family secrets surface around mortality, is psychologically accurate. Her returning voyager who brings news from elsewhere is one of the oldest functions of narrative, traceable from Odysseus through Marco Polo and Mary Kingsley to the embedded war correspondent. We are also gripped, as Sontag says, by stories precisely because they describe what cannot happen. Readers of Kafka know Gregor Samsa did not wake as an insect, and that knowledge intensifies the story’s force.
Where Sontag falters is in locating this doubleness at “the very center of the whole enterprise of storytelling.” The tension she identifies is a feature of post-Enlightenment English usage. Other languages partition the territory differently. German separates Geschichte from Erzählung, the chronicle from the tale. Ancient Greek separates mythos from logos and historia. Sanskrit holds itihasa, the account of what happened, distinct from purana, the ancient telling. Yoruba oral tradition separates itan, the sacred and ancestral narrative, from àló, the entertaining household tale. The ambiguity Sontag treats as constitutive is partly an artifact of English vocabulary collapsing distinctions that other tongues hold apart. To say storytelling faces two directions, truth and lie, is to inherit a Cartesian frame that pre-modern peoples would have found alien to the question.
This is exactly where Joseph Campbell would intervene. For Campbell, the truth-versus-fiction axis was a symptom of modern literalism, useful for tracking what one cultural moment had lost but useless for explaining how myth operates. Drawing on Jung and on comparative anthropology, he argued that stories carry psychological reality independent of historical reality. The hero’s descent to the underworld, the dying and rising god, the trickster who exposes the king, these belong to a third register that Sontag’s binary cannot accommodate. They register as neither historical claim nor fantasy opposed to fact. As Campbell argued throughout his career, mythology is what we call other people’s religion, and he was pointing at the failure of the truth/lie axis to capture what religious narrative does for those who live inside it.
Campbell would likely call Sontag’s voyager model one motif among several, including myths of descent, metamorphosis, cosmogony, and trickster disruption, while also insisting that the voyager holds special centrality because it externalizes the interior process by which the soul ventures into the unconscious and returns with knowledge. He traced this structure from the shamanic vision quest through Joyce’s Ulysses into the popular cinema of his late life, and his reading of Star Wars as a contemporary monomyth was either his most generous gift to popular culture or his most embarrassing capitulation to it, depending on which scholar you read. Maureen Murdock’s challenge to the male hero’s quest, developed in The Heroine’s Journey in 1990, sharpened the critique that Campbell’s pattern was less universal than his rhetoric implied. Robert Ellwood in The Politics of Myth and Brendan Gill in The New York Review of Books raised harder questions about Campbell’s politics and his unguarded private writings, and those critiques have not been resolved by his admirers so much as set aside.
Even granting those qualifications, Campbell’s instinct about register stands. He saw that stories carry meaning along a vertical axis, downward into the unconscious and upward into shared cultural reference, and the truth/lie binary slices that axis horizontally and loses the depth.
Saul Kripke offers a second escape from Sontag’s binary, arriving from a tradition Campbell never engaged. In his John Locke Lectures delivered at Oxford in 1973 and published as Reference and Existence in 2013, Kripke extended the rigid-designator theory of his Naming and Necessity to fictional and mythological names, arguing that such names refer to abstract objects brought into existence by the storytelling act itself. The name “Odysseus” refers, in Kripke’s account, to a fictional character: an abstract artifact created by Homeric composition and sustained by every subsequent reader and translator who has carried that reference forward. Kripke gives storytelling a creative-ontological power Sontag’s truth/fiction frame cannot register. Two traditions sharing almost no methodological vocabulary, depth psychology and analytic philosophy of language, arrive at the same conclusion: the truth/lie axis fails because storytelling produces a third class of object the axis cannot measure.
There is a temperamental and political difference between Sontag and Campbell worth naming directly. Sontag wrote in the long aftermath of the Holocaust and the Cold War, suspicious of any totalizing narrative. She had watched fascism weaponize national myth in Germany and Italy, and her caution reflects that experience honestly. Campbell was an American comparativist working in the wake of Frazer and Jung, drawn to pattern across cultures, and his posthumously published journals raised real questions about his political instincts. Sontag’s suspicion functions as a corrective against political weaponization. Campbell’s pattern recognition functions as recognition of common structure across cultures that have never met. The disagreement between them is genuine and should not be smoothed over for the comfort of synthesis.
My position is partial agreement with Sontag and deeper agreement with the Campbell answer she did not stay alive long enough to receive. The truth/fiction ambiguity she describes belongs to modern Western reading habits and shows up wherever those habits travel. The deeper question of what narrative does across cultures requires a different lens. Campbell goes closer to the bone when he asks what stories do across human societies, treating function as the proper unit of analysis, which lets him see patterns Sontag’s frame keeps hidden. Stories organize experience, transmit pattern across generations, rehearse mortality, model possible selves, and bind communities through shared reference. Whether the events “really happened” is a question that stories themselves typically dissolve, which is why we still read Homer and the Book of Job long after their cosmologies have been falsified.
The synthesis Sontag misses, Campbell only gestures toward, and Kripke names from a third direction is that stories operate at multiple registers simultaneously: as durable structures of consciousness, as historically situated cultural artifacts, and as creators of abstract reference objects that take on real life within communities who carry the names forward. The Odyssey is psychologically accurate about return and recognition, it is a specific Bronze Age Greek text carrying specific class and gender assumptions, and it brought “Odysseus” into existence as a name that refers to something real, even if not historical. Collapsing any of these registers into another impoverishes the reading. Sontag’s caution prevents the first kind of collapse, where myth becomes a timeless template that erases the particular hands that made the particular text. Campbell’s depth prevents the second kind of collapse, where a poem becomes a museum object emptied of the psychological force it still exerts on readers who pick it up. Kripke prevents a third collapse altogether, the one in which storytelling is denied its world-making authority and reduced to description of things that already exist. None of the three alone reaches the full target.
What Sontag could not see from the angle of her camera is that the voyager she names as one model among many is the externalization of the tension she places at the center of storytelling. The voyager who returns with news is also the dreamer who returns from the underworld. The bringer of facts and the bringer of vision occupy the same archetypal position, which is why storytelling moves along a single descending axis with truth and invention braided together at the bottom of the well. Sontag stopped at the doorway. Campbell walked down the stairs.
#books #campbell #comparision #culture #knowing #kripke #lies #meaning #myth #naming #sontag #stories #storytelling #truthtelling #voyager -
Sontag’s Two Doors, Campbell’s Underworld
In a television interview that has circulated for years, Susan Sontag offers a small theory of storytelling. She points out that the English word “story” carries a double valence. We say “tell me the real story” to demand truth, and we say “that’s only a story” to dismiss invention. Stories, she argues, face two directions at once, toward fact and toward fantasy, and this doubleness sits at the center of what stories do.
The observation is correct as far as it travels, and the format of a televised exchange does not give a thinker of Sontag’s caliber room to develop the qualifications she would have written into print. Sontag is reliable on the surface phenomena. The deathbed scene she describes, where family secrets surface around mortality, is psychologically accurate. Her returning voyager who brings news from elsewhere is one of the oldest functions of narrative, traceable from Odysseus through Marco Polo and Mary Kingsley to the embedded war correspondent. We are also gripped, as Sontag says, by stories precisely because they describe what cannot happen. Readers of Kafka know Gregor Samsa did not wake as an insect, and that knowledge intensifies the story’s force.
Where Sontag falters is in locating this doubleness at “the very center of the whole enterprise of storytelling.” The tension she identifies is a feature of post-Enlightenment English usage. Other languages partition the territory differently. German separates Geschichte from Erzählung, the chronicle from the tale. Ancient Greek separates mythos from logos and historia. Sanskrit holds itihasa, the account of what happened, distinct from purana, the ancient telling. Yoruba oral tradition separates itan, the sacred and ancestral narrative, from àló, the entertaining household tale. The ambiguity Sontag treats as constitutive is partly an artifact of English vocabulary collapsing distinctions that other tongues hold apart. To say storytelling faces two directions, truth and lie, is to inherit a Cartesian frame that pre-modern peoples would have found alien to the question.
This is exactly where Joseph Campbell would intervene. For Campbell, the truth-versus-fiction axis was a symptom of modern literalism, useful for tracking what one cultural moment had lost but useless for explaining how myth operates. Drawing on Jung and on comparative anthropology, he argued that stories carry psychological reality independent of historical reality. The hero’s descent to the underworld, the dying and rising god, the trickster who exposes the king, these belong to a third register that Sontag’s binary cannot accommodate. They register as neither historical claim nor fantasy opposed to fact. As Campbell argued throughout his career, mythology is what we call other people’s religion, and he was pointing at the failure of the truth/lie axis to capture what religious narrative does for those who live inside it.
Campbell would likely call Sontag’s voyager model one motif among several, including myths of descent, metamorphosis, cosmogony, and trickster disruption, while also insisting that the voyager holds special centrality because it externalizes the interior process by which the soul ventures into the unconscious and returns with knowledge. He traced this structure from the shamanic vision quest through Joyce’s Ulysses into the popular cinema of his late life, and his reading of Star Wars as a contemporary monomyth was either his most generous gift to popular culture or his most embarrassing capitulation to it, depending on which scholar you read. Maureen Murdock’s challenge to the male hero’s quest, developed in The Heroine’s Journey in 1990, sharpened the critique that Campbell’s pattern was less universal than his rhetoric implied. Robert Ellwood in The Politics of Myth and Brendan Gill in The New York Review of Books raised harder questions about Campbell’s politics and his unguarded private writings, and those critiques have not been resolved by his admirers so much as set aside.
Even granting those qualifications, Campbell’s instinct about register stands. He saw that stories carry meaning along a vertical axis, downward into the unconscious and upward into shared cultural reference, and the truth/lie binary slices that axis horizontally and loses the depth.
Saul Kripke offers a second escape from Sontag’s binary, arriving from a tradition Campbell never engaged. In his John Locke Lectures delivered at Oxford in 1973 and published as Reference and Existence in 2013, Kripke extended the rigid-designator theory of his Naming and Necessity to fictional and mythological names, arguing that such names refer to abstract objects brought into existence by the storytelling act itself. The name “Odysseus” refers, in Kripke’s account, to a fictional character: an abstract artifact created by Homeric composition and sustained by every subsequent reader and translator who has carried that reference forward. Kripke gives storytelling a creative-ontological power Sontag’s truth/fiction frame cannot register. Two traditions sharing almost no methodological vocabulary, depth psychology and analytic philosophy of language, arrive at the same conclusion: the truth/lie axis fails because storytelling produces a third class of object the axis cannot measure.
There is a temperamental and political difference between Sontag and Campbell worth naming directly. Sontag wrote in the long aftermath of the Holocaust and the Cold War, suspicious of any totalizing narrative. She had watched fascism weaponize national myth in Germany and Italy, and her caution reflects that experience honestly. Campbell was an American comparativist working in the wake of Frazer and Jung, drawn to pattern across cultures, and his posthumously published journals raised real questions about his political instincts. Sontag’s suspicion functions as a corrective against political weaponization. Campbell’s pattern recognition functions as recognition of common structure across cultures that have never met. The disagreement between them is genuine and should not be smoothed over for the comfort of synthesis.
My position is partial agreement with Sontag and deeper agreement with the Campbell answer she did not stay alive long enough to receive. The truth/fiction ambiguity she describes belongs to modern Western reading habits and shows up wherever those habits travel. The deeper question of what narrative does across cultures requires a different lens. Campbell goes closer to the bone when he asks what stories do across human societies, treating function as the proper unit of analysis, which lets him see patterns Sontag’s frame keeps hidden. Stories organize experience, transmit pattern across generations, rehearse mortality, model possible selves, and bind communities through shared reference. Whether the events “really happened” is a question that stories themselves typically dissolve, which is why we still read Homer and the Book of Job long after their cosmologies have been falsified.
The synthesis Sontag misses, Campbell only gestures toward, and Kripke names from a third direction is that stories operate at multiple registers simultaneously: as durable structures of consciousness, as historically situated cultural artifacts, and as creators of abstract reference objects that take on real life within communities who carry the names forward. The Odyssey is psychologically accurate about return and recognition, it is a specific Bronze Age Greek text carrying specific class and gender assumptions, and it brought “Odysseus” into existence as a name that refers to something real, even if not historical. Collapsing any of these registers into another impoverishes the reading. Sontag’s caution prevents the first kind of collapse, where myth becomes a timeless template that erases the particular hands that made the particular text. Campbell’s depth prevents the second kind of collapse, where a poem becomes a museum object emptied of the psychological force it still exerts on readers who pick it up. Kripke prevents a third collapse altogether, the one in which storytelling is denied its world-making authority and reduced to description of things that already exist. None of the three alone reaches the full target.
What Sontag could not see from the angle of her camera is that the voyager she names as one model among many is the externalization of the tension she places at the center of storytelling. The voyager who returns with news is also the dreamer who returns from the underworld. The bringer of facts and the bringer of vision occupy the same archetypal position, which is why storytelling moves along a single descending axis with truth and invention braided together at the bottom of the well. Sontag stopped at the doorway. Campbell walked down the stairs.
#books #campbell #comparision #culture #knowing #kripke #lies #meaning #myth #naming #sontag #stories #storytelling #truthtelling #voyager -
Sontag’s Two Doors, Campbell’s Underworld
In a television interview that has circulated for years, Susan Sontag offers a small theory of storytelling. She points out that the English word “story” carries a double valence. We say “tell me the real story” to demand truth, and we say “that’s only a story” to dismiss invention. Stories, she argues, face two directions at once, toward fact and toward fantasy, and this doubleness sits at the center of what stories do.
The observation is correct as far as it travels, and the format of a televised exchange does not give a thinker of Sontag’s caliber room to develop the qualifications she would have written into print. Sontag is reliable on the surface phenomena. The deathbed scene she describes, where family secrets surface around mortality, is psychologically accurate. Her returning voyager who brings news from elsewhere is one of the oldest functions of narrative, traceable from Odysseus through Marco Polo and Mary Kingsley to the embedded war correspondent. We are also gripped, as Sontag says, by stories precisely because they describe what cannot happen. Readers of Kafka know Gregor Samsa did not wake as an insect, and that knowledge intensifies the story’s force.
Where Sontag falters is in locating this doubleness at “the very center of the whole enterprise of storytelling.” The tension she identifies is a feature of post-Enlightenment English usage. Other languages partition the territory differently. German separates Geschichte from Erzählung, the chronicle from the tale. Ancient Greek separates mythos from logos and historia. Sanskrit holds itihasa, the account of what happened, distinct from purana, the ancient telling. Yoruba oral tradition separates itan, the sacred and ancestral narrative, from àló, the entertaining household tale. The ambiguity Sontag treats as constitutive is partly an artifact of English vocabulary collapsing distinctions that other tongues hold apart. To say storytelling faces two directions, truth and lie, is to inherit a Cartesian frame that pre-modern peoples would have found alien to the question.
This is exactly where Joseph Campbell would intervene. For Campbell, the truth-versus-fiction axis was a symptom of modern literalism, useful for tracking what one cultural moment had lost but useless for explaining how myth operates. Drawing on Jung and on comparative anthropology, he argued that stories carry psychological reality independent of historical reality. The hero’s descent to the underworld, the dying and rising god, the trickster who exposes the king, these belong to a third register that Sontag’s binary cannot accommodate. They register as neither historical claim nor fantasy opposed to fact. As Campbell argued throughout his career, mythology is what we call other people’s religion, and he was pointing at the failure of the truth/lie axis to capture what religious narrative does for those who live inside it.
Campbell would likely call Sontag’s voyager model one motif among several, including myths of descent, metamorphosis, cosmogony, and trickster disruption, while also insisting that the voyager holds special centrality because it externalizes the interior process by which the soul ventures into the unconscious and returns with knowledge. He traced this structure from the shamanic vision quest through Joyce’s Ulysses into the popular cinema of his late life, and his reading of Star Wars as a contemporary monomyth was either his most generous gift to popular culture or his most embarrassing capitulation to it, depending on which scholar you read. Maureen Murdock’s challenge to the male hero’s quest, developed in The Heroine’s Journey in 1990, sharpened the critique that Campbell’s pattern was less universal than his rhetoric implied. Robert Ellwood in The Politics of Myth and Brendan Gill in The New York Review of Books raised harder questions about Campbell’s politics and his unguarded private writings, and those critiques have not been resolved by his admirers so much as set aside.
Even granting those qualifications, Campbell’s instinct about register stands. He saw that stories carry meaning along a vertical axis, downward into the unconscious and upward into shared cultural reference, and the truth/lie binary slices that axis horizontally and loses the depth.
Saul Kripke offers a second escape from Sontag’s binary, arriving from a tradition Campbell never engaged. In his John Locke Lectures delivered at Oxford in 1973 and published as Reference and Existence in 2013, Kripke extended the rigid-designator theory of his Naming and Necessity to fictional and mythological names, arguing that such names refer to abstract objects brought into existence by the storytelling act itself. The name “Odysseus” refers, in Kripke’s account, to a fictional character: an abstract artifact created by Homeric composition and sustained by every subsequent reader and translator who has carried that reference forward. Kripke gives storytelling a creative-ontological power Sontag’s truth/fiction frame cannot register. Two traditions sharing almost no methodological vocabulary, depth psychology and analytic philosophy of language, arrive at the same conclusion: the truth/lie axis fails because storytelling produces a third class of object the axis cannot measure.
There is a temperamental and political difference between Sontag and Campbell worth naming directly. Sontag wrote in the long aftermath of the Holocaust and the Cold War, suspicious of any totalizing narrative. She had watched fascism weaponize national myth in Germany and Italy, and her caution reflects that experience honestly. Campbell was an American comparativist working in the wake of Frazer and Jung, drawn to pattern across cultures, and his posthumously published journals raised real questions about his political instincts. Sontag’s suspicion functions as a corrective against political weaponization. Campbell’s pattern recognition functions as recognition of common structure across cultures that have never met. The disagreement between them is genuine and should not be smoothed over for the comfort of synthesis.
My position is partial agreement with Sontag and deeper agreement with the Campbell answer she did not stay alive long enough to receive. The truth/fiction ambiguity she describes belongs to modern Western reading habits and shows up wherever those habits travel. The deeper question of what narrative does across cultures requires a different lens. Campbell goes closer to the bone when he asks what stories do across human societies, treating function as the proper unit of analysis, which lets him see patterns Sontag’s frame keeps hidden. Stories organize experience, transmit pattern across generations, rehearse mortality, model possible selves, and bind communities through shared reference. Whether the events “really happened” is a question that stories themselves typically dissolve, which is why we still read Homer and the Book of Job long after their cosmologies have been falsified.
The synthesis Sontag misses, Campbell only gestures toward, and Kripke names from a third direction is that stories operate at multiple registers simultaneously: as durable structures of consciousness, as historically situated cultural artifacts, and as creators of abstract reference objects that take on real life within communities who carry the names forward. The Odyssey is psychologically accurate about return and recognition, it is a specific Bronze Age Greek text carrying specific class and gender assumptions, and it brought “Odysseus” into existence as a name that refers to something real, even if not historical. Collapsing any of these registers into another impoverishes the reading. Sontag’s caution prevents the first kind of collapse, where myth becomes a timeless template that erases the particular hands that made the particular text. Campbell’s depth prevents the second kind of collapse, where a poem becomes a museum object emptied of the psychological force it still exerts on readers who pick it up. Kripke prevents a third collapse altogether, the one in which storytelling is denied its world-making authority and reduced to description of things that already exist. None of the three alone reaches the full target.
What Sontag could not see from the angle of her camera is that the voyager she names as one model among many is the externalization of the tension she places at the center of storytelling. The voyager who returns with news is also the dreamer who returns from the underworld. The bringer of facts and the bringer of vision occupy the same archetypal position, which is why storytelling moves along a single descending axis with truth and invention braided together at the bottom of the well. Sontag stopped at the doorway. Campbell walked down the stairs.
#books #campbell #comparision #culture #knowing #kripke #lies #meaning #myth #naming #sontag #stories #storytelling #truthtelling #voyager -
Sontag’s Two Doors, Campbell’s Underworld
In a television interview that has circulated for years, Susan Sontag offers a small theory of storytelling. She points out that the English word “story” carries a double valence. We say “tell me the real story” to demand truth, and we say “that’s only a story” to dismiss invention. Stories, she argues, face two directions at once, toward fact and toward fantasy, and this doubleness sits at the center of what stories do.
The observation is correct as far as it travels, and the format of a televised exchange does not give a thinker of Sontag’s caliber room to develop the qualifications she would have written into print. Sontag is reliable on the surface phenomena. The deathbed scene she describes, where family secrets surface around mortality, is psychologically accurate. Her returning voyager who brings news from elsewhere is one of the oldest functions of narrative, traceable from Odysseus through Marco Polo and Mary Kingsley to the embedded war correspondent. We are also gripped, as Sontag says, by stories precisely because they describe what cannot happen. Readers of Kafka know Gregor Samsa did not wake as an insect, and that knowledge intensifies the story’s force.
Where Sontag falters is in locating this doubleness at “the very center of the whole enterprise of storytelling.” The tension she identifies is a feature of post-Enlightenment English usage. Other languages partition the territory differently. German separates Geschichte from Erzählung, the chronicle from the tale. Ancient Greek separates mythos from logos and historia. Sanskrit holds itihasa, the account of what happened, distinct from purana, the ancient telling. Yoruba oral tradition separates itan, the sacred and ancestral narrative, from àló, the entertaining household tale. The ambiguity Sontag treats as constitutive is partly an artifact of English vocabulary collapsing distinctions that other tongues hold apart. To say storytelling faces two directions, truth and lie, is to inherit a Cartesian frame that pre-modern peoples would have found alien to the question.
This is exactly where Joseph Campbell would intervene. For Campbell, the truth-versus-fiction axis was a symptom of modern literalism, useful for tracking what one cultural moment had lost but useless for explaining how myth operates. Drawing on Jung and on comparative anthropology, he argued that stories carry psychological reality independent of historical reality. The hero’s descent to the underworld, the dying and rising god, the trickster who exposes the king, these belong to a third register that Sontag’s binary cannot accommodate. They register as neither historical claim nor fantasy opposed to fact. As Campbell argued throughout his career, mythology is what we call other people’s religion, and he was pointing at the failure of the truth/lie axis to capture what religious narrative does for those who live inside it.
Campbell would likely call Sontag’s voyager model one motif among several, including myths of descent, metamorphosis, cosmogony, and trickster disruption, while also insisting that the voyager holds special centrality because it externalizes the interior process by which the soul ventures into the unconscious and returns with knowledge. He traced this structure from the shamanic vision quest through Joyce’s Ulysses into the popular cinema of his late life, and his reading of Star Wars as a contemporary monomyth was either his most generous gift to popular culture or his most embarrassing capitulation to it, depending on which scholar you read. Maureen Murdock’s challenge to the male hero’s quest, developed in The Heroine’s Journey in 1990, sharpened the critique that Campbell’s pattern was less universal than his rhetoric implied. Robert Ellwood in The Politics of Myth and Brendan Gill in The New York Review of Books raised harder questions about Campbell’s politics and his unguarded private writings, and those critiques have not been resolved by his admirers so much as set aside.
Even granting those qualifications, Campbell’s instinct about register stands. He saw that stories carry meaning along a vertical axis, downward into the unconscious and upward into shared cultural reference, and the truth/lie binary slices that axis horizontally and loses the depth.
Saul Kripke offers a second escape from Sontag’s binary, arriving from a tradition Campbell never engaged. In his John Locke Lectures delivered at Oxford in 1973 and published as Reference and Existence in 2013, Kripke extended the rigid-designator theory of his Naming and Necessity to fictional and mythological names, arguing that such names refer to abstract objects brought into existence by the storytelling act itself. The name “Odysseus” refers, in Kripke’s account, to a fictional character: an abstract artifact created by Homeric composition and sustained by every subsequent reader and translator who has carried that reference forward. Kripke gives storytelling a creative-ontological power Sontag’s truth/fiction frame cannot register. Two traditions sharing almost no methodological vocabulary, depth psychology and analytic philosophy of language, arrive at the same conclusion: the truth/lie axis fails because storytelling produces a third class of object the axis cannot measure.
There is a temperamental and political difference between Sontag and Campbell worth naming directly. Sontag wrote in the long aftermath of the Holocaust and the Cold War, suspicious of any totalizing narrative. She had watched fascism weaponize national myth in Germany and Italy, and her caution reflects that experience honestly. Campbell was an American comparativist working in the wake of Frazer and Jung, drawn to pattern across cultures, and his posthumously published journals raised real questions about his political instincts. Sontag’s suspicion functions as a corrective against political weaponization. Campbell’s pattern recognition functions as recognition of common structure across cultures that have never met. The disagreement between them is genuine and should not be smoothed over for the comfort of synthesis.
My position is partial agreement with Sontag and deeper agreement with the Campbell answer she did not stay alive long enough to receive. The truth/fiction ambiguity she describes belongs to modern Western reading habits and shows up wherever those habits travel. The deeper question of what narrative does across cultures requires a different lens. Campbell goes closer to the bone when he asks what stories do across human societies, treating function as the proper unit of analysis, which lets him see patterns Sontag’s frame keeps hidden. Stories organize experience, transmit pattern across generations, rehearse mortality, model possible selves, and bind communities through shared reference. Whether the events “really happened” is a question that stories themselves typically dissolve, which is why we still read Homer and the Book of Job long after their cosmologies have been falsified.
The synthesis Sontag misses, Campbell only gestures toward, and Kripke names from a third direction is that stories operate at multiple registers simultaneously: as durable structures of consciousness, as historically situated cultural artifacts, and as creators of abstract reference objects that take on real life within communities who carry the names forward. The Odyssey is psychologically accurate about return and recognition, it is a specific Bronze Age Greek text carrying specific class and gender assumptions, and it brought “Odysseus” into existence as a name that refers to something real, even if not historical. Collapsing any of these registers into another impoverishes the reading. Sontag’s caution prevents the first kind of collapse, where myth becomes a timeless template that erases the particular hands that made the particular text. Campbell’s depth prevents the second kind of collapse, where a poem becomes a museum object emptied of the psychological force it still exerts on readers who pick it up. Kripke prevents a third collapse altogether, the one in which storytelling is denied its world-making authority and reduced to description of things that already exist. None of the three alone reaches the full target.
What Sontag could not see from the angle of her camera is that the voyager she names as one model among many is the externalization of the tension she places at the center of storytelling. The voyager who returns with news is also the dreamer who returns from the underworld. The bringer of facts and the bringer of vision occupy the same archetypal position, which is why storytelling moves along a single descending axis with truth and invention braided together at the bottom of the well. Sontag stopped at the doorway. Campbell walked down the stairs.
#books #campbell #comparision #culture #knowing #kripke #lies #meaning #myth #naming #sontag #stories #storytelling #truthtelling #voyager -
Sontag’s Two Doors, Campbell’s Underworld
In a television interview that has circulated for years, Susan Sontag offers a small theory of storytelling. She points out that the English word “story” carries a double valence. We say “tell me the real story” to demand truth, and we say “that’s only a story” to dismiss invention. Stories, she argues, face two directions at once, toward fact and toward fantasy, and this doubleness sits at the center of what stories do.
The observation is correct as far as it travels, and the format of a televised exchange does not give a thinker of Sontag’s caliber room to develop the qualifications she would have written into print. Sontag is reliable on the surface phenomena. The deathbed scene she describes, where family secrets surface around mortality, is psychologically accurate. Her returning voyager who brings news from elsewhere is one of the oldest functions of narrative, traceable from Odysseus through Marco Polo and Mary Kingsley to the embedded war correspondent. We are also gripped, as Sontag says, by stories precisely because they describe what cannot happen. Readers of Kafka know Gregor Samsa did not wake as an insect, and that knowledge intensifies the story’s force.
Where Sontag falters is in locating this doubleness at “the very center of the whole enterprise of storytelling.” The tension she identifies is a feature of post-Enlightenment English usage. Other languages partition the territory differently. German separates Geschichte from Erzählung, the chronicle from the tale. Ancient Greek separates mythos from logos and historia. Sanskrit holds itihasa, the account of what happened, distinct from purana, the ancient telling. Yoruba oral tradition separates itan, the sacred and ancestral narrative, from àló, the entertaining household tale. The ambiguity Sontag treats as constitutive is partly an artifact of English vocabulary collapsing distinctions that other tongues hold apart. To say storytelling faces two directions, truth and lie, is to inherit a Cartesian frame that pre-modern peoples would have found alien to the question.
This is exactly where Joseph Campbell would intervene. For Campbell, the truth-versus-fiction axis was a symptom of modern literalism, useful for tracking what one cultural moment had lost but useless for explaining how myth operates. Drawing on Jung and on comparative anthropology, he argued that stories carry psychological reality independent of historical reality. The hero’s descent to the underworld, the dying and rising god, the trickster who exposes the king, these belong to a third register that Sontag’s binary cannot accommodate. They register as neither historical claim nor fantasy opposed to fact. As Campbell argued throughout his career, mythology is what we call other people’s religion, and he was pointing at the failure of the truth/lie axis to capture what religious narrative does for those who live inside it.
Campbell would likely call Sontag’s voyager model one motif among several, including myths of descent, metamorphosis, cosmogony, and trickster disruption, while also insisting that the voyager holds special centrality because it externalizes the interior process by which the soul ventures into the unconscious and returns with knowledge. He traced this structure from the shamanic vision quest through Joyce’s Ulysses into the popular cinema of his late life, and his reading of Star Wars as a contemporary monomyth was either his most generous gift to popular culture or his most embarrassing capitulation to it, depending on which scholar you read. Maureen Murdock’s challenge to the male hero’s quest, developed in The Heroine’s Journey in 1990, sharpened the critique that Campbell’s pattern was less universal than his rhetoric implied. Robert Ellwood in The Politics of Myth and Brendan Gill in The New York Review of Books raised harder questions about Campbell’s politics and his unguarded private writings, and those critiques have not been resolved by his admirers so much as set aside.
Even granting those qualifications, Campbell’s instinct about register stands. He saw that stories carry meaning along a vertical axis, downward into the unconscious and upward into shared cultural reference, and the truth/lie binary slices that axis horizontally and loses the depth.
Saul Kripke offers a second escape from Sontag’s binary, arriving from a tradition Campbell never engaged. In his John Locke Lectures delivered at Oxford in 1973 and published as Reference and Existence in 2013, Kripke extended the rigid-designator theory of his Naming and Necessity to fictional and mythological names, arguing that such names refer to abstract objects brought into existence by the storytelling act itself. The name “Odysseus” refers, in Kripke’s account, to a fictional character: an abstract artifact created by Homeric composition and sustained by every subsequent reader and translator who has carried that reference forward. Kripke gives storytelling a creative-ontological power Sontag’s truth/fiction frame cannot register. Two traditions sharing almost no methodological vocabulary, depth psychology and analytic philosophy of language, arrive at the same conclusion: the truth/lie axis fails because storytelling produces a third class of object the axis cannot measure.
There is a temperamental and political difference between Sontag and Campbell worth naming directly. Sontag wrote in the long aftermath of the Holocaust and the Cold War, suspicious of any totalizing narrative. She had watched fascism weaponize national myth in Germany and Italy, and her caution reflects that experience honestly. Campbell was an American comparativist working in the wake of Frazer and Jung, drawn to pattern across cultures, and his posthumously published journals raised real questions about his political instincts. Sontag’s suspicion functions as a corrective against political weaponization. Campbell’s pattern recognition functions as recognition of common structure across cultures that have never met. The disagreement between them is genuine and should not be smoothed over for the comfort of synthesis.
My position is partial agreement with Sontag and deeper agreement with the Campbell answer she did not stay alive long enough to receive. The truth/fiction ambiguity she describes belongs to modern Western reading habits and shows up wherever those habits travel. The deeper question of what narrative does across cultures requires a different lens. Campbell goes closer to the bone when he asks what stories do across human societies, treating function as the proper unit of analysis, which lets him see patterns Sontag’s frame keeps hidden. Stories organize experience, transmit pattern across generations, rehearse mortality, model possible selves, and bind communities through shared reference. Whether the events “really happened” is a question that stories themselves typically dissolve, which is why we still read Homer and the Book of Job long after their cosmologies have been falsified.
The synthesis Sontag misses, Campbell only gestures toward, and Kripke names from a third direction is that stories operate at multiple registers simultaneously: as durable structures of consciousness, as historically situated cultural artifacts, and as creators of abstract reference objects that take on real life within communities who carry the names forward. The Odyssey is psychologically accurate about return and recognition, it is a specific Bronze Age Greek text carrying specific class and gender assumptions, and it brought “Odysseus” into existence as a name that refers to something real, even if not historical. Collapsing any of these registers into another impoverishes the reading. Sontag’s caution prevents the first kind of collapse, where myth becomes a timeless template that erases the particular hands that made the particular text. Campbell’s depth prevents the second kind of collapse, where a poem becomes a museum object emptied of the psychological force it still exerts on readers who pick it up. Kripke prevents a third collapse altogether, the one in which storytelling is denied its world-making authority and reduced to description of things that already exist. None of the three alone reaches the full target.
What Sontag could not see from the angle of her camera is that the voyager she names as one model among many is the externalization of the tension she places at the center of storytelling. The voyager who returns with news is also the dreamer who returns from the underworld. The bringer of facts and the bringer of vision occupy the same archetypal position, which is why storytelling moves along a single descending axis with truth and invention braided together at the bottom of the well. Sontag stopped at the doorway. Campbell walked down the stairs.
#books #campbell #comparision #culture #knowing #kripke #lies #meaning #myth #naming #sontag #stories #storytelling #truthtelling #voyager -
Pop!
There’s a technique to pilling an unwilling cat, or so they tell you. If you search for videos on the subject, you will find the topic is so common, it’s practically a genre. It goes like this…
A perky and suspiciously unharmed vet will say, “Y’all have been asking how to pill a cat, so today we’re going to give Buttercup his pills and show you how it’s done.” The video then cuts to a shot of Buttercup who is sitting there waiting for the next thought to arrive. One is instantly suspicious of course. Buttercup isn’t just calm he’s either tranquilised or experiencing some kind of nirvana-level transcendence. The vet picks Buttercup up like he’s a half-filled hot water bottle and plops him down on the examination table.
“You want to give your cat a few good strokes, really get that purr going.” Buttercup sounds like an idling Harley. “Grasp the head like so, tilt it back so the mouth comes open, and pop!” – that’s the word they use, pop! – “the pill at the back of the throat. Then we’re going to gently hold the mouth closed and stroke the throat till… it goes down”. You get the feeling that Buttercup could go on popping pills all day long. It would explain a lot about his demeanour.
The reason we were watching videos of vets pilling cats is that we had a cat – cat #3, who is a chaos goblin – and we had some pills and we had to get the latter into the former. It wasn’t the first time we’d pilled a cat, but he had just spent a week at the vet’s on life support and had, despite his brush with death and much diminished state, still managed to terrorise a whole team of professional veterinarian assistants. We didn’t want to take unnecessary chances so we had brushed up on the basics.
We looked at #3. He’d already sensed that something was about to happen and had retreated to the hardest to reach corner of the kitchen from where he stared at us balefully. I got hold of the scruff of his neck and dragged him out. Grasping the head proved to be rather tricky because, rather than sitting there obligingly, #3 had turned into an eel. I suppose I am speaking metaphorically, but the metamorphosis was rapid and alarming: I had hold of what was clearly a cat’s head, but the body was worming backwards and thrashing around leaving him suspended by his surprisingly slender and elastic neck. Horrified, I let him go.
After a few minutes of adjustment, I managed to trap his body between my knees and levered his head backwards. It took rather more force than I was completely happy applying to a tiny slip of a cat. His mouth, however, did not open. Any attempts to prise it open were batted away by two front paws full of needle-sharp claws. I grabbed those too. Grudgingly the mouth opened, and my wife pushed the pill as far down his throat as she dared. In return Cat #3 bit her as hard as he dared. I grabbed hold of his head and jaw, pinching his mouth shut with both hands. To do this I had to let go of his paws.
For a small cat he has a lot of fight and his early life as a street cat has left him with none of the inhibitions that a normal house cat might have. All four sets of claws raked at my arms, hands, legs, and – because I was grasping him between my knees and my hands were otherwise occupied – my completely unprotected groin. He writhed around attempting to kick off my hands and his own head along with them. More alarmingly, he started to foam at the mouth. I let him go. He contemptuously spat what was left of the pill onto the floor and slunk off into the space beneath the old cast iron radiator where no one can get him. All we could see in the darkness were his pale green eyes and a mouth-shaped crescent of foam.
We surveyed the damage. So far, he had taken less than half a pill and both of us were bleeding freely from multiple lacerations. While we applied antiseptic to our cuts1, we considered our options.
A towel was fetched, the theory – again supported by numerous YouTube videos – being that if we wrapped him up tightly so only the head protruded, then there wouldn’t be much he could do about it. This theory – as with so many theories – did not long survive experimental testing. Cat #3’s body is so slight that he can slip through almost any gap and even wrapped up tightly in a towel he still maintained his ability to pour out of any container like a liquid. At one point, we were convinced we still had hold of his swaddled body, but we were wrestling each other while he had slipped out of the door.
By the time we admitted defeat and, more importantly, run out of antiseptic, we had managed to get him to swallow the majority of two pills. All that was left was a large syringe loaded with kaolin and chicken flavoured goo. We looked at each other: it wasn’t going to happen.
In the morning, we called the vet. They found the whole thing rather amusing. Bring him in, they said between guffaws: we, the experts, will show you how it’s done.
The head vet has many years of experience and an unsentimental approach to animals and their owners. He listened patiently to our story, which was, I’m sure, one he had heard a thousand times before. He had a casually practiced but firm hold of #3 on the examination table. #3 for his part was staring into the distance and plotting the ruin of nations. The vet explained how all that was required was a little confidence and the right technique. He went on for quite a while. He asked us to tear the pill from its foil bubble and hand it to him. He sniffed the way someone might who is about to perform a nifty task for an adoring audience and gripped the cat’s head.
The movement was too fast to see, but fat beads of blood were soon welling up along three ragged tears in the vet’s hand. He uttered some choice phrases. We said nothing. Between the three of us and the help of one of the technicians, we carefully clipped his front claws and then, for good measure, the back ones too. The vet was more confident the second time. After a couple of minutes, he managed to trap the cat between his elbow, body and table, and prise the head back. At this point, Buttercup’s mouth would have been gaping open, but #3s mouth was firmly shut. The position of his head meant his teeth were exposed at the front. They were clenched together in miniscule but absolute defiance. I felt a surge of pride: he was a recalcitrant bastard, but he was our recalcitrant bastard. The vet tried to pry the mouth open, eventually managing to do so with our help and both hands. Again, the movement was too fast to see. The tablet pinged off the wall and rolled onto the floor. The vet yelled something and released the cat who immediately leapt from the table. I looked at my wife. Her lips were pressed together but I could see the laughter in her eyes and her shoulders were shaking.
Eventually, after a long period of much more careful experimentation, and with the aid of long-nosed device that could deposit the pill halfway down the cat’s throat from a safe distance, the vet managed to get the pills into #3’s mouth. We held onto him like the world’s smallest and angriest bucking bronco just long enough for the pills to go down. The vet picked up the cage and was about to scoop #3 up for his return journey when my wife asked if he would show us how to deliver the paste. The vet, to his credit, barely paused. The paste came in a large syringe that by rotation of a plastic cuff could administer precisely measured doses. The vet spent rather longer than he probably needed adjusting the quantity. We were anticipating – gleefully, I must admit – another wrestling match, but instead, he squeezed the paste out in small quantities and smeared it on the cat’s lips. It still took three of us to perform the operation, but at least no one got seriously injured. Safely back in his cage and licking a mixture of clay and chicken off his lips, we returned home.
After that day, it wasn’t so bad. It was as if #3 had proved his point and was now content to acquiesce in whatever nonsense we inflicted upon him. The day after, he ate his pills like candy and after a few days, was actually looking forwards to his syringe full of chickeny goo.
-fin-
- The French have a wonderful substance called Synthol that one can splash liberally on wounds, muscular aches and so forth. Faith in its healing powers is strong. I like the smell and the way it stings. Both are reassuringly – and sometimes startlingly – medical. I can’t speak to its actual efficacy, but it feels like powerful stuff. ↩︎
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Charlotte’s $137M Uptown library delayed to 2027 – Axios Charlotte
Oct 10, 2025 – News
Sneak peek: Uptown’s $137M, five-story delayed library
GIF: Alexandria Sands/AxiosConstruction is progressing, though behind schedule, on Charlotte Mecklenburg Library’s five-story Uptown branch at 6th and North Tryon streets. The $137 million flagship location is now slated to open in spring 2027, later than the 2026 target.
Why it matters: The main library — a free, critical community resource — has been closed for four years now. Once reopened, leaders expect a million visitors in the first year, making the 115,000-square-foot branch a major Uptown destination.
Driving the news: Project leadersgave reporters a tour Friday of construction progress on the first two floors. Caitlin Moen, library director, attributed the delay to meticulous work necessary to ensure the building’s longevity.
- “This iconic building is something that’s not been built before,” Moen said. “As we try to bring this vision to life, but also ensure that 50-year lifespan, we are doing our due diligence.”
Zoom in: Moen said the features reflect what community members said they wanted in their modern library, including:
- 15 meeting rooms for two to 40 people
- A 225-person, top-floor event space
- A reading room with views
- A courtyard and two outdoor terraces
- Lowe’s Technology Lab with public computers and two laptop dispensing stations with 12 laptops each
- The Bank of America Opportunity Center, offering resume assistance, digital skills training and job support
- A parking deck, built and financed by Mecklenburg County, at the corner of 7th and College streets
Between the lines: The main library is geared more toward adults, since ImaginOn, the flagship children’s and teen library, is two blocks away.
Catch up quick: Mecklenburg County provided $72.33 million for the project. Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation still has $8 million to raise in private support to cover the remaining $65 million.
- The construction is on the same site as the original 1903 Carnegie Library. Mecklenburg County’s first free library was rebuilt in 1956, renovated and expanded in 1989, and torn down in 2023 to make way for this modernized version.
Zoom out: The library is expected to accelerate this corner of Uptown’s metamorphosis. It’s right next to the newly renovated Carolina Theatre, which is now hosting movie nights and large speaker events.
- Mecklenburg County had planned a major overhaul of the land surrounding the library, but the master developer for the public-private redevelopment, called Seventh and Tryon, backed out.
- The county isn’t seeking a new master developer anytime soon due to “development market volatility and uncertainty,” a spokesperson told Axios.
Take a look around the construction site: Tryon Plaza
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Charlotte’s $137M Uptown library delayed to 2027 – Axios Charlotte
#137Million #2025 #2025Update #2027Delay #America #Axios #AxiosCharlotte #Books #Charlotte #Construction #Education #History #Libraries #Library #MainLibrary #NorthCarolina #PublicLibrary #Reading #Technology #TryonPlaza #UnitedStates #Uptown
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In the Way of Inquiry • Obstacles
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/01/07/in-the-way-of-inquiry-obstacles-a/❝Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy:
❝Do not block the way of inquiry.❞
C.S. Peirce, Collected Papers, CP 1.135–136.
From an unpaginated ms. “F.R.L.”, c. 1899.Often the biggest obstacle to learning more is the need to feel you already know. And yet there are some things you know, at least, compared to other things, and it makes sense to use what you already know well enough to learn what you need to know better. The question is, how do you know which is which? What test can tell what is known so well it can be trusted in learning what is not?
One way to test a supposed knowledge is to try and formulate it in such a way it can be taught to other people. A related test, harder in some ways but easier in others, is to try and formalize knowledge so completely that even a computer can go through the motions supposed to be definitive of its practice.
Both ways of testing a supposition of knowledge depend on putting knowledge in forms which can be communicated or transported from one medium or system of interpretation to another. Knowledge already in a concrete form takes no more than a simple reformation or transformation, otherwise it takes a more radical metamorphosis, from a wholly disorganized condition to the first inklings of a portable or sharable form.
#Peirce #Inquiry #InquiryIntoInquiry #InquiryDrivenSystems
#Semiotics #SignRelations #Semiositis #ObstaclesToInquiry -
via SpaceWeather.com
EARTH'S RING CURRENT JUST SPRANG A LEAK:
"During this past weekend's strong G3-class geomagnetic storm, low-latitude #auroras spread as far south as #Texas and #Arizona. Upon further review, most of those lights were not auroras at all. Everything #red in this montage is an 'SAR arc'.
"'On Nov. 5th, the ring current was pumped up by hours of strong geomagnetic storming, with energy dissipating into these SAR arcs,' says Jeff Baumgardner of Boston University's Center for Space Physics. 'It was a global event. Our cameras registered #SAR arc activity from #Italy to #NewZealand.'
"Recent research has linked SAR arcs to another phenomenon that is not an aurora: #STEVE. The #mauve ribbon in the sky was not originally thought to have anything to do with Earth's ring current. Yet in 2015, observers in New Zealand caught a bright red SAR arc transforming itself into STEVE like a caterpillar into a butterfly.
"On Nov. 5th, Mark Savage may have witnessed the same metamorphosis over Northumberland, #UK:
"Visible to the naked eye, STEVE materialized from an overhanging red arc. 'The entire process took about 10 minutes,' says Savage. This timescale roughly matches that of another SAR-to-STEVE transition observed over Canada in April 2022. Clearly, the two phenomena are linked, but researchers aren't sure how.
"'The connection is still elusive,' says Carlos Martinis, a leading researcher in the field at Boston University. 'Sometimes SAR arcs evolve into STEVE--but not always. This is a very active field of research, involving citizen scientists and researchers.'
"Did you see an SAR arc on Nov. 5th? Submit your pictures to Spaceweather.com."
#SpaceWeather #RingCurrent #GeomagneticStorm #CitizenScience #RingArc #SARArc #SolarFlares #SolarCycle25
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By Saunders
Revocation makes me feeling fucking old. It’s difficult to believe fifteen odd years have passed since stumbling across their phenomenal sophomore effort, Existence is Futile. It became instantly clear Revocation were one of the fresher, most exciting bands emerging in the modern metal scene of the era. Their career seemed to propel in fast forward as they pumped out top notch album after album, maintaining an impressive work rate and exceptional consistency, while refusing to repeat themselves. Couple of minor bumps along the way notwithstanding, Revocation’s vibrant, signature combination of technical death-thrash, infectious songwriting and acrobatic guitar hero shreddage from mastermind Dave Davidson has long cemented Revocation as a titanic force in the crowded realms of the modern metalverse.
Formed in 2006, the Bostonites unleashed their brash and confident debut Empire of the Obscene in 2008. From humble but exciting beginnings the Revo boys have proceeded to go on an absolute fucking tear across multiple albums, the most recent being the darker pathways and heavier pastures of 2022’s Netherheaven, arguably a return to form. Though in fairness Revocation have never dropped a dud, and despite a couple of minor career lulls, they have remained a dependably consistent force to be reckoned with.
September 26th, 2025 ushers in Revocation’s ninth LP, New Gods, New Masters. As anticipation grows for the star packed opus, what better time for our resident Revocation fanboys; including the return of the illustrious Kronos, who so eloquently championed the band on these very pages across multiple releases with his insightful wordsmithery and critical analysis, to unload our collective opinions on the band’s formidable discography. Nearly twenty years since their formation and boasting a catalog of rare consistency and power, we have our work cut out for us. Strap yourselves in…
Disclaimer: After careful consideration we have actioned the Human Waste/Despise the Sun Ranking Law of including Revocation’s highly regarded Teratogenesis EP from 2012 due to the consensus this is a meaty and essential mini-platter in the power packed Revocation repertoire.
The Rankings
Saunders
#9. The Outer Ones (2018) – While difficult to pinpoint, The Outer Ones remains an elusive Revocation album, and one I reach for least frequently, despite being one their more recent offerings. Although The Outer Ones doesn’t deviate savagely from the vice-tight yet elastic formula Revocation long since mastered, it leans deeper into murkier blackened death forays and features a cold, clinical and dissonant edge. Its darkly menacing sheen and blasty, death forward approach is responsible for some rousing moments and it’s easy to admire the album’s frantic, calculated intensity. Tunes like the rip-roaring opener “Of Unworldly Origin,” chunky brawler “The Outer Ones” and the thrashy, proggy blackened death of “Luciferous” highlight an album that has grown on me but ultimately falls short of the band’s other works.
#8. Empire of the Obscene (2008) – A bold and potential-packed debut, Empire of the Obscene rises well beyond a mere curiosity or roughshod early edition of Revocation’s rapidly evolving sound. I came to the debut after being first enamored by Existence is Futile and Chaos of Forms, both superior examples of the band’s exceptional early career highs. Still, Empire of the Obscene is a killer debut and refreshing, slashing technical thrash opus, with a healthy smattering of death. The vibrant, raging “Tail from the Crypt” is an early career highpoint, while other choice cuts include the bizarro “Suffer These Wounds,” and rippling axerobatics of “Exhumed Identity.” It’s solid stuff, yet inconsistencies creep in and some of the writing feels a tad overcooked, falling short of the ripping high standards and impeccable writing featured across the Revocation career arc
#7. Great is Our Sin (2016) – Perhaps the first time upon release a Revocation release failed to gain immediate traction. Again the sheer strength and power of its predecessors found Great is Our Sin fall a fraction short of the impeccable standards maintained during the first half dozen or so years of the band’s recording career. And it feels like an outlier merging the band’s different eras, pre and post-Revocation. Playful tech thrash energy, proggy dabbling, and darker, deathly pummels are in abundance, as per expectations. I appreciate the more thrash-centric turns, less prominent in their later era. Great is Our Sin features many of the strong attributes listeners have come to expect, sounding like a melodically mature yet overly familiar and safe album. The songwriting is consistently solid, featuring the odd flirtation with greatness. Old school flavored thrasher “Arbiters of the Apocalypse,” the prog-infused death-thrash of “Communion,” sinister, punishing thrust of “Only the Spineless Survive,” and epic, experimental rumble of “Cleaving Giants of Ice” are nuggety examples of the album’s finer moments.
#6. Netherheaven (2022) – Netherheaven marked a refreshing return to form after the solid if underwhelming, The Outer Ones. Kronos hit the nail on the head when he proclaimed Netherheaven to be the natural successor to Deathless, as similarities in tone, mood and execution are evident. Revocation flexed their deathly muscles and advanced musicianship in service of complex, yet undoubtedly catchy compositions, such as the brutally groovy throes of “Nihilistic Violence,” labyrinthine trip of “Strange and Eternal” and blast-addled, vocal trade-off on scorching closer “Re-Crucified.” Despite being enveloped with shadowy, sinister atmospheres, Netherheaven is imbued with a fun, adventurous spirit, also resulting in one of Revocation’s heaviest offerings. Davidson’s ever inspiring axework never ceases to amaze and songwriting finds a real sweet spot between grooving, chunky chugs, technical mastery, and throwbacks to their thrashy roots. Meanwhile, his increasingly versatile and confident vocals remain a somewhat underrated aspect of the Revocation experience. Not a career high point, but a great album nonetheless.
#5. Deathless (2014) – Revocation’s distinctive formula has long separated them from the hordes of tech death and thrash bands in the scene. One of Revocation’s greatest attributes is their ability to manipulate their craft and pivot in versatile directions. Deathless emerged as a darker, sinister trip down a fittingly deathlier path, creating a welcome stylistic deviation to evolve and keep any semblance of stagnation at bay. Though follow-up Great is Our Sin slightly deviated, Deathless marked the beginning of Revocation embracing the darker corners of their psyche, charting murkier, heavier and altogether more brutal, unforgiving terrain. Thankfully, Deathless didn’t abandon their knack for penning challenging, infectious, thrash-powered tech-death jams. Nor does Deathless forget how to have fun, as evidenced by the shout-along chorus and straightforward headbangable riffs adorning the title track. However, Deathless’ most impactful, jolting moments are delivered elsewhere. Classic opener “A Debt Owed to the Grave” and the cutthroat “Scorched Earth Policy” unleash vicious yet eloquently delivered evidence Revocation still thrash with the best of them. While the immense “Madness Opus” channels Revocation’s progressive inclinations within a barbed, death metal shell. Top-tier stuff.
#4: Revocation (2013) – The dark horse and underrated gem in the Revocation kit bag, their self-titled effort sparkled between the stunning Teratogenesis EP and the brooding tones and violent stomp of Deathless. Though not regularly mentioned amongst the band’s finer works, Revocation demands regular attention amidst an increasingly stacked catalog. Following up Chaos of Forms was always going to be a tough ask, however, Revocation proved up to the challenge. Revocation is a playful, quirky, fun-filled blast from go to whoa, keeping Revocation’s ever-evolving formula fresh and inspired. The versatile songwriting makes for a consistently gripping listen and one of their more diverse offerings. Whether belting out aggressive, full-throttle tech-thrash workouts (“The Hive,” “Numbing Agents”), warped tech death beatdowns (“Fracked,” “Scattering the Flock”), banjo-infected riff monsters (“Invidious”) or mosh-ready juggernauts (“Archfiend”), Revocation has all bases covered. A slightly more stock backend the only thing diminishing an otherwise top-notch album.
#3. Teratogenesis (2012) – Only the most curmudgeony, glass-half-empty pessimist discounts the short and sweet value of the often underrated EP format. Continuing a creatively booming and prolific hot streak, Teratogenesis is a wild, breakneck ride featuring the Revocation lads operating at the peak of their powers. New and old listeners alike would be foolish to neglect this action-packed beauty. If there is something slightly lacking in Revocation’s later career, it misses the outrageously fun and turbo-charged thrashiness and technically dazzling though infectious spirit so prevalent on Teratogenesis and surrounding releases. Revocation’s eye-popping instrumental prowess and whipsmart songwriting serve genuinely well-crafted, catchy songcraft and a bevy of sharp turning dynamic twists and killer riffs. “The Grip Tightens” bottles everything great about the Revocation sound into a career stunner. Elsewhere, “Manically Unleashed” unleashes cracking bursts of tech thrash precision amidst intricate melodic breaks and soul-searching solos, while “Bound By Desire” closes proceedings with a blast and thrash-riddled bang, replete with gorgeous melodic soloing and proggy touches.
#2. Chaos of Forms (2011) – Weirdly enough, I recall being fleetingly underwhelmed when Chaos of Forms dropped. Expectations were sky high, and Chaos of Forms represented a different beast to its immediate predecessor. Featuring an aggressive though more lighthearted, freewheeling tone and experimental streak, Chaos has long since become a personal favorite and modern metal classic. It is also rather simply the most fun Revocation album. Davidson is in his element, firing off some of the finest solos of his career to decorate fast-paced, quirky tech death-thrash compositions, aided by an unstoppable line-up, including the first to feature guitarist/vocalist Dan Gargiulo (Artificial Brain), adding an exciting extra dimension to the band’s sound. Unleashing a trio of instant Revocation classics right off the bat courtesy of “Cretin,” “Grave Robber” and “Harlot”, any notion Chaos of Forms being front-loaded is swiftly demolished as the album unfurls with banger after banger. From the melodic, singalong chorus of “No Funeral,” through to the brainy, twisting riffage of the title track, zippy, thrash-laden charge of “Beloved Horrifier,” and densely packed, stuttering tech death of “Reprogrammed,” Chaos is a versatile, sparkling jewel in the Revocation canon.
#1. Existence is Futile (2009) – Beyond the endearing factor, this was my first Revocation album and the warm fuzzy nostalgia associated; Revocation’s astonishing sophomore belter Existence is Futile emerged as a bottled lightning moment. Revocation’s impressively acrobatic musicianship and technical prowess was accelerated to new heights. However, the bulletproof songwriting and smart, yet dazzlingly intriguing arrangements were grounded by tight and aggressive songs that pulled no punches. An astonishing leap forward from an already exciting and accomplished debut, Existence is Futile has a raw energy and speedy, exhilarating urgency backed by polished, intricate songwriting, parasitic hooks and the warped, unmatched musicianship and advanced shreddery we have now long come to expect from Davidson and crew. Songs are largely stripped back in length from the debut, pared down to the bare essentials, maximizing impact. Davidson’s underrated vocals sound as vital as ever. A thoroughly gripping listen front to back, with the likes of “Pestilence Reigns,” “Deathonomics,” “The Brain Scramblers,” “Reanimaniac,” “Dismantle the Dictator” and ambitious closer “The Tragedy of Modern Ages” a handful of essential cuts.
Kronos
“Please help!” prayed my erstwhile colleagues, “our taste is underdeveloped to a near-blastular degree, and we are oh so disdraught! We seek but a simple ordination of technical death-thrash records but lack the True Knowledge of quality!”
Now moved, I descend from on high, gracing them not just with my presence but with my very acknowledgement of their pitiful existence: in one hand my catechism, in the other my nose. For those enlightened beyond the reflexive need to communicate the truths of quality, the ordering of Revocation records is a simple thing. One needs only to recognize the generational talent and drive of a one Dave Davidson, the extraordinary caliber of musicians that he has surrounded himself with, and analyze the triumphs and, shall we say, try-umphs, of their many recordings with an objective eye informed by a coherent understanding of the material and aesthetic universe in which they occur.
# 9 The Outer Ones (2018) – Revocation built a career based on an inseparable trinity of inventive riffs, creative songwriting, and infectious fun. In 2018 they denied this trinity and were cast into oblivion for four years thereafter; sentenced to relentless touring in which they played The Outer Ones lethargic and self-serious tech death alongside probably fifty other bands peddling similar stuff but more committed to it. That The Outer Ones seems to be their most popular release is a testament to the essential wickedness of our heathen age, that so many will follow a false prophecy.
#8 Great Is Our Sin (2016) – Indeed, but Revocation’s Slayer-worship record might have been better named Great Will Be Our Sin, given that its follow-up was The Outer Ones. But the title gets the point across; this was at the time their nastiest, deathiest album. Muscular and mean, Great Is Our Sin attempted brute-force repentance with burly but brainy tracks like “Monolithic Ignorance” serving up festering fun and “Only the Spineless Survive” providing the band’s most brutal beating until Netherheaven. Cruel as a crucifixion, Great is Our Sin is a treat, but not a joy, to experience, with too much of its runtime given to grinding grooves that don’t showcase the band’s strengths.
#7 Empire of the Obscene (2008) – In a way, it’s stunning to see how far Revocation have come since their debut: not far at all. In this we are confronted by the theopneustic nature of their art; seventeen years on, we can expect New Gods, New Masters to sound basically like Empire of the Obscene. This is death thrash that, while more fun than a barrel of monkeys and twice as rowdy, is impossible to find corny because it’s just too perfectly executed. For a young band, Revocation have a self-assuredness that evades many veteran groups, even as the death-thrash trinity’s endless invention pushes fast-moving songs up to and past the five-minute mark. From the dry but clear production, grinning art-school riffing to the waggling, showboat jazz soloing, every surface of the Revocation mold is here for the band to crack and ooze out of and pull away from on future recordings.
#6 Netherheaven (2022) – Netherheaven saw Revocation a three-piece for the first time since Chaos of Forms, and on firm footing as ever to make their first devoted death metal record. Netherheaven’s highlights (“Galleries of Morbid Artistry” and “Re-Crucified”) unfold like intricate torture machines from a macabre storybook, but mean, mid-paced grooves stick together and weigh down far too much of the record’s runtime. Netherheaven recovered much of the charm that The Outer Ones jettisoned but doubts as to the band’s future form remain.
#5 Existence is Futile (2009) – Empire of the Obscene really didn’t need to be improved upon, but Revocation are moved not by need but possibility. Existence is Futile’s leaner, focused writing got the band out of their own way. While some sections can come across a bit sparse, the difference in memorability between Empire and Existence is marked, with tracks like Deathonomics and Dismantle the Dictator becoming staple songs. Gruesome tech-thrash tracks like “Pestillence Reigns” and “The Brain Scramblers” were a revelation, and bruisers like “Dismantle the Dictator” and “Anthem of the Betrayed” gained the group countless new adherents.
#4 Revocation (2013) – One of the lesser-appreciated joys of the Revocation discography are the band’s actual texts, and nowhere are they more compelling than on their self-titled record. Whether railing against the rich, oil companies, or the American media environment, Revocation pairs incisive sing-alongs with inspiring musicianship; Davidson even pulls out a Banjo to parody cable news (“Invidious”). Revocation capped the first era of the Revocation discography in impeccable form with their most front-to-back memorable LP.
#3 Deathless (2014) – Deathless was a turning point for Revocation; having played every riff possible on six strings, Davidson and Gargiulo turned fully to seven, beginning a more sinister version of Revocation that persists to this day. Yet Deathless isn’t heavy just for the sake of being heavy; it’s just as lithe and unpredictable as the records before it, but with a grim grace to its winding songs and some of the band’s most emotionally resonant solo work (see “Witch Trials”) and most poignant political criticism (“Beholden to their corporate masters/ politicians privatizing genocide/ condolences offered by the same who pulled the trigger” – “The Fix”). Without the grating title track, the record would be just about perfect.
#2 Teratogenesis (2012) – Many will argue (incorrectly) that Teratogenesis, Revocation’s 2012 EP hot off of the release of Chaos of Forms, is the group’s magnum opus. Granted, “The Grip Tightens” might be their best song, and, granted again, “Spurn the Outstretched Hand” might be their second-best song. But after that one-two punch of career-defining greats, they only go on to deliver three more. Paltry! Sure, the sinister “Teratogenesis” would prove to be the blueprint for the rest of their career, and “Bound By Desire” would shame thousands of aspiring axe-smiths with its sheer pummeling speed, but in context, Teratogenesis is dessert, a follow-up to what came just before. And there’s no horn section!
#1 Chaos of Forms (2011) – That Chaos of Forms is the highest among the Revocation records is almost axiomatic. From the opening bass slide of “Cretin” to the raving closing of “Reprogrammed,” there’s not a second of Chaos of Forms that doesn’t reach out and pull you into a rictus grin. Every song is packed to the brim with creative riffs, brilliant musicianship and playful twists. Take, for instance, “Cradle Robber,” which tips a playful chorus riff repeatedly into an absolute vortex of synchronized drumming and trem-picking until it spills over, then transitions into a spectacular solo courtesy of the newly-joined Dan Gargioulo. It’s put in its place by a brain-melting Davidson solo seconds later, for which the whole band actually speeds up, seemingly just to one-up the new guy. The pair return together with a showboat riff half-consumed by synchronized harmonics. Music really does not get much more fun than this, especially when it’s narrated by the Grim Reaper. The only time it does is when the music is “The Watchers,” which breaks out into a gallop halfway through before stampeding its way into a big, brassy introduction for producer Pete Rutcho’s funky little organ solo. Simply divine.
Maddog
In 2012, my metal taste was impressionable but ravenous. I spotted a death-thrash EP from an unfamiliar band, available for free download via the now-defunct label Scion A/V. Teratogenesis’ balance of death-thrash riffs and thoughtful melodies swept me off my feet.
In 2015, I had imbibed deeply of extreme metal, but never been to a show. One frigid night in February, I timidly headed to Brighton Music Hall in Boston. While Fallujah fell victim to sound issues, the final opener Revocation smashed me to pieces. It was a watershed moment in my metamorphosis from metal fan to metal adorer.
In 2025, Revocation is a cornerstone of my music taste. I love death metal; I love thrash’s energy; I love creative songwriting; I can’t help but love Revocation. Most of all, I love their consistency. Even the other two classic bands I’ve helped rank here (Suffocation and Dying Fetus) don’t have as deep a bench of memorable releases.
And so, perhaps you’re better off ignoring our concerted but pitiful attempts to dissect Revocation’s history. After all, this is Revocation; just listen to all of it.
#9. Empire of the Obscene (2008). Empire of the Obscene is merely a good album, but it lay the groundwork for Revocation’s career. While Empire isn’t as thrashy as its successor Existence Is Futile, melodeath permeates both its guitar leads and its riffs, which are textbook but punchy (“Summon the Spawn”). Despite its inconsistency, Empire of the Obscene hints at Revocation’s burgeoning strengths. The most brutal segments are death metal riffcraft at its finest (“Fields of Predation”), while the tinges of proggy song development are impressive for a new band. Even a fair helping of deathcore rears its head, remaining sporadic enough to stay fresh. Empire of the Obscene is entertaining, but with a 56-minute runtime and an overreliance on cookie-cutter death metal riffs, it struggles to stick in my mind. It’s a fun listen, but falls short of Revocation’s best.
#8. Deathless (2014). While Deathless is a worthwhile release, it doesn’t excel in any of Revocation’s usual dimensions. Frequent mid-paced riffs lose my focus throughout (“Madness Opus”), and I forget swaths of the album soon after it ends. Deathless progs with mixed success, and its creative efforts are often hindered by their length and low energy (“Apex”). The dwindling of Revocation’s thrash influences kneecaps the record. However, the exceptions save Deathless from the compost bin. The death-thrash menace “Scorched Earth Policy” houses one of Revocation’s most frantic and dangerous riffs, while the proggy adventures of “Witch Trials” hit hard because they’re tied together by punchy melodies. Deathless doesn’t top its neighbors, but it’s no slouch.
#7. Netherheaven (2022). Netherheaven’s ordinariness feels out of place. Revocation’s latest album abandons the elements that distinguished them from the death metal masses. The proggy escapades, off-kilter riffs, and melodeath influences are gone; the fretboard wizardry is dialed back; even thrash takes a back seat. And yet, Netherheaven succeeds as stone-cold death metal. Easily Revocation’s most brutal release, Netherheaven wows with the gigantic “Galleries of Morbid Artistry” and the rifftastic closer “Re-Crucified.” The occasional glimpses of Revocation’s former flair also go a long way, like the playful opening of “Strange and Eternal.” That said, Netherheaven suffers from inconsistency, with middling second-half tracks like “The 9th Chasm.” The technical spectacles feel like dispassionate exercises, and the lack of variety makes the album less replayable than Revocation’s best works. Still, there’s no shame in making rock-solid death metal. It’s telling that even my seventh-favorite Revocation album made my 2022 list.
#6. Revocation (2013). Often overlooked, Revocation’s self-titled showcases some of the band’s greatest guitar work. At this stage of their career, Revocation had mastered both the weird and the powerful. On one end, “Fracked” might be the guitar highlight of the band’s career, culminating with a virtuosic but punishing chorus and a climactic solo. Standing opposite, “Spastic” is a jazzy spectacle but holds my awe throughout. Uniting these worlds, “Invidious” blends a banjo intro, playful melodies, and a furious thrashy back half, while the shapeshifting “Archfiend” is the first and only Revocation track to make me cry. Revocation occupies a turning point, taming the insanity of Chaos of Forms without compromising its death-thrash intensity. While the midsection of Revocation shines, the record is bookended by slightly weaker cuts. Still, although it has more great songs than excellent songs, Revocation is essential in the Revocation canon.
#5. Chaos of Forms (2011). The aptly-titled Chaos of Forms is the wildest release of Revocation’s career. The infinitely thrashy tracks that kick things off are a riot, but they’re the tamest part. The album’s guitar effects (“Harlot”), lilted jazzy melodies (“Conjuring the Cataclysm”), and 1970s-inspired key digressions (“The Watchers”) are maniacal. These experiments work because Revocation is having fun every step of the way. To ward off any doubts, Chaos of Forms also features some of Revocation’s fiercest death-thrash riffs; indeed, “No Funeral” might be the greatest live performance I’ve ever witnessed. However, strangeness requires discipline, which Chaos of Forms could use more of. Fanciful digressions crop up in unexpected places, often sticking around long enough to confuse but not long enough to convince. Chaos of Forms isn’t Revocation’s most memorable record, but it’s easily the most ambitious.
#4. Teratogenesis (2012). The 22-minute Teratogenesis utilizes the EP format brilliantly, offering an action-packed tour through Revocation’s style. “The Grip Tightens” is a perfect crystallization of death-thrash, complete with both an iconic opening riff and one of metal’s most enduring music videos. Meanwhile, “Maniacally Unleashed” adventures from thrashy riffing to serene melodies as well as any other track in Revocation’s oeuvre. Teratogenesis hones the guitar pyrotechnics that would define its successor Revocation, employing them for stratospheric climaxes. While Teratogenesis loses steam as it progresses, this says more about the sky-high bar set by the first three tracks. In historical perspective, Teratogenesis feels monumental in the same way as Suffocation’s Human Waste. It isn’t flawless, but it’s an indispensable encapsulation of Revocation’s career. I can’t imagine them without it.
#3. Existence Is Futile (2009). Bridging the gap between the straightforward Empire of the Obscene and the batshit Chaos of Forms, Existence Is Futile is Revocation’s most melo- and least mellow album. Skeletonwitch looms large, and the album infects me through its chunky riffs (“Pestilence Reigns”), its jubilant solos (“Anthem of the Betrayed”), and its irresistible choruses (“Reanimaniac”). Even still, Existence Is Futile’s most enduring achievement is its thirst for adventure. The narrative evolution of the instrumental “Across Forests and Fjords” resembles Insomnium’s Winter’s Gate; in stark contrast, the proggy title track mutates so many times that I can never quite recall when it starts or ends. Not once does this ever feel like an intellectual exercise. Rather, Existence Is Futile is Revocation’s most consistently fun release, achieving immortality through the energy of thrash and the creative power of prog death. Revocation’s sophomore record isn’t immune to thrash metal’s age-old pitfalls, and the album’s weaker riffs occasionally bleed together. Even so, Existence Is Futile is the highlight of Revocation’s high-octane early career.
#2. The Outer Ones (2018). Yes, if you want a party anthem, don’t look here. But fun takes many forms, and The Outer Ones’ narrative prowess stands out. The album’s Lovecraft-inspired tales and Revocation’s best-ever vocal performance hold each track together. The instruments follow suit. The riffs achieve an unholy blend of melodic weirdness (“The Outer Ones”) and raw force (“Of Unworldly Origin”). The choruses rank among Revocation’s best, peaking on the underrated blackened death spectacle “Luciferous.” Dave Davidson and Dan Gargiulo’s technical wizardry arguably reaches its apex, across both unhinged riffs and soaring solos (“Blood Atonement”). Even these highlights don’t do justice to The Outer Ones’ remarkable consistency; though it takes a small dip in “Vanitas” and peters out with “A Starless Darkness,” the album is otherwise a masterclass. While The Outer Ones disappointed some of the AMG herd, some bold commenters fought back, even demanding (rightfully) that we give Kronos a paddling. While Kronos has evaded justice so far, I hope to honor this request; The Outer Ones is one of Revocation’s creative peaks.
#1. Great Is Our Sin (2016). While each of these nine albums is impressive, nearly every one has notable flaws. Great Is Our Sin is the exception. All of Revocation’s strengths coalesce here, and every moment counts. While Netherheaven is Revocation’s most brutal album, Great Is Our Sin’s heftiest cuts can shatter steel (“Altars of Sacrifice”). While Chaos of Forms leans into the bizarre, Great Is Our Sin’s stealthy escapades are even more engaging (“The Exaltation”). While Revocation’s earlier releases emphasize the rhythm section, “Monolith of Ignorance” is a gleaming monument to bass- and drum-led evolution. While Existence Is Futile embraces the fun factor, “Altars of Sacrifice” could dunk on it with both feet planted. While Revocation showcased the emotional range of a guitar, “Cleaving Giants of Ice” stands toe-to-toe through its melodic dirge for polar ice caps. These disparate elements fuse into the masterful “Communion,” whose jazzy opening, thrashy verse, crushing chorus, and enthralling solo make it a landmark in both Revocation’s career and death metal history. Put simply, when I’m in the middle of any Great Is Our Sin track, I can’t imagine listening to anything else. That’s the surest sign of excellence.
A short, sharp primer to convince the unconvinced…
Empire of the Obscene (2008)
- “Tail from the Crypt”
Existence is Futile (2009)
- “Pestilence Reigns”
- “Reanimaniac”
Chaos of Forms (2011)
- “Cradle Robber”
- “No Funeral”
Teratogenesis (2012)
“The Grip Tightens”
- “Maniacally Unleashed”
Revocation (2013)
- “Numbing Agents”
- “Fracked”
Deathless ((2014)
- “Scorched Earth Policy”
- “Witch Trials”
Great is Our Sin (2016)
- “Arbiters of the Apocalypse”
- “Cleaving Giants of Ice”
The Outer Ones (2018)
- “The Outer Ones”
- “Luciferous”
Netherheaven (2022)
- “Strange and Eternal”
- “Nihilistic Violence”
#AmericanMetal #AMGGoesRanking #DeathMetal #Review #Reviews #Revocation #TechDeath #TechnicalThrashMetal #ThrashMetal
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Sarastus – Agony Eternal Review
By Kenstrosity
If you follow the Finnish, or even the wider Scandinavian black metal scene, you might know about Finnish trio Sarastus. I would never have known about them, though, if it weren’t for AMG Hisselves telling Dr. A. N. Grier to listen to them and cover this. Of course, because I’m an opportunistic bastard with a ravenous appetite for shenanigans—and because Grier slept on the promo pool until he was sunburned to a smoking chunk of stinky charcoal—I swiped it right from under his nose. Sucks to suck, loser! Now I’m here, spinning Sarastus’ third opus, Agony Eternal, and reveling in the fact that I stole something that just happened to be worth stealing from not one, but two upper management. You’re welcome.
Undergoing some lineup changes between records before finalizing the current spread in 2023, Sarastus comes alive on Agony Eternal, bursting with vitality and verve. The sonic format at its core remains unchanged from what already exists in the black metal arsenal: blast beats, frigid tremolos, buzzing production, fierce rasps, and fiery melodies. Rarely, though, in the modern school at least, do these ingredients coalesce into a record as blistering and infectious as Agony Eternal. Reminiscent of Kvaen and Rimfrost in its infernal lustiness and musical effervescence, all of Agony Eternal’s nine tightly written tracks offer an array of sharp hooks, meaty riffs, and standout vocal performances that put Sarastus far ahead of the majority of their peers.
Agony Eternal serves as a prime example of a record that doesn’t need to do anything new to make a big splash. Even if opening duo “Gravelust” and “Agony Eternal” snatch my attention with a staggering immediacy—credit for this goes to a surprisingly black n’ roll riffset, dynamic songwriting, and a swaggering sense of confidence—it’s “Into Eternity” and “Where Cruelty Never Ends” that catch my adoring gaze. The melodies that lift me into the stratosphere in both songs create a euphoric state that never fully dissipates. Remarkably smooth transitions in rhythm and structure activate an animal instinct in my brain that ensures headbanging and windmilling at extreme intensities. In concert, these characteristics generate an immense momentum that bestows gravity and heft to the slower mid-paced stomp that pounds “No Horizon” deep into my skull. With all manner of screeches, riffs, leads, and patterns to guide my way forward, the remainder of Agony Eternal follows through on the promise that “Into Eternity” and its neighbors aren’t just a white-hot flash in the pan. Later highlights “Metamorphosis,” “Into the Lair,” and massive closer “1644” stand tall as fast and free explosions of joyous, blackened revelry that recalls Vimur in their vicious attack and vicarious spirit.
Dispensing with a compartmentalized evaluation of its constituent numbers, Agony Eternal still shines. Put another way, Agony Eternal is a nonstop party. With almost poppy energy, Sarastus captured with remarkable simplicity and undeniable effectiveness the passion and conviction that made black metal of this kind a sensation. But, when I listen to songs like “From Pride, to Shame, to Misery,” I can hear more than just black metal purism. I hear a confident, exuberant soul rooted in rock n’ roll rebellion, forged in timeless techniques, and steeped in metallic traditions across the spectrum. In this way, Sarastus honor the great many talents across history that allowed a record like Agony Eternal to exist. In that spirit, this feels like a loving tribute not just to black metal itself, but to the greater community of artists and audiences that laid the groundwork.
Even so, Agony Eternal is imperfect, but only slightly. There are one or two brief moments where the vocals break my immersion by breaking a bit themselves (see the very end of “Where Cruelty Never Ends”), though this disruptive effect dulls with repeat spins and a little patience. I also wish that, despite the wonderfully roomy and natural mix and master, the bass was beefier still and the vocals pulled back just a smidge. Additionally, opener “Gravelust” might be the only song that, mostly in retrospect, doesn’t meet the same lofty standard of its album mates. It’s got all the right attributes, but the execution feels lacking by comparison. As a final nitpick, after a dozen focused listens, I do think a few riffs here and there undergo one or three too many repetitions, especially when they are more than strong enough to stand out with fewer (“1644”). No matter. At the end of the night, Agony Eternal is a resounding success, and I wholeheartedly recommend any metal fan to give it your ear (and your soul)!
Rating: Great!
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Dominance of Darkness Records
Websites: sarastus.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/sarastusjaikuisuus
Releases Worldwide: July 1st, 2025#2025 #40 #AgonyEternal #BlackMetal #DominanceOfDarknessRecords #FinnishMetal #Jul25 #Kvaen #MelodicBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #Rimfrost #Sarastus #Vimur
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Greetings, children of the night! Nicholas here with a tale as dark and twisted as the ancient myths that haunt our dreams. The hour is late, and the news I bring is tinged with both sorrow and anticipation. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is about to witness a resurrection—one that will see a beloved hero rise, not to save the world, but to cast it into shadow.
We all remember the day the light dimmed, when Tony Stark, the invincible Ironman, made the ultimate sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. His final act, a selfless embrace of death, was meant to secure a future free from tyranny. But in the wake of that sacrifice, as the world mourned, something darker began to stir. For in the realm of legends, death is often just the beginning.
Now, like a vampire emerging from his crypt at the stroke of midnight, Robert Downey Jr. is set to return—but this time, he’s leaving the light behind. The actor who once embodied the heroism of Ironman will now don the dark mantle of Mr. Doom in the upcoming *Avengers: Doomsday*. This transformation is no mere role change; it’s a metamorphosis that will see Downey cross the threshold from hero to villain, from savior to destroyer.
The news has sent a thrill through the veins of fans worldwide. Imagine it: Robert Downey Jr., the charismatic Tony Stark, now shrouded in the malevolent power of Victor Von Doom. This is a villain unlike any other—a character who wields his intellect and might with the cold precision of a predator stalking its prey. The prospect of Downey embodying this role is nothing short of spellbinding.
Set to descend upon theaters in May 2026, *Avengers: Doomsday* promises to be a film bathed in darkness. It’s not just a new chapter in the MCU; it’s a descent into the unknown, where heroes and villains are but two sides of the same coin. The return of Downey as Mr. Doom will blur the lines between light and dark, challenging our perceptions and forcing us to confront the shadows within.
For those of us who revel in the gothic, the macabre, and the tragic beauty of transformation, this is a moment to savor. Robert Downey Jr. is about to embark on a journey into the depths of villainy, and I, for one, am eager to follow. This isn’t just another superhero movie; it’s a tale of rebirth, of a soul caught between two worlds, much like a vampire torn between the night and the lingering memories of day.
So, gather close, my fellow night dwellers. The clock ticks ever closer to midnight, and with it, the arrival of Mr. Doom. Are you ready to witness this dark transformation? To see the hero you once knew embrace the shadows? The time is near—let the anticipation build, and share your thoughts as we prepare for the return of Robert Downey Jr., reborn as the dark force that will shape the fate of the MCU.
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Greetings, children of the night! Nicholas here with a tale as dark and twisted as the ancient myths that haunt our dreams. The hour is late, and the news I bring is tinged with both sorrow and anticipation. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is about to witness a resurrection—one that will see a beloved hero rise, not to save the world, but to cast it into shadow.
We all remember the day the light dimmed, when Tony Stark, the invincible Ironman, made the ultimate sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. His final act, a selfless embrace of death, was meant to secure a future free from tyranny. But in the wake of that sacrifice, as the world mourned, something darker began to stir. For in the realm of legends, death is often just the beginning.
Now, like a vampire emerging from his crypt at the stroke of midnight, Robert Downey Jr. is set to return—but this time, he’s leaving the light behind. The actor who once embodied the heroism of Ironman will now don the dark mantle of Mr. Doom in the upcoming *Avengers: Doomsday*. This transformation is no mere role change; it’s a metamorphosis that will see Downey cross the threshold from hero to villain, from savior to destroyer.
The news has sent a thrill through the veins of fans worldwide. Imagine it: Robert Downey Jr., the charismatic Tony Stark, now shrouded in the malevolent power of Victor Von Doom. This is a villain unlike any other—a character who wields his intellect and might with the cold precision of a predator stalking its prey. The prospect of Downey embodying this role is nothing short of spellbinding.
Set to descend upon theaters in May 2026, *Avengers: Doomsday* promises to be a film bathed in darkness. It’s not just a new chapter in the MCU; it’s a descent into the unknown, where heroes and villains are but two sides of the same coin. The return of Downey as Mr. Doom will blur the lines between light and dark, challenging our perceptions and forcing us to confront the shadows within.
For those of us who revel in the gothic, the macabre, and the tragic beauty of transformation, this is a moment to savor. Robert Downey Jr. is about to embark on a journey into the depths of villainy, and I, for one, am eager to follow. This isn’t just another superhero movie; it’s a tale of rebirth, of a soul caught between two worlds, much like a vampire torn between the night and the lingering memories of day.
So, gather close, my fellow night dwellers. The clock ticks ever closer to midnight, and with it, the arrival of Mr. Doom. Are you ready to witness this dark transformation? To see the hero you once knew embrace the shadows? The time is near—let the anticipation build, and share your thoughts as we prepare for the return of Robert Downey Jr., reborn as the dark force that will shape the fate of the MCU.
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Greetings, children of the night! Nicholas here with a tale as dark and twisted as the ancient myths that haunt our dreams. The hour is late, and the news I bring is tinged with both sorrow and anticipation. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is about to witness a resurrection—one that will see a beloved hero rise, not to save the world, but to cast it into shadow.
We all remember the day the light dimmed, when Tony Stark, the invincible Ironman, made the ultimate sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. His final act, a selfless embrace of death, was meant to secure a future free from tyranny. But in the wake of that sacrifice, as the world mourned, something darker began to stir. For in the realm of legends, death is often just the beginning.
Now, like a vampire emerging from his crypt at the stroke of midnight, Robert Downey Jr. is set to return—but this time, he’s leaving the light behind. The actor who once embodied the heroism of Ironman will now don the dark mantle of Mr. Doom in the upcoming *Avengers: Doomsday*. This transformation is no mere role change; it’s a metamorphosis that will see Downey cross the threshold from hero to villain, from savior to destroyer.
The news has sent a thrill through the veins of fans worldwide. Imagine it: Robert Downey Jr., the charismatic Tony Stark, now shrouded in the malevolent power of Victor Von Doom. This is a villain unlike any other—a character who wields his intellect and might with the cold precision of a predator stalking its prey. The prospect of Downey embodying this role is nothing short of spellbinding.
Set to descend upon theaters in May 2026, *Avengers: Doomsday* promises to be a film bathed in darkness. It’s not just a new chapter in the MCU; it’s a descent into the unknown, where heroes and villains are but two sides of the same coin. The return of Downey as Mr. Doom will blur the lines between light and dark, challenging our perceptions and forcing us to confront the shadows within.
For those of us who revel in the gothic, the macabre, and the tragic beauty of transformation, this is a moment to savor. Robert Downey Jr. is about to embark on a journey into the depths of villainy, and I, for one, am eager to follow. This isn’t just another superhero movie; it’s a tale of rebirth, of a soul caught between two worlds, much like a vampire torn between the night and the lingering memories of day.
So, gather close, my fellow night dwellers. The clock ticks ever closer to midnight, and with it, the arrival of Mr. Doom. Are you ready to witness this dark transformation? To see the hero you once knew embrace the shadows? The time is near—let the anticipation build, and share your thoughts as we prepare for the return of Robert Downey Jr., reborn as the dark force that will shape the fate of the MCU.
-
Greetings, children of the night! Nicholas here with a tale as dark and twisted as the ancient myths that haunt our dreams. The hour is late, and the news I bring is tinged with both sorrow and anticipation. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is about to witness a resurrection—one that will see a beloved hero rise, not to save the world, but to cast it into shadow.
We all remember the day the light dimmed, when Tony Stark, the invincible Ironman, made the ultimate sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. His final act, a selfless embrace of death, was meant to secure a future free from tyranny. But in the wake of that sacrifice, as the world mourned, something darker began to stir. For in the realm of legends, death is often just the beginning.
Now, like a vampire emerging from his crypt at the stroke of midnight, Robert Downey Jr. is set to return—but this time, he’s leaving the light behind. The actor who once embodied the heroism of Ironman will now don the dark mantle of Mr. Doom in the upcoming *Avengers: Doomsday*. This transformation is no mere role change; it’s a metamorphosis that will see Downey cross the threshold from hero to villain, from savior to destroyer.
The news has sent a thrill through the veins of fans worldwide. Imagine it: Robert Downey Jr., the charismatic Tony Stark, now shrouded in the malevolent power of Victor Von Doom. This is a villain unlike any other—a character who wields his intellect and might with the cold precision of a predator stalking its prey. The prospect of Downey embodying this role is nothing short of spellbinding.
Set to descend upon theaters in May 2026, *Avengers: Doomsday* promises to be a film bathed in darkness. It’s not just a new chapter in the MCU; it’s a descent into the unknown, where heroes and villains are but two sides of the same coin. The return of Downey as Mr. Doom will blur the lines between light and dark, challenging our perceptions and forcing us to confront the shadows within.
For those of us who revel in the gothic, the macabre, and the tragic beauty of transformation, this is a moment to savor. Robert Downey Jr. is about to embark on a journey into the depths of villainy, and I, for one, am eager to follow. This isn’t just another superhero movie; it’s a tale of rebirth, of a soul caught between two worlds, much like a vampire torn between the night and the lingering memories of day.
So, gather close, my fellow night dwellers. The clock ticks ever closer to midnight, and with it, the arrival of Mr. Doom. Are you ready to witness this dark transformation? To see the hero you once knew embrace the shadows? The time is near—let the anticipation build, and share your thoughts as we prepare for the return of Robert Downey Jr., reborn as the dark force that will shape the fate of the MCU.
-
Greetings, children of the night! Nicholas here with a tale as dark and twisted as the ancient myths that haunt our dreams. The hour is late, and the news I bring is tinged with both sorrow and anticipation. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is about to witness a resurrection—one that will see a beloved hero rise, not to save the world, but to cast it into shadow.
We all remember the day the light dimmed, when Tony Stark, the invincible Ironman, made the ultimate sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. His final act, a selfless embrace of death, was meant to secure a future free from tyranny. But in the wake of that sacrifice, as the world mourned, something darker began to stir. For in the realm of legends, death is often just the beginning.
Now, like a vampire emerging from his crypt at the stroke of midnight, Robert Downey Jr. is set to return—but this time, he’s leaving the light behind. The actor who once embodied the heroism of Ironman will now don the dark mantle of Mr. Doom in the upcoming *Avengers: Doomsday*. This transformation is no mere role change; it’s a metamorphosis that will see Downey cross the threshold from hero to villain, from savior to destroyer.
The news has sent a thrill through the veins of fans worldwide. Imagine it: Robert Downey Jr., the charismatic Tony Stark, now shrouded in the malevolent power of Victor Von Doom. This is a villain unlike any other—a character who wields his intellect and might with the cold precision of a predator stalking its prey. The prospect of Downey embodying this role is nothing short of spellbinding.
Set to descend upon theaters in May 2026, *Avengers: Doomsday* promises to be a film bathed in darkness. It’s not just a new chapter in the MCU; it’s a descent into the unknown, where heroes and villains are but two sides of the same coin. The return of Downey as Mr. Doom will blur the lines between light and dark, challenging our perceptions and forcing us to confront the shadows within.
For those of us who revel in the gothic, the macabre, and the tragic beauty of transformation, this is a moment to savor. Robert Downey Jr. is about to embark on a journey into the depths of villainy, and I, for one, am eager to follow. This isn’t just another superhero movie; it’s a tale of rebirth, of a soul caught between two worlds, much like a vampire torn between the night and the lingering memories of day.
So, gather close, my fellow night dwellers. The clock ticks ever closer to midnight, and with it, the arrival of Mr. Doom. Are you ready to witness this dark transformation? To see the hero you once knew embrace the shadows? The time is near—let the anticipation build, and share your thoughts as we prepare for the return of Robert Downey Jr., reborn as the dark force that will shape the fate of the MCU.
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via SpaceWeather.com
EARTH'S RING CURRENT JUST SPRANG A LEAK:
"During this past weekend's strong G3-class geomagnetic storm, low-latitude #auroras spread as far south as #Texas and #Arizona. Upon further review, most of those lights were not auroras at all. Everything #red in this montage is an 'SAR arc'.
"'On Nov. 5th, the ring current was pumped up by hours of strong geomagnetic storming, with energy dissipating into these SAR arcs,' says Jeff Baumgardner of Boston University's Center for Space Physics. 'It was a global event. Our cameras registered #SAR arc activity from #Italy to #NewZealand.'
"Recent research has linked SAR arcs to another phenomenon that is not an aurora: #STEVE. The #mauve ribbon in the sky was not originally thought to have anything to do with Earth's ring current. Yet in 2015, observers in New Zealand caught a bright red SAR arc transforming itself into STEVE like a caterpillar into a butterfly.
"On Nov. 5th, Mark Savage may have witnessed the same metamorphosis over Northumberland, #UK:
"Visible to the naked eye, STEVE materialized from an overhanging red arc. 'The entire process took about 10 minutes,' says Savage. This timescale roughly matches that of another SAR-to-STEVE transition observed over Canada in April 2022. Clearly, the two phenomena are linked, but researchers aren't sure how.
"'The connection is still elusive,' says Carlos Martinis, a leading researcher in the field at Boston University. 'Sometimes SAR arcs evolve into STEVE--but not always. This is a very active field of research, involving citizen scientists and researchers.'
"Did you see an SAR arc on Nov. 5th? Submit your pictures to Spaceweather.com."
#SpaceWeather #RingCurrent #GeomagneticStorm #CitizenScience #RingArc #SARArc #SolarFlares #SolarCycle25
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via SpaceWeather.com
EARTH'S RING CURRENT JUST SPRANG A LEAK:
"During this past weekend's strong G3-class geomagnetic storm, low-latitude #auroras spread as far south as #Texas and #Arizona. Upon further review, most of those lights were not auroras at all. Everything #red in this montage is an 'SAR arc'.
"'On Nov. 5th, the ring current was pumped up by hours of strong geomagnetic storming, with energy dissipating into these SAR arcs,' says Jeff Baumgardner of Boston University's Center for Space Physics. 'It was a global event. Our cameras registered #SAR arc activity from #Italy to #NewZealand.'
"Recent research has linked SAR arcs to another phenomenon that is not an aurora: #STEVE. The #mauve ribbon in the sky was not originally thought to have anything to do with Earth's ring current. Yet in 2015, observers in New Zealand caught a bright red SAR arc transforming itself into STEVE like a caterpillar into a butterfly.
"On Nov. 5th, Mark Savage may have witnessed the same metamorphosis over Northumberland, #UK:
"Visible to the naked eye, STEVE materialized from an overhanging red arc. 'The entire process took about 10 minutes,' says Savage. This timescale roughly matches that of another SAR-to-STEVE transition observed over Canada in April 2022. Clearly, the two phenomena are linked, but researchers aren't sure how.
"'The connection is still elusive,' says Carlos Martinis, a leading researcher in the field at Boston University. 'Sometimes SAR arcs evolve into STEVE--but not always. This is a very active field of research, involving citizen scientists and researchers.'
"Did you see an SAR arc on Nov. 5th? Submit your pictures to Spaceweather.com."
#SpaceWeather #RingCurrent #GeomagneticStorm #CitizenScience #RingArc #SARArc #SolarFlares #SolarCycle25
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via SpaceWeather.com
EARTH'S RING CURRENT JUST SPRANG A LEAK:
"During this past weekend's strong G3-class geomagnetic storm, low-latitude #auroras spread as far south as #Texas and #Arizona. Upon further review, most of those lights were not auroras at all. Everything #red in this montage is an 'SAR arc'.
"'On Nov. 5th, the ring current was pumped up by hours of strong geomagnetic storming, with energy dissipating into these SAR arcs,' says Jeff Baumgardner of Boston University's Center for Space Physics. 'It was a global event. Our cameras registered #SAR arc activity from #Italy to #NewZealand.'
"Recent research has linked SAR arcs to another phenomenon that is not an aurora: #STEVE. The #mauve ribbon in the sky was not originally thought to have anything to do with Earth's ring current. Yet in 2015, observers in New Zealand caught a bright red SAR arc transforming itself into STEVE like a caterpillar into a butterfly.
"On Nov. 5th, Mark Savage may have witnessed the same metamorphosis over Northumberland, #UK:
"Visible to the naked eye, STEVE materialized from an overhanging red arc. 'The entire process took about 10 minutes,' says Savage. This timescale roughly matches that of another SAR-to-STEVE transition observed over Canada in April 2022. Clearly, the two phenomena are linked, but researchers aren't sure how.
"'The connection is still elusive,' says Carlos Martinis, a leading researcher in the field at Boston University. 'Sometimes SAR arcs evolve into STEVE--but not always. This is a very active field of research, involving citizen scientists and researchers.'
"Did you see an SAR arc on Nov. 5th? Submit your pictures to Spaceweather.com."
#SpaceWeather #RingCurrent #GeomagneticStorm #CitizenScience #RingArc #SARArc #SolarFlares #SolarCycle25
-
via SpaceWeather.com
EARTH'S RING CURRENT JUST SPRANG A LEAK:
"During this past weekend's strong G3-class geomagnetic storm, low-latitude #auroras spread as far south as #Texas and #Arizona. Upon further review, most of those lights were not auroras at all. Everything #red in this montage is an 'SAR arc'.
"'On Nov. 5th, the ring current was pumped up by hours of strong geomagnetic storming, with energy dissipating into these SAR arcs,' says Jeff Baumgardner of Boston University's Center for Space Physics. 'It was a global event. Our cameras registered #SAR arc activity from #Italy to #NewZealand.'
"Recent research has linked SAR arcs to another phenomenon that is not an aurora: #STEVE. The #mauve ribbon in the sky was not originally thought to have anything to do with Earth's ring current. Yet in 2015, observers in New Zealand caught a bright red SAR arc transforming itself into STEVE like a caterpillar into a butterfly.
"On Nov. 5th, Mark Savage may have witnessed the same metamorphosis over Northumberland, #UK:
"Visible to the naked eye, STEVE materialized from an overhanging red arc. 'The entire process took about 10 minutes,' says Savage. This timescale roughly matches that of another SAR-to-STEVE transition observed over Canada in April 2022. Clearly, the two phenomena are linked, but researchers aren't sure how.
"'The connection is still elusive,' says Carlos Martinis, a leading researcher in the field at Boston University. 'Sometimes SAR arcs evolve into STEVE--but not always. This is a very active field of research, involving citizen scientists and researchers.'
"Did you see an SAR arc on Nov. 5th? Submit your pictures to Spaceweather.com."
#SpaceWeather #RingCurrent #GeomagneticStorm #CitizenScience #RingArc #SARArc #SolarFlares #SolarCycle25
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Stuck in the Filter: April 2024’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
The heat persists. Intensifies, even. We’re not even to the dead center of summer, where pavement melts and sinew sloughs off of bones. And yet, we toil. Endless trudges through the slime and grime of sharply angled ducts and beveled sheet metal characterize an average workday for my filtration minions, who do my bidding without question as I sip a piña colada in these run down and ragged headquarters. Alright fine, we don’t have piña coladas here, but a sponge can dream! A sponge can dream…
What was I saying? Oh, right. After many months of constant pep talks and gentle reminders with a cattle prod, my team of hack crack sifters managed a respectable haul from our April buildup. Dive in at your own peril!
Kenstrosity’s Sooty Slab
Exhumation // Master’s Personae [April 26th, 2024 – Pulverised Records]
Indonesian blackened death duo Exhumation never would’ve made it to my queue were it not for our burgeoning Discord server. Rollicking tunes, produced with a charming rawness that tingles my spine, task themselves with the summary destruction of that same spine and waste no time getting started. From the onset of opener “In Death Vortex,” Master’s Personae eviscerates with rabid teeth gnashing through my flesh. Ghoul (guitars) and Bones (vocals) display their respective talents vomiting souls out of their body and concocting sickening infernal riffs with aplomb—and made damn sure their session musicians could do more than just keep up on bass (Sebek), drums (Aldi), and lead guitar (J. Magus). With songs that kick as much ass-tonnage as highlights “Pierce the Abyssheart,” “Chaos Feasting,” “Thine Inmost Curse,” and late bloomer “Mahapralaya,” the only thing that could possibly stand in between you and total metallic indoctrination is the record’s gritty, extra-crunchy production. For some, that might even be its greatest selling point. Either way, Master’s Personae is, at its core, just a nonstop demonic party. Ipso facto, if you like fun, you like this. If you don’t, leave the Hall!
Thus Spoke’s Chucked Choices
Alpha Wolf // Half Living Things [April 5th, 2024 – SharpTone Records]
Aussie gang Alpha Wolf have always had an “angry” sound, but until now, they remained quite firmly smack dab in the middle of modern metalcore. With Half Living Things,1 however, the band move as far as they ever have into beatdown hardcore, albeit, a very glossy, and very metalcore interpretation of it. While many, myself included, think they sound better with a little bit of intrigue, a little bit of mournful melody and atmosphere, there’s no denying that this album does contain several bone-fide bangers. Opening run “Bring Back the Noise,” “Double-Edge Demise,” and “Haunter,” are a groovy set of smacks upside the head, and later cuts “Feign,” and “A Terrible Day for Rain” echo the same menace, safely keeping your head bobbing and your mean face on. The aggression can veer into the realm of cringe at points, not least on single “Sucks 2 Suck,” which includes the wild misstep of a thuggish rap bridge courtesy of ICE-T. But on the other hand, Alpha Wolf do show they have a heart, with surprisingly sadboi “Whenever You’re Ready,” and closer “Ambivalence.” It’s all pretty angsty, but questionable decisions aside, Half Living Things is worth at least the time it takes you to hear one or two of its best tracks. I’ll always be here for a little bit of adolescent ennui anyway.
Sarcasm // Mourninghoul [April 12th, 2024 – Hammerheart Records]
Whilst still a n00b, I reviewed Sarcasm’s previous album, Stellar Stream Obscured, and, to my initial surprise, really rather liked it. It was simply a quirk of circumstance that I didn’t pick up the promo for Mourninghoul. And looking back on that week, I wish I had. This thing is just as fun, just as furious, and once again the perfect balance between odd and straightforwardly blistering. Once again, they lace creepy organs and synthwork into death doom (“Withered Memories of Souls We Mourn,” “No Solace From Above”) to add a little mystique. Once again, they display some brilliant, beautiful, melodic black(ened death) metal riffery to lead refrains (“Lifelike Sleep,” “Dying Embers of Solitude,” “Absence if Reality”), not only soaking the listener in the nostalgia of the golden years of Dissection and Necrophobic, but memorable and moving in their own right. Overall, the album is a little slower and more atmospheric than its predecessor, but in this light perhaps a little more thoughtful. One to check out for anyone who dug Stellar Stream Obscured.
Dear Hollow’s Loudness Lard
Lord Spikeheart // The Adept [April 19th, 2024 – Haekalu Records]
Lord Spikeheart is the alias of Martin Kanja, one-half of grind/noise duo Duma, whose sole self-titled LP was received warmly back in 2020 by the gone-but-unforgotten Roquentin. Now a solo act, Spikeheart fully embraces the manic in his debut full-length The Adept, a fusion of noise, industrial, trap, grind, and hip-hop and tinged with native Kenyan instruments. – guaranteed to scare off unwanted listeners. Featuring a bevy of featured artists, The Adept is as jerky and unpredictable as you might expect from its laundry list of sounds. Including all, but not limited to, Author & Punisher-level of manufactured brutality (“Sham-Ra”), layers of jagged hip-hop a la Skech185 (“Emblem Blem,” “Djangili,” “33rd Degree Access”), and outright metal guitar solos and blastbeats (“Nobody”), as well as outright bananas explosive Igorrr-esque breakcore seizures and Kenyan percussion (“TYVM”) and ominous sprawls of haunting humid ambiance over manic beats (“Rem Fodder,” “Verbose Patmos,” “4AM in the Mara”), and there is little that is predictable about The Adept. Throw on Lord Spikeheart’s incredible charisma, shocking vocals, and evocative primal songwriting, and you’ve got yourself a tastefully insane and impressively uncomfortable slab of experimentation that feels dangerous and unrelenting in the right ways.
Whores. // War. [April 16th, 2024 – The Ghost is Clear Records]
Sometimes you just need a good concussion and drool out your brains to the curb because you got dinged around so much. Atlanta four-piece Whores. will provide mightily in more ways than one. Professing a riff-heavy noise rock/sludge metal combo reminiscent of Chat Pile or Iron Monkey, each of the tracks in War.’s 34-minute runtime is a thick-ass spanker with thick-ass riffs, bad-ass cymbal abuse, and mad-ass yells, and you’d be a fool to miss this broken-tooth abuse. Groove is embedded in the marrow of each bone, and the swill of riffs and noisy leads will get your head bobbing before you can learn how to pronounce opener “Malinches.” From the outright onslaughts of “Imposter Syndrome” and “Sicko,” to the bass builds and guitar squonks of “Quitter’s Fight Song” and “Hostage Therapy” or punky rhythms of “Hieronymous Bosch was Right” and “The Death of a Stuntman,” you don’t need to get all academic to abuse the drywall, and Whores. will set their teeth behind your bruised knuckles. The message is clear: get unga-bunga with riff.
Spit on Your Grave // Arkanum [April 12th, 2024 – Self Release]
You always run a risk when you change up your sound, even slightly. Mexican death metal peddlers Spit on Your Grave are familiar with it. Formerly bringin’ the slamz and gooey brutal shit to your court with unhinged insanity, Arkanum keeps the core sound while incorporating more tempo and nimbleness, making a blazing death metal album with some Behemoth-esque experimentation that keeps the album from falling into gnarly monotony and injects a necessary regality reflected in its art. Subtle plucking motifs grace opener “The Infection” and closer “The March of the Innocents,” chanting and choirs spruce up limper portions of “Into the Devil’s Realm,” and dancy rhythms and melodeath noodling kick up “Broken Hourglass.” In spite of the levels of experimentation, the riff reigns supreme throughout, made most plain in the no-holds-barred death metal assaults of “The Heretic,” “Dark Lullaby,” and “Self Sacrifice.” It’s somewhere between Behemoth’s wicked conjuration of crowns and Hate Eternal’s blazing scorched earth campaign, and while imperfect, Spit on Your Grave’s new direction is tantalizing.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Crossed Up Casting
Nuclear Tomb // Terror Labyrinthian [April 12th, 2024 – Everlasting Spew]
Filthy, frothing, furious, Nuclear Tomb embodies all that fueled the origins of the thrash and death movements, which actively rejected the tonal shift toward “pleasing” that pop-leaning forms of heavy metal were taking at the time. So, yes, it’s unsurprising to hear a punky and driven bass identity reminiscent of the overdriven pummeling of Dan Lilker in Nuclear Assault or Stéphane Picard in Obliveon. But though thrash rings true in the speed-needing assaults of “Fatal Visions” or “Vile Humanity,” death—the gnarled yet precise riffcraft you would heard in an early Pestilence summoning—feeds ugly and foul this acts hefty ambitions. Terror Labyrinthian gives exactly what its name promises: a sense of profound encapsulation and isolation in the density that Nucleur Tomb conjures alongside a sci-fi-informed fear and terror. Its ambition is such that it can fly off the rails a touch when it gets too moody (“Dominance & Persecution”), and its level of discordance can leave tracks feeling like intangible pulps of sick and snarling riffage (“Manufacturing Consent,” “Parasitic”). Despite these minor concerns, Labyrinthian Terror shakes enough to leave a worthy, full-length mark after two promising EPs. And with members of Nuclear Tomb floating around in their small scene with oddball grinders Ixias and the avant-minded Genevieve, it’s all but a promise that what comes next will be weird, frightening, and demanding.
Steel Druhm’s Rancid Requiems to Rotpitting
Engulfed // Unearthly Litanies of Despair [April 19th, 2024 – Me Saco Ojo]
Straight outta Turkey comes the vicious, face-melting death metal assault of Engulfed. Featuring members of Hyperdontia and Diabolizer and bearing hallmarks of both, Engulfed are a nasty savage on a war march to destroy all that lives and breathes. With a highly seasoned lineup and a lethal mission statement, Unearthly Litanies of Despair is a “not fucking around” kind of death platter full of blazing speed, thunderous blasts, and more sub-basement croaks and roars than you’d find in an illegal Balrog mining facility. All the old school legends get sound checked, with plenty of Vader, Morbid Angel, and Incantation-isms to be unearthed, but to my ears, Engulfed sounds most like brother band Diabolizer. That’s certainly not a bad thing, as anyone who heard 2021s Khalkedonian Death will attest. There’s not much subtly on display on Unearthly Litanies, and Engulfed are happy to blast away at Mach 9 for the bulk of the album’s runtime, only slowing down long enough to let slithery riffs do their tentacle things. It isn’t until the closing stanza “Occult Incantations” that they opt to get down and doomy, and though it runs way long at nearly 8 minutes, it digs up some nicely dark, gloomy textures. All in all a brutal trip to the belly of the beast feaster!
Coffin Curse // The Continuous Nothing [April 22nd, 2024 – Memento Mori]
The sophomore offering from Chile’s Coffin Curse is 100% military grade old school death with enough rot and pus to win over any genre fancier. The Continuous Nothing is really a continuous something, and that something is gnarly, thrashing death goodness in the varicose vein of Autopsy with some Deicide and Morbid Angel in the gore batter. There’s absolutely nothing new here, but the enthusiasm with which Coffin Curse comes at the classic death style is refreshing and invigorating. You’ll be smiling early into opener “Thin the Herd” due to its oh-so-righteous blend of Autopsy and vintage Morbid Angel, and it’s tough to blast “Bacchanal of the Mortal” and not want to throw your BarcaLounger out the fucking window. This is meat n’ tatters gutter death that could have come out in the late 80s or early 90s, but that doesn’t lessen its vitality and impact since these cats know how to write a ripping tune. I’m especially enamored with the disgusting vocals of Max Neira who gives even the hideous Chris Reifert a run for his scuzz-vomit money. This thing is just good, gross fun!
Tombstoner // Rot Stink Rip [April 26th, 2024 – Redefining Darkness]
Staten Island-based death thugs Tombstoner came back to kill with second album Rot Stink Rip, showcasing a whole lotta New York attitude. With a sound mixing mouth-breathing caveman brutality with New York hardcore undertones, the menu items all come with brass knuckles and steel-toed boots to your fat face (no substitutions!). This is street-level tough guy death with a Biohazard/Pantera-level IQ and anything remotely intellectual is tossed in the dumpster like a carpet-wrapped corpse. Songs like “Sealed in Blood” will rot your brain stem as it curb stomps your skull, and the beefy death grooves are ugly, stupid, and dangerous. Internal Bleeding-isms rebound off Skinless idioms amid the brainless forward momentum of the title track, and the groove-busting, barroom-bullying nastiness of primal cuts like “Metamorphosis” and “Reduced to Hate” are made for Roids Appreciation Day at Planet Meathead. The riffs are hella weighty and the overall approach is lead pipe brutality. Don’t bother spinning this if you’re one of those fancy-dancy tech types. This one is strictly for the gashouse gorillas and pimpanzees.
Saunders’ Slimy Selections
Satanic North // Satanic North [April 19th, 2024 – Reaper Entertainment]
Featuring members of Ensiferum, Finnish black metal troupe Satanic North ripped out a seething slab of old school black metal on their self-titled debut. Although the album seemed to drop with minimal fanfare or notice, having been clued into its existence, Satanic North has since provided a helluva fun time. Satanic North pull no punches and dispense with flash or bombast, adding modern beef to an endearingly old school formula that stomps hard. Harnessing the raw, punky, Venom-esque attitude of ’80s black metal, along with distinctive second-wave elements, and dashes of Darkthrone and Goatwhore, Satanic North is a varied, aggressive and utterly addictive opus. Regardless of the mode of destruction the band chooses at any given time, the songwriting quality generally maintains the rage. Grim, icy atmospheres envelope blasting, viciously executed songs, loaded with a bevy of badass riffs and pissed-off attitude. The relentless, hammering blows on opener “War,” sit comfortably alongside the crawling, sinister melodies and infectious hooks of “Village,” while expert pacing and builds highlight epic later album gem, “Kohti Kuolemaa.” Satanic North throw down some awesomely thrashy barnburners for good measure on powerhouse nuggets of black gold in the shape of “Wolf” and closer “Satanic North.” One of 2024’s underrated gems.
Iron Monkey // Spleen & Goad [April 5th, 2024 – Relapse Records]
UK veterans Iron Monkey’s 1998 opus Our Problem is a sludge classic that I’ve held in high regard for many years. Sadly, the untimely death of raw-throated vocalist Johnny Morrow, a distinctive, glass-gurgling beast behind the mic, saw the band dissolve, until reforming and crafting a solid comeback with 2017’s 9-13. Stripped own to a trio in their second coming, with long-serving guitarist Jim Rushby doing an admirable job taking over the vocal slot, Iron Monkey sound as though the piss, vinegar, and hatred still flows in their veins. Spleen & Goad offers few surprises, continuing the trend of its predecessor while maintaining the signature Iron Monkey sound. And although Iron Monkey cannot quite match the esteemed heights of their early days, this modern, well-trodden incarnation of the band still bludgeons, grooves and seethes with sledgehammer force and infectiously diseased riffs. Channeling the bluesy Sabbathian meets NOLA mode of sludge, with a side of Grief, and a shit ton of spite, the Iron Monkey lads deliver the goods again. Noisy, feedback-drenched bruisers rule the day; as swaggering, drunken grooves, surly riffs, and feral vocals drive this unhinged hate machine. Spleen & Goad is victim to some creeping bloat, however overall, it’s a stellar return and addition to their storied catalog, as rugged, bludgeoning cuts like “Misanthropizer,” “Concrete Shock,” “Rat Flag” and “Lead Transfusion” attests.
Mystikus Hugebeard’s Filthy Finding
Diabolic Oath // Oracular Hexations [April 5th, 2024 – Sentient Ruin Laboratories]
Oracular Hexations is a blast. It is a chaotic, colossally dense album of what can ostensibly be called blackened death metal, but the music is just so fucking filthy it might as well be sludge. The fun thing here is that the guitar and bass are completely fretless; the riffs aren’t hard to parse but the guitars feel almost slippery. It allows the brutal riffage of a heavy track like “Serpent Coils Suffocating the Mortal Wound” to become borderline hallucinogenic, while still hitting like a truck. The slower, oozing riffs of “Rusted Madness Tethering Misbegotten Haruspices” and “Winged Ouroboros Mutating Unto Gold” have a real viscosity to them that always reminds me of the stoner doom stylings of Conan. This album is definitely a lot, but it’s an extremely satisfying listen. The fretless imprecision paired with the music’s intensity, the delightfully disgusting guitar tone, and the vocalist’s tectonic gurgles all give Oracular Hexations a ritualistic atmosphere so thick you can practically sink into it. There’s plenty one could say about the musicianship—the drummer deserves praise for his diverse, technical performance—but trying to dial in on any one ingredient is like trying to appreciate the subtle flavor undertones of sheep stomach in a plate of haggis. Just cram the whole thing in at once, man, because this is the kind of sensory brutalization that you’ve gotta just let happen to you.
Iceberg’s Singular Surfacing
Venomous Echoes // Split Formations and Infinite Mania [April 05, 2024 – I, Voidhanger Records]
Extreme metal’s penchant for horror and destruction never ceases to amaze me. It doesn’t matter how I came across Venomous Echoes second album Split Formations and Infinite Mania, one look at that album cover and the curtain rise of squelching music within had me transfixed. Brutal Floridian death metal meets the dissonant disintegration of Portal meets the crushing weight of funeral doom and they all come together in the unrated cut of a Cronenberg flick. One-man-band Benjamin Vanweelden takes the listener inside his own personal hell as he wrestles with body dysmorphia, making for an experience not unlike recent cuts by An Isolated Mind or The Reticent. This is challenging, highly uncomfortable music, abandoning pitch and rhythm at will, bending and twisting notes and smothering the listener with oppressive atmosphere. From the sickening stomping sound effects of opener “Ocular Maltosis ov Schizophrenia” to the ultra-dissonant ostinato and DSBM wailing of closer “Split Formations and Infinite Mania,” this album is the definition of the car crash you can’t look away from. Far outside any zone of comfort is exactly where Vanweelden wants his listeners, and I have to say this makes for a sickly impressive, revolting, yet mesmerizing experience.
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