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Interesting chat between Sally and Sebastian on the latest #CuriosityUnbounded. Loved the glimpse into the research happening at @[email protected] and @[email protected]. #Science #Biology #Microbiology #ResearchSky #Podcast #MIT #WhiteheadInstitute
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:376brirdwae4fayb4sd3bzdy/post/3mchvk4c4wc2m -
Interesting chat between Sally and Sebastian on the latest #CuriosityUnbounded. Loved the glimpse into the research happening at @[email protected] and @[email protected]. #Science #Biology #Microbiology #ResearchSky #Podcast #MIT #WhiteheadInstitute
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:376brirdwae4fayb4sd3bzdy/post/3mchvk4c4wc2m -
Just for a bit of fun, here's a behind-the-scenes glimpse of us trying to get a screenshot for today's post. It should have been a 30 second job, but Kowloon's residents and Shenmue II's lock-on feature had other ideas... #SundaySHENanigans
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Just for a bit of fun, here's a behind-the-scenes glimpse of us trying to get a screenshot for today's post. It should have been a 30 second job, but Kowloon's residents and Shenmue II's lock-on feature had other ideas... #SundaySHENanigans
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Just for a bit of fun, here's a behind-the-scenes glimpse of us trying to get a screenshot for today's post. It should have been a 30 second job, but Kowloon's residents and Shenmue II's lock-on feature had other ideas... #SundaySHENanigans
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Just for a bit of fun, here's a behind-the-scenes glimpse of us trying to get a screenshot for today's post. It should have been a 30 second job, but Kowloon's residents and Shenmue II's lock-on feature had other ideas... #SundaySHENanigans
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This conversation will give you a glimpse into the future of cybersecurity — the present, actually! 🙂
🚀 New Brand Story from #RSAC2025: Preparing for the Cryptographic and AI Tipping PointAt #RSAC Conference 2025, Sean Martin, CISSP and Marco Ciappelli sat down with Marc Manzano, General Manager of #Cybersecurity at SandboxAQ, to explore how organizations can prepare for the coming wave of post-quantum #cryptography challenges and the expanding influence of #AI.
🔐 Why is it critical to start adapting cybersecurity strategies now, before the tipping point hits?Find out how SandboxAQ is helping businesses secure their future at the intersection of AI, cryptography, and #quantum #technology.
🎙️ Watch, listen, or read the full story here:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/their-stories/security-at-the-edge-of-change-preparing-for-the-cryptographic-and-ai-tipping-point-a-brand-story-with-marc-manzano-from-sandboxaq-an-on-location-rsac-conference-2025-brand-story📌 Learn more about SandboxAQ’s work:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/directory/sandboxaq🛰️ See all our RSAC 2025 coverage:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/rsac25🌟 Discover more Brand Stories from innovative companies:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/brand-story🎥🎙️ This is just one of the many incredible conversations we recorded On Location in San Francisco, as Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli covered the event as official media partners for the 11th year in a row.
Stay tuned for more Brand Stories, Briefings, and candid conversations from RSAC 2025!🎤 Looking ahead:
If your company would like to share your story with our audiences On Location, we’re gearing up for #InfosecurityEurope in June and #BlackHatUSA in August!
⚡ RSAC 2025 sold out fast — we expect the same for these next events.
🎯 Reserve your full sponsorship or briefing now: https://www.itspmagazine.com/purchase-programs📲 Hashtags:
#cybersecurity #infosec #infosecurity #technology #tech #society #business #quantumsecurity #postquantumcryptography #futureofsecurity #sandboxaq -
This conversation will give you a glimpse into the future of cybersecurity — the present, actually! 🙂
🚀 New Brand Story from #RSAC2025: Preparing for the Cryptographic and AI Tipping PointAt #RSAC Conference 2025, Sean Martin, CISSP and Marco Ciappelli sat down with Marc Manzano, General Manager of #Cybersecurity at SandboxAQ, to explore how organizations can prepare for the coming wave of post-quantum #cryptography challenges and the expanding influence of #AI.
🔐 Why is it critical to start adapting cybersecurity strategies now, before the tipping point hits?Find out how SandboxAQ is helping businesses secure their future at the intersection of AI, cryptography, and #quantum #technology.
🎙️ Watch, listen, or read the full story here:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/their-stories/security-at-the-edge-of-change-preparing-for-the-cryptographic-and-ai-tipping-point-a-brand-story-with-marc-manzano-from-sandboxaq-an-on-location-rsac-conference-2025-brand-story📌 Learn more about SandboxAQ’s work:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/directory/sandboxaq🛰️ See all our RSAC 2025 coverage:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/rsac25🌟 Discover more Brand Stories from innovative companies:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/brand-story🎥🎙️ This is just one of the many incredible conversations we recorded On Location in San Francisco, as Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli covered the event as official media partners for the 11th year in a row.
Stay tuned for more Brand Stories, Briefings, and candid conversations from RSAC 2025!🎤 Looking ahead:
If your company would like to share your story with our audiences On Location, we’re gearing up for #InfosecurityEurope in June and #BlackHatUSA in August!
⚡ RSAC 2025 sold out fast — we expect the same for these next events.
🎯 Reserve your full sponsorship or briefing now: https://www.itspmagazine.com/purchase-programs📲 Hashtags:
#cybersecurity #infosec #infosecurity #technology #tech #society #business #quantumsecurity #postquantumcryptography #futureofsecurity #sandboxaq -
This conversation will give you a glimpse into the future of cybersecurity — the present, actually! 🙂
🚀 New Brand Story from #RSAC2025: Preparing for the Cryptographic and AI Tipping PointAt #RSAC Conference 2025, Sean Martin, CISSP and Marco Ciappelli sat down with Marc Manzano, General Manager of #Cybersecurity at SandboxAQ, to explore how organizations can prepare for the coming wave of post-quantum #cryptography challenges and the expanding influence of #AI.
🔐 Why is it critical to start adapting cybersecurity strategies now, before the tipping point hits?Find out how SandboxAQ is helping businesses secure their future at the intersection of AI, cryptography, and #quantum #technology.
🎙️ Watch, listen, or read the full story here:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/their-stories/security-at-the-edge-of-change-preparing-for-the-cryptographic-and-ai-tipping-point-a-brand-story-with-marc-manzano-from-sandboxaq-an-on-location-rsac-conference-2025-brand-story📌 Learn more about SandboxAQ’s work:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/directory/sandboxaq🛰️ See all our RSAC 2025 coverage:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/rsac25🌟 Discover more Brand Stories from innovative companies:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/brand-story🎥🎙️ This is just one of the many incredible conversations we recorded On Location in San Francisco, as Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli covered the event as official media partners for the 11th year in a row.
Stay tuned for more Brand Stories, Briefings, and candid conversations from RSAC 2025!🎤 Looking ahead:
If your company would like to share your story with our audiences On Location, we’re gearing up for #InfosecurityEurope in June and #BlackHatUSA in August!
⚡ RSAC 2025 sold out fast — we expect the same for these next events.
🎯 Reserve your full sponsorship or briefing now: https://www.itspmagazine.com/purchase-programs📲 Hashtags:
#cybersecurity #infosec #infosecurity #technology #tech #society #business #quantumsecurity #postquantumcryptography #futureofsecurity #sandboxaq -
This conversation will give you a glimpse into the future of cybersecurity — the present, actually! 🙂
🚀 New Brand Story from #RSAC2025: Preparing for the Cryptographic and AI Tipping PointAt #RSAC Conference 2025, Sean Martin, CISSP and Marco Ciappelli sat down with Marc Manzano, General Manager of #Cybersecurity at SandboxAQ, to explore how organizations can prepare for the coming wave of post-quantum #cryptography challenges and the expanding influence of #AI.
🔐 Why is it critical to start adapting cybersecurity strategies now, before the tipping point hits?Find out how SandboxAQ is helping businesses secure their future at the intersection of AI, cryptography, and #quantum #technology.
🎙️ Watch, listen, or read the full story here:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/their-stories/security-at-the-edge-of-change-preparing-for-the-cryptographic-and-ai-tipping-point-a-brand-story-with-marc-manzano-from-sandboxaq-an-on-location-rsac-conference-2025-brand-story📌 Learn more about SandboxAQ’s work:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/directory/sandboxaq🛰️ See all our RSAC 2025 coverage:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/rsac25🌟 Discover more Brand Stories from innovative companies:
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/brand-story🎥🎙️ This is just one of the many incredible conversations we recorded On Location in San Francisco, as Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli covered the event as official media partners for the 11th year in a row.
Stay tuned for more Brand Stories, Briefings, and candid conversations from RSAC 2025!🎤 Looking ahead:
If your company would like to share your story with our audiences On Location, we’re gearing up for #InfosecurityEurope in June and #BlackHatUSA in August!
⚡ RSAC 2025 sold out fast — we expect the same for these next events.
🎯 Reserve your full sponsorship or briefing now: https://www.itspmagazine.com/purchase-programs📲 Hashtags:
#cybersecurity #infosec #infosecurity #technology #tech #society #business #quantumsecurity #postquantumcryptography #futureofsecurity #sandboxaq -
This story was originally published Aug. 3, 2009. Kiilu Nyasha, legendary fighter for the freedom of political prisoners, often wrote a special tribute to other freedom fighters to commemorate Black August. She joined the ancestors in 2018 at the age of 78.
Black August is a month of great significance for Africans throughout the Diaspora, but particularly here in the U.S. where it originated. “August,” as Mumia Abu-Jamal noted, “is a month of meaning, of repression and radical resistance, of injustice and divine justice; of repression and righteous rebellion; of individual and collective efforts to free the slaves and break the chains that bind us.”
On this 30th [now 45th] anniversary of Black August, first organized to honor our fallen freedom fighters, Jonathan and George Jackson, Khatari Gaulden, James McClain, William Christmas and the sole survivor of the Aug. 7, 1970, Courthouse Slave Rebellion, Ruchell Cinque Magee, it is still a time to embrace the principles of unity, self-sacrifice, political education, physical fitness and/or training in martial arts, resistance and spiritual renewal.
The concept, Black August, grew out of the need to expose to the light of day the glorious and heroic deeds of those Afrikan women and men who recognized and struggled against the injustices heaped upon people of color on a daily basis in America.
One cannot tell the story of Black August without first providing the reader with a brief glimpse of the “Black Movement” behind California prison walls in the ‘60s, led by George Jackson and W.L. Nolen, among others.
As Jackson wrote: “[W]hen I was accused of robbing a gas station of $70, I accepted a deal … but when time came for sentencing, they tossed me into the penitentiary with one to life. It was 1960. I was 18 years old. … I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me. For the first four years I studied nothing but economics and military ideas. I met Black guerrillas, George ‘Big Jake’ Lewis and James Carr, W.L. Nolen, Bill Christmas, Torry Gibson and many, many others. We attempted to transform the Black criminal mentality into a Black revolutionary mentality. As a result, each of us has been subject to years of the most vicious reactionary violence by the state. Our mortality rate is almost what you would expect to find in a history of Dachau. Three of us [Nolen, Sweet Jugs Miller and Cleve Edwards) were murdered several months ago [Jan. 13, 1969] by a pig shooting from 30 feet above their heads with a military rifle.” – “Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson”
When the brothers first demanded the killer guard be tried for murder, they were rebuffed. Upon their insistence, the administration held a kangaroo court and three days later returned a verdict of “justifiable homicide.” Shortly afterward, a white guard was found beaten to death and thrown from a tier. Six days later, three prisoners were accused of murder and became known as The Soledad Brothers.
“I am being tried in court right now with two other brothers, John Clutchette and Fleeta Drumgo, for the alleged slaying of a prison guard. This charge carries an automatic death penalty for me. I can’t get life. I already have it.”
On Aug. 7, 1970, just a few days after George was transferred to San Quentin, his younger brother Jonathan Jackson, 17, invaded Marin County Courthouse single-handed, with a satchel full of handguns, an assault rifle and a shotgun hidden under his raincoat. “Freeze,” he commanded as he tossed guns to William Christmas, James McClain and Ruchell Magee. Magee was on the witness stand testifying for McClain, on trial for assaulting a guard in the wake of a guard’s murder of another Black prisoner, Fred Billingsley, beaten and tear gassed to death.
A jailhouse lawyer, Magee had deluged the courts with petitions for seven years contesting his illegal conviction in ‘63. The courts had refused to listen, so Magee seized the hour and joined the guerrillas as they took the judge, prosecutor and three jurors hostage to a waiting van. To reporters gathering quickly outside the courthouse, Jonathan shouted, “You can take our pictures. We are the revolutionaries!”
Operating with courage and calm even their enemies had to respect, the four Black freedom fighters commandeered their hostages out of the courthouse without a hitch. The plan was to use the hostages to take over a radio station and broadcast the racist, murderous prison conditions and demand the immediate release of The Soledad Brothers. But before Jonathan could drive the van out of the parking lot, the San Quentin guards arrived and opened fire. When the shooting stopped, Jonathan, Christmas, McClain and the judge lay dead. Magee and the prosecutor were critically wounded, and one juror suffered a minor arm wound.
Magee survived his wounds and was tried originally with co-defendant Angela Davis. Their trials were later severed and Davis was eventually acquitted of all charges. Magee was convicted of simple kidnap and remains in prison to date – 46 years with no physical assaults on his record. An incredible jailhouse lawyer, Magee has been responsible for countless prisoners being released – the main reason he was kept for nearly 20 years in one lockup after another. Currently at Corcoran State Prison, he remains strong and determined to win his freedom and that of all oppressed peoples. [Ruchell was finally freed July 21, 2023, but lived only until Oct. 17, 2023, when he joined the ancestors.]
In his second book, “Blood in My Eye,” published posthumously, George Jackson noted: “Reformism is an old story in Amerika. There have been depressions and socio-economic political crises throughout the period that marked the formation of the present upper-class ruling circle and their controlling elites. But the parties of the left were too committed to reformism to exploit their revolutionary potential. … Fascism has temporarily succeeded under the guise of reform.” Those words ring even truer today as we witness a form of fascism that has replaced gas ovens with executions and torture chambers: plantations with prison industrial complexes deployed in rural white communities to perpetuate white supremacy and Black and Brown slavery.
The concentration of wealth at the top is worse than ever: One percent now owns more wealth than that of the combined 95 percent of the U.S. population; individuals are so rich their wealth exceeds the total budgets of numerous nations – as they plunder the globe in the quest for more.
“The fascist must expand to live. Consequently he has pushed his frontiers to the farthest lands and peoples. … I’m going to bust my heart trying to stop these smug, degenerate, primitive, omnivorous, uncivil – and anyone who would aid me, I embrace you.
“International capitalism cannot be destroyed without the extremes of struggle … We are the only ones … who can get at the monster’s heart without subjecting the world to nuclear fire. We have a momentous historical role to act out if we will. The whole world for all time in the future will love us and remember us as the righteous people who made it possible for the world to live on. … I don’t want to die and leave a few sad songs and a hump in the ground as my only monument. I want to leave a world that is liberated from trash, pollution, racism, nation-states, nation-state wars and armies, from pomp, bigotry, parochialism, a thousand different brands of untruth and licentious, usurious economics.” – George Jackson, “Soledad Brother”
On Aug. 21, 1971, after numerous failed attempts on his life, the state finally succeeded in assassinating George Jackson, then field marshal of the Black Panther Party, in what was described by prison officials as an escape attempt in which Jackson allegedly smuggled a gun into San Quentin in a wig. That feat was proven impossible, and evidence subsequently suggested a setup designed by prison officials to eliminate Jackson once and for all.
However, they didn’t count on losing any of their own in the process. On that fateful day, three notoriously racist prison guards and two inmate turnkeys were also killed, presumably by Jackson, who was shot and killed by guards as he drew fire away from the other prisoners in the Adjustment Center (lockup) of San Quentin.
Subsequently, six A/C prisoners were singled out and put on trial – wearing 30 pounds of chains in Marin Courthouse – for various charges of murder and assault: Fleeta Drumgo, David Johnson, Hugo L.A. Pinell (Yogi), Luis Talamantez, Johnny Spain and Willie Sundiata Tate. Only one was convicted of murder, Johnny Spain. The others were either acquitted or convicted of assault.
Pinell is the only one remaining in prison and has suffered prolonged torture in lockups since 1969. He is currently serving his 19th year in Pelican Bay’s SHU, a torture chamber if ever there was one. A true warrior, Pinell would put his life on the line to defend his fellow captives. [Only two weeks after Yogi was released to the yard after 26 years in solitary confinement, he was killed on Aug. 12, 2015, by two white prisoners.]
As decades passed, our Black scholars, like Mumia Abu-Jamal, learned of other liberation moves that happened in Black August. For example, the first and only armed revolution whereby Africans freed themselves from chattel slavery commenced in Haiti on Aug. 21, 1791. Nat Turner’s slave rebellion began on Aug. 21, 1831 (coincidence?) and Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad started in August. As Mumia stated, “Their sacrifice, their despair, their determination and their blood has painted the month black for all time.”
Let us honor our martyred freedom fighters as George Jackson counseled: “Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”
Kiilu Nyasha, Black Panther veteran, revolutionary journalist and Bay View columnist, beloved by activists worldwide, joined the ancestors on April 10, 2018. She is sorely missed.
source: SF Bayview
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/08/05/black-august-a-story-of-african-freedom-fighters/
#BlackAugust #blackLiberation #blackPantherParty #georgeJackson #northAmerica #us
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This story was originally published Aug. 3, 2009. Kiilu Nyasha, legendary fighter for the freedom of political prisoners, often wrote a special tribute to other freedom fighters to commemorate Black August. She joined the ancestors in 2018 at the age of 78.
Black August is a month of great significance for Africans throughout the Diaspora, but particularly here in the U.S. where it originated. “August,” as Mumia Abu-Jamal noted, “is a month of meaning, of repression and radical resistance, of injustice and divine justice; of repression and righteous rebellion; of individual and collective efforts to free the slaves and break the chains that bind us.”
On this 30th [now 45th] anniversary of Black August, first organized to honor our fallen freedom fighters, Jonathan and George Jackson, Khatari Gaulden, James McClain, William Christmas and the sole survivor of the Aug. 7, 1970, Courthouse Slave Rebellion, Ruchell Cinque Magee, it is still a time to embrace the principles of unity, self-sacrifice, political education, physical fitness and/or training in martial arts, resistance and spiritual renewal.
The concept, Black August, grew out of the need to expose to the light of day the glorious and heroic deeds of those Afrikan women and men who recognized and struggled against the injustices heaped upon people of color on a daily basis in America.
One cannot tell the story of Black August without first providing the reader with a brief glimpse of the “Black Movement” behind California prison walls in the ‘60s, led by George Jackson and W.L. Nolen, among others.
As Jackson wrote: “[W]hen I was accused of robbing a gas station of $70, I accepted a deal … but when time came for sentencing, they tossed me into the penitentiary with one to life. It was 1960. I was 18 years old. … I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me. For the first four years I studied nothing but economics and military ideas. I met Black guerrillas, George ‘Big Jake’ Lewis and James Carr, W.L. Nolen, Bill Christmas, Torry Gibson and many, many others. We attempted to transform the Black criminal mentality into a Black revolutionary mentality. As a result, each of us has been subject to years of the most vicious reactionary violence by the state. Our mortality rate is almost what you would expect to find in a history of Dachau. Three of us [Nolen, Sweet Jugs Miller and Cleve Edwards) were murdered several months ago [Jan. 13, 1969] by a pig shooting from 30 feet above their heads with a military rifle.” – “Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson”
When the brothers first demanded the killer guard be tried for murder, they were rebuffed. Upon their insistence, the administration held a kangaroo court and three days later returned a verdict of “justifiable homicide.” Shortly afterward, a white guard was found beaten to death and thrown from a tier. Six days later, three prisoners were accused of murder and became known as The Soledad Brothers.
“I am being tried in court right now with two other brothers, John Clutchette and Fleeta Drumgo, for the alleged slaying of a prison guard. This charge carries an automatic death penalty for me. I can’t get life. I already have it.”
On Aug. 7, 1970, just a few days after George was transferred to San Quentin, his younger brother Jonathan Jackson, 17, invaded Marin County Courthouse single-handed, with a satchel full of handguns, an assault rifle and a shotgun hidden under his raincoat. “Freeze,” he commanded as he tossed guns to William Christmas, James McClain and Ruchell Magee. Magee was on the witness stand testifying for McClain, on trial for assaulting a guard in the wake of a guard’s murder of another Black prisoner, Fred Billingsley, beaten and tear gassed to death.
A jailhouse lawyer, Magee had deluged the courts with petitions for seven years contesting his illegal conviction in ‘63. The courts had refused to listen, so Magee seized the hour and joined the guerrillas as they took the judge, prosecutor and three jurors hostage to a waiting van. To reporters gathering quickly outside the courthouse, Jonathan shouted, “You can take our pictures. We are the revolutionaries!”
Operating with courage and calm even their enemies had to respect, the four Black freedom fighters commandeered their hostages out of the courthouse without a hitch. The plan was to use the hostages to take over a radio station and broadcast the racist, murderous prison conditions and demand the immediate release of The Soledad Brothers. But before Jonathan could drive the van out of the parking lot, the San Quentin guards arrived and opened fire. When the shooting stopped, Jonathan, Christmas, McClain and the judge lay dead. Magee and the prosecutor were critically wounded, and one juror suffered a minor arm wound.
Magee survived his wounds and was tried originally with co-defendant Angela Davis. Their trials were later severed and Davis was eventually acquitted of all charges. Magee was convicted of simple kidnap and remains in prison to date – 46 years with no physical assaults on his record. An incredible jailhouse lawyer, Magee has been responsible for countless prisoners being released – the main reason he was kept for nearly 20 years in one lockup after another. Currently at Corcoran State Prison, he remains strong and determined to win his freedom and that of all oppressed peoples. [Ruchell was finally freed July 21, 2023, but lived only until Oct. 17, 2023, when he joined the ancestors.]
In his second book, “Blood in My Eye,” published posthumously, George Jackson noted: “Reformism is an old story in Amerika. There have been depressions and socio-economic political crises throughout the period that marked the formation of the present upper-class ruling circle and their controlling elites. But the parties of the left were too committed to reformism to exploit their revolutionary potential. … Fascism has temporarily succeeded under the guise of reform.” Those words ring even truer today as we witness a form of fascism that has replaced gas ovens with executions and torture chambers: plantations with prison industrial complexes deployed in rural white communities to perpetuate white supremacy and Black and Brown slavery.
The concentration of wealth at the top is worse than ever: One percent now owns more wealth than that of the combined 95 percent of the U.S. population; individuals are so rich their wealth exceeds the total budgets of numerous nations – as they plunder the globe in the quest for more.
“The fascist must expand to live. Consequently he has pushed his frontiers to the farthest lands and peoples. … I’m going to bust my heart trying to stop these smug, degenerate, primitive, omnivorous, uncivil – and anyone who would aid me, I embrace you.
“International capitalism cannot be destroyed without the extremes of struggle … We are the only ones … who can get at the monster’s heart without subjecting the world to nuclear fire. We have a momentous historical role to act out if we will. The whole world for all time in the future will love us and remember us as the righteous people who made it possible for the world to live on. … I don’t want to die and leave a few sad songs and a hump in the ground as my only monument. I want to leave a world that is liberated from trash, pollution, racism, nation-states, nation-state wars and armies, from pomp, bigotry, parochialism, a thousand different brands of untruth and licentious, usurious economics.” – George Jackson, “Soledad Brother”
On Aug. 21, 1971, after numerous failed attempts on his life, the state finally succeeded in assassinating George Jackson, then field marshal of the Black Panther Party, in what was described by prison officials as an escape attempt in which Jackson allegedly smuggled a gun into San Quentin in a wig. That feat was proven impossible, and evidence subsequently suggested a setup designed by prison officials to eliminate Jackson once and for all.
However, they didn’t count on losing any of their own in the process. On that fateful day, three notoriously racist prison guards and two inmate turnkeys were also killed, presumably by Jackson, who was shot and killed by guards as he drew fire away from the other prisoners in the Adjustment Center (lockup) of San Quentin.
Subsequently, six A/C prisoners were singled out and put on trial – wearing 30 pounds of chains in Marin Courthouse – for various charges of murder and assault: Fleeta Drumgo, David Johnson, Hugo L.A. Pinell (Yogi), Luis Talamantez, Johnny Spain and Willie Sundiata Tate. Only one was convicted of murder, Johnny Spain. The others were either acquitted or convicted of assault.
Pinell is the only one remaining in prison and has suffered prolonged torture in lockups since 1969. He is currently serving his 19th year in Pelican Bay’s SHU, a torture chamber if ever there was one. A true warrior, Pinell would put his life on the line to defend his fellow captives. [Only two weeks after Yogi was released to the yard after 26 years in solitary confinement, he was killed on Aug. 12, 2015, by two white prisoners.]
As decades passed, our Black scholars, like Mumia Abu-Jamal, learned of other liberation moves that happened in Black August. For example, the first and only armed revolution whereby Africans freed themselves from chattel slavery commenced in Haiti on Aug. 21, 1791. Nat Turner’s slave rebellion began on Aug. 21, 1831 (coincidence?) and Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad started in August. As Mumia stated, “Their sacrifice, their despair, their determination and their blood has painted the month black for all time.”
Let us honor our martyred freedom fighters as George Jackson counseled: “Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”
Kiilu Nyasha, Black Panther veteran, revolutionary journalist and Bay View columnist, beloved by activists worldwide, joined the ancestors on April 10, 2018. She is sorely missed.
source: SF Bayview
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/08/05/black-august-a-story-of-african-freedom-fighters/
#BlackAugust #blackLiberation #blackPantherParty #georgeJackson #northAmerica #us
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Author Spotlight: Black Sapphic Vampire Romance author Liza Wemakor
Liza Wemakor (she/they) is a writer and a Ph.D. candidate in UC Riverside’s English Department. Her fiction has been published in Strange Horizons, Anathema Magazine, Baffling Magazine, and elsewhere. Her debut novella, Loving Safoa, was published by Neon Hemlock Press in February 2024.
AUTHOR LINKS:
Website: www.lizawemakor.com
Instagram: @lizawemakor
Bluesky: @lizawemakor.bsky.socialBook Link: Loving Safoa (Neon Hemlock)
Book Elevator Pitch for readers/book clubs
If you enjoy paranormal romance with literary stylings, you will enjoy Loving Safoa!
Get a copy from Neon Hemlock.Your novella, Loving Safoa, is out now with Neon Hemlock. What were your main inspirations behind this sapphic vampire novella?
I wanted to write a vampire story that reflected underrepresented elements of my worldview. It seemed sensible to lean into Safoa’s experience of being an undocumented immigrant in the Western world across a long expanse of time, and to demonstrate how this extended period of uncertainty and precarity forces Safoa into survival mode. Meanwhile, she is also recovering from the trauma of being held captive by a sadistic colonizer for a number of years, as well as experiencing new kinds of freedom in New York, and eventually Maryland.
Cynthia, on the other hand, feels orphaned — she is navigating adulthood without her mother or any other parent, yet becoming a maternal figure to her students. She also feels a level of insecurity about her connection to her motherland, as a Ghanaian-American woman, and faces this head-on in her relationship with Safoa, who she imagines as a pure embodiment of African identity. Safoa and Cynthia’s lives are quite complex, and together they tell a story of diasporic reunification.
The novella features woven stories from different places and time periods, from 18th-19thC Ghana to a near-future Maryland. How did you decide what segments of these characters’ lives to include, and were there scenes and times that you played with but ultimately decided to cut?
I wanted to maintain a focus on Cynthia and Safoa’s romance, so I omitted some portions of their lives before they met; I may have explored more of those past moments in a longer project, like a novel, but a novella length felt right for this story. I wanted the passage of time to be a bit surreal, because it is surreal to have lives as long as Cynthia and Safoa’s. Time itself and the details of their lives are a blur.
I was seriously toying with showing glimpses of Safoa’s life in London — her lovers, and her brief skirmishes with other European predators. I would’ve emphasized how she was simultaneously powerful and vulnerable to exploitative people, which motivated her departure to the U.S. after a few decades. I didn’t include these scenes because Cynthia may have been lost in the larger narrative — there wouldn’t have been as much of a balanced representation of their lives, and Safoa would have taken over the story.
How does vampirism and the donor concept work in your novella, and is this based on any folklore?
I was very inspired by Jewelle Gomez’s approach to vampire networks in The Gilda Stories — vampire communities that are explicitly political, and whose politics have been informed by their previous experiences of being hurt, exploited, and truly loved.
I was also inspired by Octavia Butler’s approaches to both community and feeding in Fledgling. Shori depends upon a host of human companions and vampires while navigating a white supremacist vampire hierarchy. Shori’s companions also gain a lot from her presence, in a symbiotic fashion.
Tamara Jerée wrote beautifully about these dynamics in her Strange Horizons essay, “How to Make a Family: Queer Blood Bonds in Black Feminist Vampire Novels“.
There was a hint of Ghanaian folklore in the novella, though I took creative liberties. Safoa and a character named Yaba occasionally refer to the first vampire they met as ‘ɔbonsam’ — or a demonic entity. In some Ghanaian folklore, there are vampiric, humanoid creatures called ɔbonsam or sasabonsam that have very long hair, like Safoa does at some point, and live / feed on people in the forest. I didn’t opt to include other details like sharp teeth and bat-like features in my depiction of vampires. Tongue feeding was more fun for a smutty sapphic story.
At some point in my life I encountered myths related to the obayifo (another West African vampire) as well, and I took liberties with the factoid that they are phosphorescent, i.e. when Cynthia noticed a blue aura around Safoa’s body.
Can you tell us more about Cynthia – where did she come from, and what made you set her as a schoolteacher in the early 1990s at the start of this novella? How did you develop her character, her voice, and her desires (e.g. to be an “everlasting elder”)?
I am one of those people who insists on a vaguely-defined, somewhat secretive spirituality that undergirds my writing practices. In the spring of 2021, Cynthia and Safoa appeared to me almost effortlessly, and I was compelled to write about them. Not long before that, I’d gotten into the Ph.D. program I am at the end of now, and I started writing feverishly before my time and energy became more limited. Cynthia and Safoa were fascinating to me, and their chemistry was palpable; at times I blushed when writing and editing their sex scenes, because it felt like an intrusion upon their privacy.
Cynthia’s life resembles my life in some ways, but not all. I haven’t lost my mother, and she (Cynthia) has spent more of her life in New York City and Maryland than I have, but her anxieties about her authenticity as a Ghanaian diasporan and her interest in teaching certainly resonate with me. I am sure that some of my own subjectivity informed how I wrote Cynthia, though a lot of it was subconscious.
I had a moodboard for both Cynthia and Safoa, and Cynthia’s moodboard included images of the actresses Nicole Beharie and Moses Ingram, and the model Dede Mansro. I was interested in channeling not only the softness of their appearances, but the moodiness and subdued seductiveness they are able to convey.
Regarding the choice to begin in the 1990s: it was a perfect fit both aesthetically and politically. The 90s was a period of intense political maturation for educators, artists, and the general public. There was, especially for queer black people, queer people of color, a mingling of death and renewal — an increasing awareness of identity (and its constructedness) mingling with the optimism of entering a new millenium. The perfect setting for politically conscious vampires to come into themselves.
Can you tell us more about Safoa, the vampire, her Ghanaian roots, her relationship with tattoos and her place in her communities across time as a body artist, and how she came to be shaped on the page? What was the character development process like for her, and was there research involved to craft her journey from 1799 onwards – if so, what research did you do?
A pattern that is emerging in my answers to these questions is that I placed Cynthia and Safoa in historical moments that were hotbeds for social resistance. I wanted Safoa to live through multiple eras of Black and African resistance, and I wanted readers to see her putting in the work to pursue what she saw as her purpose in life, which was being a body artist from the beginning, and then evolved, through meeting Cynthia, to include more social pursuits.
In writing Safoa, I revisited a few books from a class I took in college about pre-colonial African history, and I read a few books and articles about West African empires and West African mythology. I also made an effort to research some of the geography (landscapes and flora) of West Africa, and brushed up my knowledge of some Twi terms and phrases, which I grew up hearing from my maternal family. Ultimately, only some of these details made it onto the page, because making the world feel lived in required me to look at these landscapes through Safoa’s eyes.
What research did you do for the different settings in the novella, and what sociopolitical/ideological projections were you going with for the development of your near-future Maryland setting to avoid it being a utopia/dystopia?
I wanted each of the major settings of the novella, 19th century West Africa, 1990s New York City, and 1990s / 21st century Maryland, to reflect major political movements of their time. Safoa’s time in the part of West Africa we now know as Ghana was inflected with rising anticolonial sentiments. New York City is and was sensational for the community organizing within its boroughs, though it was not without the risk of violence (see: the 2003 murder of Sakia Gunn in the nearby Newark, New Jersey). Like New York City, the DMV is and was a major locus of queer arts organizing (especially literary arts) and queer political organizing, which I aimed to reflect in Cynthia and Safoa’s commune involvements.
I wouldn’t say I was consciously avoiding the story being classified as a utopia or dystopia, and this defiance of categories came about because I had naturalistic inclinations in the writing of this novella. I wanted my writing to reflect how deeply traumatic and how stunningly gorgeous people can be. For the Maryland commune in particular, I wanted to hint at the fact that there were conflicts commune members had already worked through before Cynthia and Safoa arrived, and working through these conflicts laid the groundwork for Cynthia and Safoa to soar, as cooperative leaders in their new community.
Would you ever consider expanding upon the story of Cynthia and Safoa, perhaps in a connected story, and/or are you moving on to other projects (if so, what’s next?!)
I would love to write a short story or novelette focused on Safoa’s time in London / Europe, when the time seems right to do so. I’ve written several short stories that I’m proud of since Loving Safoa came out in 2024, and it’s just been a matter of finding the right magazine at the right time for the stories that haven’t been published yet. I also have a few short stories that are in partial states, that I am slowly finishing as my dissertation takes priority.
I also have a novel project that is half-drafted! The novel project follows a polarizing, and potentially revolutionary, celebrity musician.
Beyond my own fiction, I am a nonfiction editor and finance manager for Anathema Magazine, a venue dedicated to speculation fiction by and for queer people of color that is relaunching after a 3-year hiatus — yay!
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by cmrosensJuly 31, 2024January 7, 2026 Subscribe to my newsletter to stay updated! I send newsletters around once a month. You can also subscribe to my site so you don't miss a post, but I also do a post round-up in my monthly newsletters, along with what I've been working on, what I've been reading, and what I've been watching. I will often update newsletter subscribers first with news, so stay ahead of the game with my announcements and discount codes, etc! #AuthorInterview #AuthorSpotlight #BlackAuthor #paranormalRomance #queerAuthor #sapphicBooks #vampireBooks -
The First Inuit in Scotland: the thread about John Sakeouse; Hunter, Explorer, Artist, Interpreter, Kayaker, Friend of Leith and
The registers of the Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh record that on 17th Feb 1819 a man was interred there, having died 3 days previously from fever. They say he was 22 years old, although nobody was exactly sure. What they do not say is that he was far from the land of his birth and that he was a truly remarkable man. He was John Sakeouse and this is his story.
John Sakeouse, a portrait by Amelia Anderson, engraved by W. & D. Lizars. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandJohn was well known in Edinburgh and Leith, infact it was fair to say he was something of a celebrity, for he was a unique character in the city; he was a Kalaaleq , an Inuk from West Greenland, and was the first of his people to travel to Scotland. He was born around 1797 in Disko Bay on the west coast of Greenland at a latitude of 69° North. We do not know his name in his native language, but he grew up in an area where Danish missionaries were active and from them he took the biblical names Johannes Zakaeus; John Zacchaeus (also Anglicised to Sackhouse, Saccheuse, but he signed himself Sakeouse so we shall go with that.) From the missionaries he learned about the bible and had a knowledge of and interest in Christianity. He also learned of the world beyond his horizon and picked up a little English.
Icebergs Disko Bay. Cc-by-SA 3.0 AlgkalvJohn had wanted to satisfy a curiosity as to what was over the horizon and beyond the land of his birth, and he wanted to learn about art. He may have been further motivated by being unlucky in love and rejected by the mother of a potential bride. But his reasons were his own and using his own initiative and ingenuity in May or June of 1816 he took to his kayak and paddled out to a whaling ship that was getting ready to depart the Davis Strait. Using his basic English, he managed to convince the crew to help him stow away and the seamen took pity and smuggled not just John but also his kayak aboard. Once he was safely over the horizon he announced his presence to the master of the ship; who either offered or threatened to turn around and put him ashore, but John was obviously a persuasive communicator and the master, John Newton, was convinced to take him home with him. That ship was the Thomas and Ann, it was owned by Peter Wood and Company of Leith, and that port was its destination. That is how on the 15th August 1816, John Sakeouse came to Scotland “with 11 fish“, as a very special passenger.
The Leith Greenland whaler “Raith”, also owned by the Woods and a contemporary of the “Thomas and Ann”. A model in the collection of Trinity House, Leith.On the long journey back to Leith, he earned his passage by assisting the seamen in their duties and occupied himself in improving his English.Standing between 5 foot 6 and 8 inches tall, with a head of thick black hair, he was of stocky build and impressed his hosts with his great physical strength, his dexterity and also his gentle nature and eagerness to learn. When the Thomas and Ann finally arrived back in Leith, news of his presence seemed to spread like wildfire and large crowds assembled wanting to catch a glimpse of this unusual visitor. The crowds prevented Master Newton from unloading his precious cargo of whale, so he had Sakeouse taken ashore and lodged in his house in the Timber Bush area. The crowds simply followed and gathered outside Newton’s house instead.
But although John had never seen this many people in his life, he hadn’t come to Scotland to hide himself away. So he took himself and his kayak down to the new Wet Docks, lowered himself into them and with great showmanship put on an hour long display of his proficiency and dexterity in it. He thrilled the crowds by being able to roll his boat over at will, paddle it while inverted and roll it back upright again “in the twinkling of an eye… and scuds off as if nothing had happened“. A ship’s biscuit was floated on the water and from 30 yards he would hit it – and split it – with his harpoon.
John Sakeouse in his kayak, from an illustration by Amelia Anderson, engraved by W. & D. Lizars, CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandHis show was an instant hit, and it was put on each day for the crowds. Handbills were printed and money was collected. On Thursday 5th September, a grand race was organised; John against the best whaling boat and six of the best crew that Leith had to offer. “A vast assemblage of persons of all ranks were collected at Leith. The piers, windows and roofs of houses and the decks and rigging of the vessels, were crowded with spectators; and the water from the harbour to near the Martello Tower was covered with boats, filled with Ladies and Gentlemen.” They set off from the end of the pier, the course being around the Martello Tower and back again; John was the clear winner, taking just 16 minutes.
An exhibition of some of his artefacts was put on in a dockside warehouse, described as “two sea unicorn’s horns, the skulls of a sea horse and bear, the ear of a whale and the preserved skin of a black eagle“. The money these ventures raised helped support him financially; to provide him with the food and clothes that he needed to get through the winter in Scotland until he could return home the following season when the whalers went north again. By the end of August news of him had spread the length of the country; with newspapers not just in Scotland and London, but all across England, in Belfast and in Dublin relating the story of “the Esquimaux* now at Leith“.
* = the French term which was in written use at the time in the press for Inuit. The Scottish whalers used the term “Yackie”, in some contemporary accounts he refers to himself as “Yakee”, a term he undoubtedly picked up from the whalers.
Lodging with Newton and his family, when John was not putting on his displays he attended to studying English in “which he made considerable progress“; he learned to play the flute a little and to dance. He told his hosts that he had received some schooling in his childhood, had some basic knowledge of the wider world and historical facts and had heard of an elephant – but never having seen one was “much delighted” when shown a picture. He had not, however, seen or heard of a cow and on first encountering one fetched his harpoon with which to defend himself from this strange beast. He sat for portraits, was taken to the theatre, and was the toast of the evening soirées of Leith and Edinburgh, comfortably ingratiating himself with all who met him.
John Sakeouse’s handwriting, from an engraving by W. & D. Lizars, CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandIn the spring of 1817, the Leith whalers set out again for the Davis Straits and John was with them, once more on board the Thomas and Ann. Newton was under strict orders from his employer, Peter Wood, that John was to be “treated with the greatest kindness” and returned to where he had been picked up, and not to return with him unless John explicitly desired to. On reaching his home however, John was distressed to find that his only living relative, his sister, had died over the winter. On learning that she had believed him dead and had died of a broken heart, he returned to Newton and made it known that he wished to stay with them and “revisit his country no more.” And so it was in September 1817 once again the newspapers in Edinburgh reported that the Thomas and Ann had returned to Leith and once more it had a special passenger aboard. And once again, this exciting news was reprinted from Inverness to London and from Cambridge to Belfast.
That winter, John exhibited the selfless kindness to others for which he was knows. Enjoying he snows that had fallen, and walking far beyond Leith, he came across two young children whom he observed “to be suffering from the cold“. He took off his sealskin jacket, wrapped the pair of them in in it and carried them safely home to Leith. He refused all attempts at a reward, not thinking himself having done anything remarkable. It was on another winter walk that John’s adventures took an interesting new direction, for who should he by chance bump in to but one Alexander Nasmyth; pupil of Alan Ramsay and one of Scotland’s foremost landscape and portrait painters at that time. Nasmyth recognised John by his dress, and having once drawn a set of native clothing that had been brought to Scotland he was keen to ingratiate himself. He invited John up to Edinburgh and had him sit for a portrait in return for providing him with drawing lessons. Nasmyth got his painting, now part of the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland, and John got his lessons, proving to have a natural talent and be a quick learner. He was the first Inuit to recieve formal art training, although he came from a rich artistic culture.
John Sakaeus (Sakeouse) by Alexander Nasmyth, c. 1817, CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandIt was through the well connected Nasmyth that John’s life took its next turn; he was introduced to the naval explorer Captain Basil Hall and his father, Sir James, the President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The Halls were aware that the Admiralty was preparing an expedition to search for a Northwestern Passage, under fellow Scot Capain John Ross (later Sir John), and were quick to realise that having a native guide who could also act as a translator could prove invaluable to the mission. The Halls wrote to Sir John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, who agreed with them and asked for John to be sent to London if he was willing. John seems to have turned down offers of payment for his services, and was keen to join the expedition so long as it was not a ruse to send him back to the land of his birth.
In London, John ingratiated himself with his usual ease, and – having taken it with him – as usual thrilled the crowds with kayaking and harpooning displays in Deptford Docks. A trick that went down very well was to throw his harpoon, which he could do with great accuracy over 50 yards, and then follow it up with smaller “darts” with which he could hit the handle of the floating harpoon, time after time. Captain Ross and the Admiralty wasted no time in engaging John’s services, however it nearly wasn’t to be; in late March a stranger, who may have been an agent for the Aquatic Theatre, attempted to lure him away from the expedition and onto the stage, with offers of money and a considerable quantity of alcohol. The usually sober John almost succumbed to temptation, but on recovering his faculties and suffering his hangover thought better of it, apologised to Ross for his change of heart and stayed firmly on board and away from the dockside taverns thereafter. The Admiralty quietly ordered that he was to be kept on board and away from strangers thereafter.
Ross’s expedition departed London on board a small fleet of hired Hull whaling ships on 18th April 1818. Ross led on his flagship Isabella, with Captain Buchan on the Dortothea, Lieutenant Parry on the Alexander and the ill-fated Lieutenant Franklin on the Trent. Their search was for the Northwest Passage and the Bering Strait beyond, and part of the expedition intended to strike out for the North Pole. Their journey would find none of those destinations, but would take them further north than any British navigator had yet been.
“Portraits of the Vessels of the Polar Expedition of 1818”, an illustration by John Ross © Royal Museums Greenwich.The convoy arrived off Greenland in mid-June. By the end of the month, they reached 70° North. This was Disko Bay, the land where John – or Jack as the sailors had taken to calling him – had been born 19 or 20 years before. John took take to his kayak, returning with specimens of birds for the expedition’s scientists, and also with a party of local Inuit he had contacted. Acting as a translator, he negotiated for a larger party of them to return with the gift of a dog sled for Ross. They were invited aboard for coffee and biscuits and shown around, had their portraits taken and further gifts were exchanged. An impromptu cèilidh was then held on the deck, with the Inuit dancing Scottish Reels with the seamen to the music of their fiddler. Ross describes John as acting as the “master of ceremonies”, calling out the dances. Catching the attention of a young woman in the Inuit party, “by far the best looking of the group“, John was given a lady’s shawl by one of the officers to present to her. She returned his affections with the gift of a ring, and Ross was in “no possible doubt [he] had made an impression on her heart“.
After the ball concluded with more coffee, the guests departed and John was permitted to escort them home and perhaps return with more specimens for the expedition. It was at this point however that he suffered an unfortunate accident; demonstrating a gun to some of the Inuit, he over-filled it with gunpowder under a mistaken assumption that he described himself as “plenty powder, plenty kill. Letting the weapon off, he could not handle the recoil and broke his collar bone. A search party had to be sent out to retrieve him when he did not return to the ship.
Ross’s ships (one ship is in the distance, on the right of the image) in the land of John’s birth at Disko Bay, an illustration by Andrew Skene, an officer and artist on the expeditionThey did not linger here and continued north into Baffin Bay, intending on making an anti-clockwise navigation in search of the North West Passage. Ross made an illustration of his little flotilla as it moved carefully through the ice at 70°44′ North. They pressed on and at 75°25′ North they reached a bay that the Greenlanders call Qimusseriarsuaq. Although whalers had been here before, they hadn’t troubled to give it an English name, so Ross Christened it Melville Bay, after Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the man who had given Ross his first commission and a son of Edinburgh (for whom Melville Street is named).
“Through the Ice, June 16 1818, Lat. 70° 44′ N.”, an illustration by Captain RossThe were able to sail as far north as 75°55′, before becoming trapped in the ice at the start of August and could go no further. It was with a great deal of skill, hard work and luck that they were able to extricate the Isabella and the Alexander, and now headed west around the top of Baffin Bay. An illustration made by Captain Ross shows this desperate scene.
“Perilous Situation of the Isabella and the Alexander”, illustration by Captain RossSoon they were heading south again and on August 9th 1818, the Isabella and the Alexander came to what Ross called Prince Regent Inlet. Here, at 75°55′ North, 65°32′ West, and with the unique help of John Sakeouse, they made first contact with what Ross called the Arctic Highlanders: the native Inughuit.
It was the Inughuit who spotted them first. By the time Ross’s lookouts spotted them in return, they took these men far out on the ice to be stranded whalers, and made for them. As they approached, they realised that they were natives travelling on dog sledges. When they came within shouting distance, John attempted to call to them in his language, but the men took to their sleds and fled. Boats were sent out and some gifts left on the ice for them. Ross also had the men make up a large flag showing the image of the sun and the moon, with an outstretched hand holding a spring of a native shrub in the manner of an olive branch (this western metaphor would of course have been completely lost on them.) This was run up a pole in a prominent position on the ice, to which was also affixed a bag of gifts and a large outline of a hand pointing to the ships.
The next morning a larger party of men returned with 8 sleds, stopping on the ice a mile short of the ships. The flagpole enticed the men and their sleds closer, but they remained cautiously 300 yards distant, apparently in conversation. It was at this point that John stepped in. Taking a bag of gifts, and a white flag (another hopeless symbol for communicating with people who had never encountered white men before), John strode out on the ice. Dressed in the garb of a western sailor, they had no idea who he was, or what his act of removing his hat meant, and as he approached they pulled a knife on him, implored him to be on his way and made it clear that they could kill him if needs be. In return, the ever placid John offered them a British-made knife in his possession, tossing it to them. On examining it, the men were impressed and pulled their noses, a sign of friendship. John pulled his nose too, and a rapport was formed. John now presented them with a string of beads and showed them a chequered shirt. This was not just the first time the Inughuit had met white men, it was their first exposure to a Kalaaleq, a western Greenlander. After some initial difficulty, John recognised their dialect as one an old woman who once nursed him had spoken, and was slowly able to communicate. Using his natural talents and the tuition in Western art acquired from Alexander Nasmyth, John would paint a picture to capture this scene, presenting it to Captain Ross.
First Communication with the Natives of Prince Regent Bay, as John by John Sackheouse and Presented to Captain Ross, August10th 1818John, wearing the blue jacket, with his arm held in a sling and wearing a beaver cap, is seen holding the chequered shirt while two Inughuit inspect the other gifts he has presented them with, one of whom may be holding up one of the mirrors with which they were presented and which caused them wonder and delight. In the foreground, Captain Ross and Lieutenant Parry offer other gifts, receiving narwhal tusks in return. Another man is arriving on his dog sled, and two others are in the distance admiring the ships and a boat which had been hauled onto the ice for repairs. The Inughuit had never before seen a ship; indeed they were not seafaring people, had never seen a kayak and had no word for it, living entirely on the land and using dog sleds for travel and hunting. So it was with some difficulty that they were eventually enticed aboard onto these winged “Islands of Wood” (they had never before seen a shrub with a trunk wider than your finger, so the ships timbers were an incredible sight for them). The men were given a tour of the ship, before being convinced to sit in chairs (something they had never seen and whose purpose they did not understand) to have their portraits taken. They were offered ships biscuit, salt beef, plum pudding and Aquavit, all of which they thoroughly disliked.
Ervick, one of the Inughuit who met the Ross Expedition in 1818, an illustration by Captain RossWith John acting as interpreter, they were able to learn that the Inughuit did not count beyond ten, that their knives were fashioned from iron extracted from a rock in the mountains, that they lived in family units by a form of mutual agreement between the husband and wife, but had sent their women and children into the mountains to safety; the menfolk had come forth only to ask the interlopers to leave. They had a chief – Tulloowah – to whom other families gave a tribute. They had no organised religion, but each family had a “sorcerer” who could be called upon to commune with the weather or supplies of animals for food. They had no concepts of weapons or war, or of lands and people beyond their own. They assumed that the white-faced Europeans must be some sort of ghost whose ships had flown down from the air. Before leaving, the Inughuit were presented with planks of wood that they had expressed a desire in possessing.
The Inughuit returned a few days later on the 13th of August and again on the 14th. This was a different party than those they had met before, and had come forth after seeing the gifts that the first had returned with and having received assurances that the “Islands of Wood” and their ghostly residents were not an immediate threat. More gifts were exchanged, and the leader of the party helped himself to Ross’s telescope, shaving razor and a pair of scissors, which Ross was pleased to overlook. Before their final departure, Ross gave them a portrait of the Prince Regent as a present for “their king”.
They now pressed further south and west, coming to Lancaster Sound at 74°19½’ North 78°33′ west at the end of August where he took a fateful decision. Imagining that he could see distant mountains (they were actually a mirage), he was convinced that there was no way further through by sea and turned around against the wishes of his subordinate Parry. So convinved was Ross, that he named this distant range – the Croker Mountains – and made a detailed landscape illustration of them.
Lancaster Sound, as seen from HMS Isabella, 3PM, August 31st 1818. The distant range of the Croker Mountains was a mere mirage. By Captain RossRoss now headed south along the western edge of Baffin Bay, taking detailed meteorological and astronomical observations, collecting geological and animal specimens and otherwise occupying the expedition now with science rather than their stated goal of seeking the North West Passage. By the end of September they were at Resolution Island at 61°30′ North and well out of the Arctic Circle, and Ross decided to end operations for the season and head for home. A month later, on October 29th, they sighted Foula, the westernmost island of the Shetland Archipelago. On November 14th they dropped anchor for the last time, in Grimsby Roads, and Ross set off at once for London and their Lordships of the Admiralty with his logs, journals, charts and letters.
Ross, unfortunately, did not find the hero’s welcome that he might have imagined. Instead, his subordinate officers challenged his decision to turn around in Lancaster Sound, and Parry was vehemently and publicly sceptical of the grounds on which Ross made that decision. The Admiralty were convinced by Parry and his conspirators that Ross’s findings were not to be trusted, and they organised an expediction for the following year, led by Parry, and on which Ross was not invited. The press lampooned him, a particularly scathing satirical cartoon showing him pompously leading his crew, all mutilated by frosbite, carrying back nothing but specimens of animals and rocks. The implication was clear; Ross’s expedition had been a failure and the scientific results and objects he returned with were worthless.
Landing of the Treasures or Results of the Polar Expedition!!! By George Cruikshank © The Trustees of the British MuseumRoss publicly praised John Sakeouse as “very intelligent and willing to learn as well as being grateful to those who instruct him. A man on whom the utmost dependence may be placed“. The satirist – George Cruikshank – unfortunately did not treat him with the same respect and credit that he merited. Instead he showed him as a deeply racist stereotype, a savage called “Jack Frost”, carrying a narwhal tusk, wearing a fur skirt, and clutching an album of his drawings. The sailors to his right, on wondering “what will they do with Jack Frost“, suggest he should have his throat cut and be stuffed. This was a sad end to the important expedition, and a cruel way to dismiss the contributions of John Sakeouse, which no other man could have made.
John Sakeouse, shown as the savage “Jack Frost”.John did not stay long in London, and asked to be returned to his friends in Leith. Parry – although contemptuous of Ross – recognised the importance of John and arranged that he should be included again in the 1819 expedition. Unfortunately this was never to be.
John took ill at the start of the year with “a violent inflammation in the chest“. John Newton, the whaling master who had first been convinced to bring John to Leith, and his family nursed John through his illness. At first he seemed to improve, and despite doctor’s orders to the contrary – soon felt well enough to venture out in the search of fish, which he brought back to his lodgings to cook for himself.
A few days later however, he had relapsed into fever. He told his companions that his late sister had come to him in a fever dream and called to him, and that he knew now that he was dying. Calling for his Catechism – in the Danish language that he had been tutored in by missionaries – he grasped it “till his strength and sight failed him, when the book dropped from his grasp, and he shortly afterwards expired“. All of Leith mourned his loss, and a respectful funeral was arranged in the Canongate Kirkyard and paid for by his friends. “He was followed to the grave by a numerous company, among whom were not only his old friends and patrons from Leith, but many gentlemen of high respectability in this city“. His final resting place is not marked, but was given as “in the area 8 feet south of Fraser’s ground and 4 feet from the north walk“.
Approximate location of the last resting place of John Sakeouse. © SelfHis possessions, including his sealskin clothing, were left to Captain Ross, who donated them to the Museum of the University of Edinburgh.
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
By Grin Reaper
Known for cultivating legendary acts such as Cult of Luna, Meshuggah, and Refused, Umeå, Sweden, sows fertile ground for seminal rock and metal bands.1 Formed in 2022, Skogskult joins their compatriots with a self-titled debut of grimy stoner doom in hand. From Swedish, Skogskult translates to ‘forest cult,’ and with roots firmly planted in scuzzy soil, this fey foursome drinks deeply from the wells of Acid King, Monolord, and Black Sabbath. Skogskult conjures six tracks that pull from Scandinavian mythology and the arcane to warn of dark days getting darker,2 setting a grim and eldritch tone from the outset. So come, friend, and take my hand. Let us walk into these woods together and uncover what mysteries lurk within.
Skogskult studied their forebears closely, as anyone who blindly tangles with Skogskult won’t need long to guess its genre. Many moments are saturated with indica atmospherics thick enough to induce contact highs. Hypnotic plods (“Lyktans Låga”), mid-paced gallops (“Pakten”), and the occasional stirring solo (“Snöblind”) furnish an assortment of backdrops and give individual songs enough character to prevent them from blurring together despite the pervasive gloomy fuzz. Cutting through said fuzz is vocalist Simon Rosengrim, who pierces the dense haze with tempestuous conviction, antithetical to the indolent trappings of stereotypical stoner doom. All told, Skogskult begets a familiar soundscape even casual fans of the genre will at once recognize, molding a unique personality alongside influences and reference points.
Skogskult’s merger of buzzing heft and raw emotion concocts powerful moments across their debut. Opening duo “Lyktans Låga” and “Turs” conform to genre conventions, grooving with ponderous mass as Samuel Nordström and Albin Kroon lumber along on guitar and bass. In fact, most of Skogskult is blanketed in wool, though “Sol” acts as a crucial change-of-pace, offering reverb-drenched strums and echoey vox that recall Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan.” Central tracks “Jag Ger Mig Av” and “Pakten” embolden Skogskult with lively frills, such as the stark baritone vocals midway through the former and the catchy-as-hell 90s post-grunge lilt of the latter. Pulling away from direct inspirations allows Skogskult to forge an identity all their own. In a genre where bands closely adhere to stoner doom’s core sound, it’s not a coincidence that Skogskult’s best moments occur when the album extends past them. In particular, Rosengrim’s performance electrifies when grit and pathos dial to eleven. His singing forgoes the comparatively mellow rhythms and measured deliveries associated with Sleep, Dopelord, and others, instead penetrating stoner doom’s miasma with immediate and undeniable passion. While this ingredient sets Skogskult apart from other outfits, it’s not quite enough to overcome Skogskult’s deficiencies.
Though many of Skogskult’s songwriting tendrils take root, some flounder for purchase. The juxtaposition of urgent vocals and hypnotizing grooves spellbind in a broad sense, but focusing just on the instrumentation reveals a lack of consistency over the entire album. Though flush with talent, Skogskult’s penchant for repeating riffs too often over six to seven minutes erodes some of its charm, which is further exacerbated over repeated listens. Bluesy solos and accelerated tempos afford welcome breaks, but more variety through the refrains would invigorate Skogskult’s musical backbone; without more riff diversity, shrinking song lengths could help remedy the repetition. Still, Skogskult boasts plenty of successes, as well. The production is a triumph, with each instrument (and vocals) afforded ample space in the mix. The only understated element is drummer Alexander Söderlund, who supports the band ably within a restrained pocket. Also, Skogskult deftly constructs tension throughout entire songs. Even if each track could lose thirty to sixty seconds, every payoff satisfies through unhurried climaxes and hints at a higher ceiling for the band’s songcraft.
Skogskult is a young band brimming with potential. They guide listeners through the murky fog of stoner doom that cloaks the forest they inhabit, shining a light on the path while allowing listeners to glimpse the dangers just off of it. Skogskult isn’t perfect, but Skogskult impresses with accessible retrofuzz, standout highlights, and a powerhouse vocalist. If they can refine the songwriting approach for their sophomore album while preserving what makes this one special, our next trip through the cult’s forest might just convert us.
Rating: Good
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Bonebag Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: December 5th, 2025#2025 #30 #AcidKing #BlackSabbath #BonebagRecords #CultOfLuna #Dec25 #DoomMetal #Dopelord #Meshuggah #Monolord #Naglfar #NocturnalRites #Persuader #Refused #Review #Reviews #SelfTitled #Skogskult #Sleep #StonerDoom #StonerDoomMetal #StonerMetal #SwedishMetal
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By Grin Reaper
Known for cultivating legendary acts such as Cult of Luna, Meshuggah, and Refused, Umeå, Sweden, sows fertile ground for seminal rock and metal bands.1 Formed in 2022, Skogskult joins their compatriots with a self-titled debut of grimy stoner doom in hand. From Swedish, Skogskult translates to ‘forest cult,’ and with roots firmly planted in scuzzy soil, this fey foursome drinks deeply from the wells of Acid King, Monolord, and Black Sabbath. Skogskult conjures six tracks that pull from Scandinavian mythology and the arcane to warn of dark days getting darker,2 setting a grim and eldritch tone from the outset. So come, friend, and take my hand. Let us walk into these woods together and uncover what mysteries lurk within.
Skogskult studied their forebears closely, as anyone who blindly tangles with Skogskult won’t need long to guess its genre. Many moments are saturated with indica atmospherics thick enough to induce contact highs. Hypnotic plods (“Lyktans Låga”), mid-paced gallops (“Pakten”), and the occasional stirring solo (“Snöblind”) furnish an assortment of backdrops and give individual songs enough character to prevent them from blurring together despite the pervasive gloomy fuzz. Cutting through said fuzz is vocalist Simon Rosengrim, who pierces the dense haze with tempestuous conviction, antithetical to the indolent trappings of stereotypical stoner doom. All told, Skogskult begets a familiar soundscape even casual fans of the genre will at once recognize, molding a unique personality alongside influences and reference points.
Skogskult’s merger of buzzing heft and raw emotion concocts powerful moments across their debut. Opening duo “Lyktans Låga” and “Turs” conform to genre conventions, grooving with ponderous mass as Samuel Nordström and Albin Kroon lumber along on guitar and bass. In fact, most of Skogskult is blanketed in wool, though “Sol” acts as a crucial change-of-pace, offering reverb-drenched strums and echoey vox that recall Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan.” Central tracks “Jag Ger Mig Av” and “Pakten” embolden Skogskult with lively frills, such as the stark baritone vocals midway through the former and the catchy-as-hell 90s post-grunge lilt of the latter. Pulling away from direct inspirations allows Skogskult to forge an identity all their own. In a genre where bands closely adhere to stoner doom’s core sound, it’s not a coincidence that Skogskult’s best moments occur when the album extends past them. In particular, Rosengrim’s performance electrifies when grit and pathos dial to eleven. His singing forgoes the comparatively mellow rhythms and measured deliveries associated with Sleep, Dopelord, and others, instead penetrating stoner doom’s miasma with immediate and undeniable passion. While this ingredient sets Skogskult apart from other outfits, it’s not quite enough to overcome Skogskult’s deficiencies.
Though many of Skogskult’s songwriting tendrils take root, some flounder for purchase. The juxtaposition of urgent vocals and hypnotizing grooves spellbind in a broad sense, but focusing just on the instrumentation reveals a lack of consistency over the entire album. Though flush with talent, Skogskult’s penchant for repeating riffs too often over six to seven minutes erodes some of its charm, which is further exacerbated over repeated listens. Bluesy solos and accelerated tempos afford welcome breaks, but more variety through the refrains would invigorate Skogskult’s musical backbone; without more riff diversity, shrinking song lengths could help remedy the repetition. Still, Skogskult boasts plenty of successes, as well. The production is a triumph, with each instrument (and vocals) afforded ample space in the mix. The only understated element is drummer Alexander Söderlund, who supports the band ably within a restrained pocket. Also, Skogskult deftly constructs tension throughout entire songs. Even if each track could lose thirty to sixty seconds, every payoff satisfies through unhurried climaxes and hints at a higher ceiling for the band’s songcraft.
Skogskult is a young band brimming with potential. They guide listeners through the murky fog of stoner doom that cloaks the forest they inhabit, shining a light on the path while allowing listeners to glimpse the dangers just off of it. Skogskult isn’t perfect, but Skogskult impresses with accessible retrofuzz, standout highlights, and a powerhouse vocalist. If they can refine the songwriting approach for their sophomore album while preserving what makes this one special, our next trip through the cult’s forest might just convert us.
Rating: Good
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Bonebag Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: December 5th, 2025#2025 #30 #AcidKing #BlackSabbath #BonebagRecords #CultOfLuna #Dec25 #DoomMetal #Dopelord #Meshuggah #Monolord #Naglfar #NocturnalRites #Persuader #Refused #Review #Reviews #SelfTitled #Skogskult #Sleep #StonerDoom #StonerDoomMetal #StonerMetal #SwedishMetal
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Resources for African American History Month: Selected Digital Collections – Teaching with the Library
Teaching with the Library Primary Sources & Ideas for Educators
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Resources for African American History Month: Selected Digital Collections
February 10, 2026, Posted by: Colleen Smith
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This is the second post in a series that looks at different resources from the Library that support teaching and learning about the achievements and contributions of African Americans throughout U.S. history. The first post highlighted several primary source sets from Teaching with the Library; today’s post brings attention to the Library’s digital collections.
More than twenty-five of the Library’s digital collections relate to the rich histories, cultures, traditions, and contemporary experiences of African Americans. A few are highlighted below, along with ideas for using collection items in the classroom.
Selected Collections
African American Photographs Assembled for the 1900 Paris Exposition
W. E. B. Du Bois compiled a series of photographs for the “American Negro” exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition. His goal was to show the diversity and successes of African Americans as a counter to common stereotypes. The Library of Congress holds approximately 220 mounted photographs reportedly displayed in the exhibition.
- Teachers might use items in this collection to introduce, investigate, or reinforce aspects of DuBois’s approach to combating racism and segregation.
- Images from the collection are powerful visuals of African Americans holding professions in diverse fields. This may help broaden students’ understanding of African American life at the time and bring attention to the experiences, successes, challenges, and contributions of African American individuals and communities.
By Popular Demand: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s
To honor the remarkable life and legacy of Jackie Robinson, Library staff put together this collection featuring sources from across many different divisions of the Library.
- The colorful prints and photographs make this an inviting collection to explore with younger learners. Teachers could bring some of these visuals to support existing materials they use to celebrate Robinson and his contributions.
- For older learners, consider sending them to this set of brief essays. Topics include Robinson’s career and the greater subject of segregation in the sport of baseball.
This collection features digitized plays by Hurston (1891-1960), an author, anthropologist, and folklorist.
- A timeline offers a glimpse into Hurston’s life and career and could help students find an angle or selected topic for further research.
- Teachers interested in finding more on Huston’s work might also consult this resource guide from the American Folklife Center, where Hurston’s audio recordings are held. The guide highlights unique unpublished and published materials.
Frederick Douglass Newspapers, 1847 to 1874
Douglass, a leader in the black press, used the medium to communicate and persuade the public on the abolition of slavery and women’s rights. With this collection, students can explore newspapers edited by Frederick Douglass.
- These articles and essays are helpful for finding your way through the collection and identifying aspects to explore further. For example, this post gives further context to Douglass’s famous speech, “What to the American Slave is Your Fourth of July?“
- Ask students to consider how Douglass used the media of his time to capture public attention. In what ways do public figures use media today to communicate a message? What differences and similarities do students notice?
We hope this overview is helpful for considering how you might bring some of the Library’s digital collections to your classroom. If you are interested in more ways for students to engage with materials from the Library, you might check out the latest transcription campaign from By the People: the papers of Christian Fleetwood an African American Union soldier during the Civil War.
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Continue/Read Original Article Here: Resources for African American History Month: Selected Digital Collections | Teaching with the Library
Tags: 1900 Paris Exposition, 25 Collections, African American History Month, American Negro, Blogs, By the People, Christian Fleetwood, Colleen Smith, Frederick Douglass Newspapers, History of Black Americans, Jackie Robinson, Library of Congress, Selected Digital Collections, Teaching with the Library, W.E.Ba. Du Bois, Zora Neal Hurston
#1900ParisExposition #25Collections #AfricanAmericanHistoryMonth #AmericanNegro #Blogs #ByThePeople #ChristianFleetwood #ColleenSmith #FrederickDouglassNewspapers #HistoryOfBlackAmericans #JackieRobinson #LibraryOfCongress #SelectedDigitalCollections #TeachingWithTheLibrary #WEBaDuBois #ZoraNealHurston -
Interview: I.D.K.
Photo courtesy of the band.Following the release of their latest single, “Nark 5,” we sat down I.D.K. to peel back the layers of their catchy, memorable, and energetic sound.
In this conversation, we dive deep into the thematics driving their lyrics, thoughtful songwriting and composing process that allows them to balance hardcore punk energy with a larger-than-life scale. We also get a glimpse into what’s next for the band, including their upcoming music video collaboration with Stone Fisted Production and their ambitious plans for the future.
Hello, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. How have you been?
I have been well. Can’t complain.
It’s been over a decade since your last original release. Coming back in late 2025, did “Nark 5” feel like the natural first choice for a comeback, or were there other tracks in contention?
No other tracks when we wrote Nark 5. Nark 5 was the spark that drew us out of the life cave and back into the creative expressive side of the world. We are working on more tracks now but at that time our goal was to get a fresh new tune out there.
You’ve cited Star Wars: Andor as the primary catalyst for this track. What was it about the Narkina 5 that specifically resonated with the punk rock ethos of I.D.K.?
Just like in life, there’s always a fight. There’s always some force trying to wreck something good, trying to inject chaos into what’s working. It never stops. It’s always something.
To me, punk is about doing your thing and saying fuck everything else. Fuck the noise. Fuck the pressure. Fuck anyone trying to tell you who you’re supposed to be. The second you cross the line and violate my freedom — or anyone else’s — then it’s on. That’s when it shifts from punk rock to a hardcore beatdown, metaphorically speaking… or in the case of the prison break, literally.
Nark 5 is about the Empire’s bullying — about being pushed, controlled, and locked down — and then finally fighting back. It’s about breaking out and crushing the bully at the end of the prison break arc. That moment? That’s punk rock at its purest.
The song shifts between the perspectives of Cassian Andor (Keef Girgo) and Kino Loy. How did you approach translating those two very different emotional states, the confusion of capture versus the desperate leadership of an escape, into the music?
I feel like both situations share that same kind of crazy intensity. There’s the mental shock of being taken against your will, and then there’s the raw, survival-mode intensity of a life-or-death situation.
I knew right away that both of those moments matched the energy of the music. So what I did was split the song in half — the first half captures the abduction, and the second half drives the prison break.
You also plan to release a music video, done by Stone Fisted Production. How do you feel the visual narrative enhances the cinematic sound you were aiming for?
The video is almost finished. Nedd from Stone Fisted is doing an incredible job with it — he’s really bringing it to life. It’s currently in the post-production phase, and we’ll be announcing a premiere date soon.
I think people are really going to dig it. It’s a great blend of our live performance energy with the Narkina 5 imagery and concept woven throughout. We had a lot of people help us make it happen, and it’s definitely going to be a fun one.
How has the songwriting dynamic changed between you all since your 2008 releases? Is the process more collaborative now, or does it still start with a singular spark?
With Nark 5, the process was more collaborative. The initial spark came from Fabio and Mike, whereas I’m usually the primary songwriter.
Our 2008 EP was officially released in 2008, but it had actually been recorded a few years earlier. Those songs were created in a less collaborative environment, although all the members at the time still weighed in and gave their input on the material.
You’ve described the new sound as having cinematic dynamics. For a veteran hardcore punk band, how do you balance that grander, more polished scale without losing the raw, basement-show energy fans expect?
I’d say Nark 5, especially when combined with the video we’re making for it, has a very cinematic vibe. The song tells a story you can really visualize through the lyrics and the energy it gives off.
The video leans into that as well — there’s a strong cinematic feel, with storytelling woven into the visuals. That said, we feel it still falls right in line with our previous material sonically. The grit? That really comes out in our live shows — and that hasn’t changed.
Musically, “Nark 5” feels so precise. Did the long break change how you approach your instruments or the gear you use in the studio?
Not at all. In terms of playing and our overall approach, we stuck to what we’ve always done.
“Nark 5” deals with the cost of freedom. In today’s political and social climate, do you find yourselves writing more about fictional resistances as a metaphor, or do real-world events still bleed into the lyrics?
A little of both. It’s nearly impossible to keep the real world from bleeding into the lyrics — especially with Nark 5, given the current political and social climate.
How does the North Jersey/Cliffside Park scene look to you in 2026 compared to when you were last active? Is that old guard spirit still there?
It absolutely is. I.D.K. will forever be associated with being one of — if not the first — hardcore/punk bands from the area to really make a mark.
There aren’t necessarily as many shows happening like there were back in the day, at least to our knowledge, but people remember. The spirit is still there, and it gets passed down to the younger kids.
Whenever we play gigs up in the North Jersey area, there are always Cliffside and Fairview people representing at the shows.
You’re now releasing via Scorpion Records across platforms like Spotify and Bandcamp, tools that weren’t the standard back in 2008. How has navigating the modern digital landscape changed your perspective on being an independent band?
It hasn’t necessarily changed our perspective. What it has done is give us more tools at our disposal when it comes to promoting and getting the music out there — which is cool.
Does it take a little away from the more socially organic way things used to work — passing music through friends, grabbing a physical CD or record, and not having access to it outside of that? Sure.
There are pluses and minuses to it.
Hardcore and punk have undergone numerous sub-genre shifts over the last 15 years. What’s your take on the current state of the genre? Is it healthier now than it was during your hiatus?
That’s hard to say. I’m an older head, so I’ll always love what I experienced growing up in the New Jersey hardcore scene in the ’90s. I don’t get out to see shows as much as I’d like to these days, so it’s tough to really speak on the current live gig vibe.
I do follow newer bands online, though, and there are a lot of great ones out there — especially the heavier beatdown and metal-influenced hardcore bands. From what I can see from a distance, that scene is raging.
I don’t see as many bands like us, with more of a traditional punk/hardcore influence in the style. But that could also just be me being a little out of touch, haha.
“Nark 5” is the lead-in for a new EP on Scorpion Records. Can we expect a full concept record based on similar themes, or will the EP explore different territories?
Good question. We’re in the process of putting the music together now. Once we get into writing the lyrics, we’ll see where it takes us. It’s hard to say right now.
Now that the music is out and the video is on its way, what do the touring plans look like for 2026?
We haven’t played any gigs yet since the release of Nark 5, but we’re definitely excited to see how the crowds react — especially once the video drops.
Photo courtesy of the band.How are the new tracks, especially “Nark 5,” translating to a live setting? Is there a specific moment in the song where you really feel the crowd rising up with you?
Again, we haven’t gigged since the releasee so, we shall see!
What do you want the “2020s era” of I.D.K. to be remembered for? Is this a one-off reunion, or is the engine fully restarted for the long haul?
I’d say we’re like an engine that moves steadily, going where it can, when it can. Yes — we’d love to keep this going for the long haul. Our pace and the way we approach it will ultimately determine that.
That’s it. Thank you so much for your time. Anything you would like to say to our readers at the end of this interview?
Absolutely. First, we want to shout out our friend—and sometimes sixth member—Scott Dorey, who’ll be helping with guitar duties at our upcoming March 7th gig in Morris Plains New Jersey at the Autodidact.
Also, Nedd Jacobs and Stone Fisted Productions, who directed our upcoming Nark 5 music video. He’s doing a great job, and we can’t wait to release it.
We also want to give a shout-out to Scott Earth of Scorpion Records to help with our releases and promotion.
Last but certainly not least, our families—for putting up with the noise and the scheduling. I.D.K. simply wouldn’t happen without their support.
#HARDCORE #HARDCOREPUNK #IDK #INTERVIEWS #melodicPunkRock #MUSIC #PUNKROCK -
Shabbat Shalom, friends 🤍
This marks the 29th Shabbat in a row that I’ve had the privilege of sharing your beautiful photos and messages in response to my weekly Shabbat greeting. What began as a simple post has grown into something far more meaningful than I ever imagined.
Week after week, you bring light, warmth, and connection into this space. Seeing the images you share, whether candles, tables, family moments, or quiet reflections has turned this into a truly special tradition for our community.
What started as a collection of lovely photos has become something deeper. Many of you now share glimpses of how Shabbat lives inside your homes and hearts, and it’s incredibly moving to witness those moments.
And this week, perhaps more than ever, as conflict continues in the Middle East, my heart longs for a Shabbat filled with lasting peace for Israel, for the region, and for the world.
Wishing all of you a peaceful and meaningful Shabbat.
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Shabbat Shalom, friends 🤍
This marks the 27th Shabbat in a row that I’ve had the privilege of sharing your beautiful photos and messages in response to my weekly Shabbat greeting. What began as a simple post has grown into something far more meaningful than I ever imagined.
Week after week, you bring light, warmth, and connection into this space. Seeing the images you share, whether candles, tables, family moments, or quiet reflections has turned this into a truly special tradition for our community.
What started as a collection of lovely photos has become something deeper. Many of you now share glimpses of how Shabbat lives inside your homes and hearts, and it’s incredibly moving to witness those moments.
And this week, perhaps more than ever, as conflict continues in the Middle East, my heart longs for a Shabbat filled with lasting peace for Israel, for the region, and for the world.
Wishing all of you a peaceful and meaningful Shabbat.
-
Shabbat Shalom Friends 🤍
For the 25th Shabbat in a row, I am so grateful and deeply touched to share the beautiful photos and images you post in response to my weekly Shabbat Shalom message. What began as a simple exchange has grown into something truly special.
My heart is full knowing that week after week, we come together to share blessings, peace, light, and connection through Shabbat.
What started with lovely images has blossomed into something precious, as many of you now share glimpses of your personal Shabbat practices. Seeing how Shabbat lives in your homes fills my heart with gratitude and joy.
This has become a cherished tradition—our community coming together again and again. Reading your messages is my favorite way to welcome Shabbat.
I want to thank the countless offerings of support and comfort I received after my Shabbat Shalom post. I am feeling better and resting today ❤️
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Shabbat Shalom Friends 🤍
For the 24th Shabbat in a row—and on Valentine’s Day, a day that celebrates love—I am so grateful and deeply touched to share the beautiful photos and images you post in response to my weekly Shabbat Shalom message. What began as a simple exchange has grown into something truly special.
My heart is full knowing that week after week, we come together to share blessings, peace, light, and connection through Shabbat.
What started with lovely images has blossomed into something precious, as many of you now share glimpses of your personal Shabbat practices. Seeing how Shabbat lives in your homes fills my heart with gratitude and joy.
This has become a cherished tradition—our community coming together again and again. Reading your messages is my favorite way to welcome Shabbat. If I miss responding, please know it’s never intentional—sometimes this platform hides comments—but I’m always with you in spirit on this sacred day 💙
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Shabbat Shalom Friends 🤍
For the 23rd Shabbat in a row, I am so grateful and deeply touched to share the beautiful photos and images you post in response to my weekly Shabbat Shalom message. What began as a simple exchange has grown into something truly special.
My heart is full knowing that week after week, we come together to share blessings, peace, light, and connection through Shabbat.
What started with lovely images has blossomed into something precious, as many of you now share glimpses of your personal Shabbat practices. Seeing how Shabbat lives in your homes fills my heart with gratitude and joy.
This has become a cherished tradition—our community coming together again and again. Reading your messages is my favorite way to welcome Shabbat. If I miss responding, please know it’s never intentional—sometimes this platform hides comments—but I’m always with you in spirit on this sacred day 💙
-
Shabbat Shalom Friends 🤍
For the 22nd Shabbat in a row, I am so grateful and deeply touched to share the beautiful photos and images you post in response to my weekly Shabbat Shalom message. What began as a simple exchange has grown into something truly special.
My heart is full knowing that week after week, we come together to share blessings, peace, light, and connection through Shabbat.
What started with lovely images has blossomed into something precious, as many of you now share glimpses of your personal Shabbat practices. Seeing how Shabbat lives in your homes fills my heart with gratitude and joy.
This has become a cherished tradition—our community coming together again and again. Reading your messages is my favorite way to welcome Shabbat. If I miss responding, please know it’s never intentional—but I’m always with you in spirit on this sacred day 💙
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CW: Albums the Fediverse Loved in 2025 (CW'd because it's a looooooong post)
Albums the Fediverse Loved in 2025
And here we have it: a list of 151 albums (plus a few artists/labels in general) that kept 64 of us going in 2025, nearly 75% of those 2025 releases and the rest earlier gems! Given our collective eclectic tastes, voting/ranking was not attempted, but bolded titles and post tags indicate albums that were submitted by multiple Fedizens. Genre tags are included as tasting notes (apologies if I got any wrong), each title is linked to its Bandcamp/Songlink when possible, and footnotes list who submitted each album along with extra comments they included (warning: comments may include MOAR ALBUMS; also note: footnotes look way better on the blog). So, click and listen away – perhaps you’ll find a new-to-you album that gets you through 2026!
Thanks so much to the Fedizens who joined in, it’s so nice to see familiar faces from the 1001 Other Albums project as well as some new ones! And, as always, it’s lovely to get a glimpse of how diverse our tastes in music are, and to see people trying something new solely based on a random Fedi recommendation. The Fedi music community truly is a bright spot, and I personally am immensely grateful for it. 🙏🏻
Band – Title (year released, place of origin; genre)footnote
Action/Adventure – Ever After (2025, US; pop-punk)1
AFI – Silver Bleeds the Black Sun… (2025, US; post-punk, gothic rock)2
Against Me! – White Crosses (2010, US; punk rock)3
Alkaline Trio – Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs (2024, US; punk rock)4
Am I in Trouble? – Spectrum (2025, US; avant-garde black metal)5
Ami Taf Ra – The Prophet and the Madman (2025, US/Morocco; Moroccan gnawa, gospel, jazz)6
An Abstract Illusion – Woe (2022, Sweden; atmospheric black/death/prog metal)7
Analog Africa (label, in general) (1960s-80s, Africa; reissues)8
Anna Tivel – Animal Poem (2025, US; indie folk)9
Archon Satani – The Righteous Way to Completion (1997, Sweden; death ambient/black industrial)10
Ashbreather – La Grande Bouffe (2025, Canada; progressive sludge/death metal)11
Au4 – …And Down Goes The Sky (2013, Canada; prog rock)12
aya – hexed! (2025, UK; electronic, noise)13
Bad Cop/Bad Cop – Lighten Up (2025, US; punk rock)14
Baghed – Smear Campaign (2025, US; punk rock)15
Bank Myna – Eimuria (2025, France; post-rock/metal, doom gaze, slow core)16
Belle and Sebastian – Push Barman to Open Old Wounds (2005, Scotland; indie pop)17
Benedicte Maurseth – Mirra (2025, Norway; folk, jazz)18
Bill Frisell – Harmony (2019, US; folk-jazz)19
Black Flower – Kinetic (2025, Belgium; Ethio-jazz, Afrobeat, dub)20
Bon Iver – SABLE, fABLE (2025, US; indie folk/pop)21
Brittany Davis – Black Thunder (2025, US; cosmic jazz, r&b/soul, singer-songwriter)22
CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso – Papota (2025, Argentina; experimental trap, hip-hop, EDM, jazz, Latin pop)23
Caroline Shaw / Attacca Quartet – Orange (2019, US; classical, ambient, folk)24
Castle Rat – The Bestiary (2025, US; fantasy heavy metal)25
Causa Sui – Pewt’r Sessions 1 (2011, Denmark; psych/stoner rock)26
Celeste – Woman of Faces (2025, UK; neo-soul, jazz, singer-songwriter)27
Charlie Hunter, Carter McLean featuring Silvana Estrada – s/t (2018, US/Mexico; jazz)28
Circuit des Yeux – Halo on the Inside (2025, US; singer-songwriter, experimental)29
Civic – Chrome Dipped (2025, Australia; punk)30
clipping – Dead Channel Sky (2025, US; hip-hop)31
Dan Mangan – Natural Light (2025, Canada; indie rock/folk)32
Daniela Pas – Spira (2023, Italy; singer-songwriter, electronic, experimental)33
Data Rebel – Single Cell (2025, UK; electronic, IDM, ambient)34
Dax Riggs – 7 Songs for Spiders (2025, US; blues metal/shoegaze blues)35
Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power (2025, US; blackgaze, metal)36
Degraved – Spectral Realm of Ruin (2025, US; death metal)37
Delobos – Cabal (2025, Spain; post-alt rock, post-rock, psychedelia)38
Devil ANTHEM. – Profound Rebuild (2025, Japan; J-pop)39
Die Spitz – Something to Consume (2025, US; punk, alt rock)40
Divide and Dissolve – Insatiable (2025, Australia; doom, drone, neo classical)41
Dödsrit – Mortal Coil (2021, Sweden; atmospheric/melodic black metal, blackened crust)42
Dool – The Shape of Fluidity (2024, Netherlands; rock, alternative)43
downy – 8th Album/Untitled (2025, Japan; math rock/post-rock)44
Drab Majesty – Completely Careless (2012-2015) (2016, US; darkwave, shoegaze, dream pop)45
Dropkick Murphy – For The People (2025, US; Celtic punk)46
Eikichi Yazawa – I believe (2025, Japan; rock)47
El Pino & The Volunteers – The Long-lost Art of Becoming Invisible (2009, Netherlands; alt country/folk)48
Elli De Mon – Raìse (2025, Italy; blues, dialect, garage, psychedelic)49
Eric Church – Evangeline vs. The Machine (2025, US; country)50
Ethmebb – Allo Babar et les Caramboleurs (2025, France; progressive melodic blackened death power metal)51
Ex-Vöid – In Love Again (2025, UK; indie pop/rock)52
EYES – Spinner(2025, Denmark; hardcore, noise rock)53
FACS – Wish Defense (2025, US; noise rock, neo-post-punk)54
Faetooth – Labrynthine (2025, US; fairy doom/stoner metal)55
False Aralia (label) – ALL the new 12-inch singles (2025, US; abstract electronic)56
Fever Ray – The Year of the Radical Romantics (2025, Sweden; experimental, electronic, pop)57
FOKALITE – Fokas, Lite & Four Shooting Riddles (2025, Japan; J-pop)58
Françoise Hardy – La question (1971, France; French pop, Brazilian saudade/bossa nova)59
Fust – Big Ugly (2025, US; rock)60
Geese – Getting Killed (2025, US; art/experimental rock)61
Gnome – King (2022, Belgium; stoner/prog/hard rock)62
Habak – Mil orquídeas en medio del desierto (2025, Mexico; melodic crust)63
Hallelujah the Hills – DECK (2025, US; indie rock)64
HANABIE – Bucchigiri Tokyo (2024, Japan; metalcore)65
Hatchie – Liquorice (2025, Australia; indie/dream pop)66
Hole – Live Through This (1994, US; alt rock)67
IAN – Come On Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing! (2025, UK; experimental, post-rock/metal)68
Igorrr – Amen (2025, France; experimental/avant-garde metal)69
Imperial Triumphant – Goldstar (2025, US; experimental metal)70
In the Womb of the Universe – Searching for Sunrise (2024, US; electronic, synthpop)71
In the Woods… – Otra (2025, Norway; avant-garde metal)72
Insomnium – Shadows of the Dying Sun (2014, Finland; melodic death metal)73
Jade Bird – Who Wants to Talk About Love (2025, UK; folk rock, singer-songwriter)74
JER – Death of the Heart (2025, US; ska punk)75
Jethro Tull – Thick as a Brick (1972, UK; prog rock)76
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield (2024, UK; heavy metal)77
Just Mustard – We Were Just Here (2025, Ireland; post-punk, noise, shoegaze, trip hop)78
Kaku P-Model – unZIP (2025, Japan; experimental, electronic)79
Kieran Hebden and William Tyler – 41 Longfield Street Late ‘80s (2025, UK; electronic)80
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Float Along – Fill Your Lungs (2013, Australia; psychedelic pop)81
Kostnatění – Přílišnost (2025, US; avant-garde black metal)82
Küenring – In Search of Paradise (2025, Austria; heavy metal/hard rock)83
L.A. Salami (artist, in general) (UK; folk, post-modern blues, acoustic, rock)84
Labyrinthus Stellarum – Rift in Reality (2025, Ukraine; atmospheric/cosmic black metal)85
Lorien Testard – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Original Soundtrack) (2025, France; soundtrack)86
Lorna Shore – I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me (2025, US; death metal/deathcore)87
Lucy Dacus – Forever is a Feeling (2025, US; indie rock, folk-pop, singer-songwriter)88
Maeror Tri – Multiple Personality Disorder (1993, Germany; ambient, noise, drone)89
Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force – Khadim (2025, Germany/Senegal; mbalax, experimental, dub techno)90
Marshall Allen – New Dawn (2025, US; avant-garde jazz)91
Max Cooper – On Being (2025, UK; electronic, ambient, avant-garde)92
Messa – The Spin (2025, Italy; doom metal)93
Michel Legrand – The Essential Michel Legrand Film Music Collection (2005, France; soundtrack, compilation)94
MIKE – Showbiz! (2025, US; hip-hop/rap)95
Miynt – Rain Money Dogs (2025, Sweden; indie/bedroom rock)96
Modern English – Mesh & Lace (1981, UK; post-punk)97
Momma – Welcome to My Blue Sky (2025, US; alt/indie rock)98
more eaze & claire rousay – no floor (2025, US; experimental, ambient, avant-pop, sound collage)99
Moron Police – Pachinko (2025, Norway; concept album)100
Morris Kolontyrsky – Origination (2025, US; ambient, drone, experimental)101
Nærværet – Når Man Ser Inn I En Annens Hjerte (2024, Sweden/Norway; experimental, field recording, tape manipulation/loops)102
Nailed to Obscurity – Generation of The Void (2025, Germany; melodic/prog death/doom metal)103
Nicolas Gombert & James Weeks / Apartment House – G O M B E R T (2025, Flanders/UK; contemporary classical)104
Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman – Lady of the Lake (2023, US; folk)105
Nout – Live Album (2024, France; alternative, punk, rock, jazz, noise)106
Olga Anna Markowska – Iskra (2025, Poland; modern classical, ambient)107
Ozzy Osbourne – Ozzmosis (1995, UK; heavy metal)108
Pino Palladino & Blake Mills – That Wasn’t a Dream (2025, Wales/US; experimental jazz)109
Point Mort – Le Point de Non-retour (2025, France; blackened crust postcore)110
Plague of Carcosa – In The Dreamless Deep (2025, US; doomnoise, experimental metal)111
Population II – Maintenant Jamais (2025, Canada; art/prog/psychedelic rock)112
Primal Scream – XTRMNTR (2000, Scotland; experimental electro-rock)113
Priscilla Block – Things You Didn’t See (2025, US; country, singer-songwriter)114
Psychonaut – World Maker (2025, Belgium; post-metal)115
Queens of the Stone Age – Alive in the Catacombs (2025, US; rock)116
Radiopuhelimet – Kosminen Tiedottomuus (2020, Finland; alt rock)117
Rebecca Foon & Aliayta Foon-Dancoes – Reverie (2025, Canada; modern classical)118
Rivers of Nihil – s/t (2025, US; death/prog metal)119
Rogue Jones – Dos Bebés (2023, Wales; folk, indie pop)120
Shayfer James – Summoning (2025, US; noir-pop, dark cabaret)121
Shedfromthebody – Whisper and Wane (2025, Finland; doomgaze, [post-]metal)122
Shepherds of Cassini – In Thrall to Heresy (2025, New Zealand; prog metal)123
Silvana Estrada – Vendrán Suaves Lluvias (2025, Mexico; singer-songwriter)124
Silvana Estrada (with Charlie Hunter) – Lo Sagrado (2017, Mexico/US; singer-songwriter)125
Širom – In the Wind of Night, Hard-Fallen Incantations Whisper (2025, Slovenia; instrumental avant-garde imaginary folk)126
SKC & The Poem – s/t (2025, Belgium; alt/folk rock)127
SKLOSS – The Pattern Speaks (2025, US/Scotland; space gaze, post-metal)128
Soulwax – All Systems Are Lying (2025, Belgium; electronic alt rock)129
Spiritbox – Tsunami Sea (2025, Canada; metalcore)130
State Azure – The Light That Remains (2025, UK; electronica, ambient, downtempo)131
Stereolab – Switched On Volumes 1-5 (2024, UK/France; avant-pop)132
Steve Tibbetts – Close (2025, US; jazz fusion)133
Stick To Your Guns – Keep Planting Flowers (2025, US; hardcore)134
Suede – Antidepressants (2025, UK; post-punk, gothic rock)135
Summer Walker – Finally Over It (2025, US; R&B, singer-songwriter)136
Susan Bear – Algorithmic Mood Music (2024, Scotland; electronic, alt-pop)137
Swansea Sound – Twentieth Century (2023, Wales; indie pop)138
TDJ (artist, in general) (Canada; electronic)139
Terveet Kädet – Lapin Helvetti (2015, Finland; hardcore punk)140
Tool – Lateralus (2001, US; prog rock/metal, art rock)141
The Bug Club – “Have U Ever Been 2 Wales” (2025, Wales; indie rock)142
The New Eves – The New Eve Is Rising (2025, UK; avant-garde/art rock)143
Trio del Mango – Cómelo (2025, US/Puerto Rico; experimental, noise)144
Turnstile – Never Enough (2025, US; alt rock)145
UNIVERSITY – McCartney, It’ll Be OK (2025, UK; punk, noise rock)146
Water Damage – Instruments (2025, US; experimental psych/drone-rock)147
Weakened Friends – Feels Like Hell (2025, US; indie rock)148
Weirs – Diamond Grove (2025, US; trad folk, experimental noise)149
Wet Leg – moisturizer (2025, UK; indie rock)150
White Lies – Five V2 (2019, UK; post-punk)151
X-Cetra – Summer 2000 (Y2K 25th Anniversary Edition) (2025, US; sleepover core, dance-pop)152
Yara Asmar – everyone I love is sleeping and I love them so so much (2025, Lebanon; modern classical/ambient)153
Yugen Blakrok – Anima Mysterium (2019, South Africa; hip-hop)154
Yws Gwynedd – Codi/ \Cysgu (2014, Wales; indie rock)155
Footnote Number. Fediverse username(s): Comments
- poisonous ↩︎
- buffyleigh: My emotional support album of the year. I’ve been a fan of AFI since 2000 but haven’t liked an album since 2006. The second I heard the first single “Behind The Clock”, my expectations for this album skyrocketed, and they were absolutely exceeded. It sounds nothing like anything they’ve ever done, and yet it feels like this was the album they’ve always been moving towards. Song of the year goes to the entirety of side A, and Davey Havok’s unexpectedly different sound on this album is my overall favourite vocal performance of year. ↩︎
- Braininabowl ↩︎
- umrk: top album requested by my kids in the car this year ↩︎
- brh ↩︎
- RolloTreadway: The most gloriously unhinged album I’ve heard this year. Twists together ideas from everywhere without the slightest consideration of whether doing so might be normal or accepted. The kind of album where a classic French chanson or some deep filthy funk just appears out of nowhere and then is never referred to again. It shouldn’t work but it absolutely does. ↩︎
- gavin57: That last one is an all-timer. It’s astonishing. ↩︎
- platenworm ↩︎
- rachelcholst ↩︎
- 3rik: This has been a year for nighttime music and music for trying to sleep. ↩︎
- swampgas: definitely my most played this year. A sludgy, deathdoom concept album about greed and gluttony and corruption thats riffy and groovy af. These are driving rhythms that chug hard! ↩︎
- MichaelMcWilliams: The one album that tops my list this year also appears in the 1001 Other Albums list. Band website offering free download of the album: https://au4.ca ↩︎
- brh ↩︎
- poisonous ↩︎
- jake4480 ↩︎
- mbr ↩︎
- riff: Most “Wait why did i never listen to this band before ?” of the year. ↩︎
- keefeglise ↩︎
- eamonn ↩︎
- _slotek_ ↩︎
- onuryasar: My kind of, very balanced Indie Pop: just the right amount of Indie but not too much and just the right amount of Pop but not too much 🙂 ↩︎
- icastico ↩︎
- santialone ↩︎
- eamonn ↩︎
- burnitdown || MetalheadDana ↩︎
- cloudtripper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_e5kKzlFqU&list=RD8_e5kKzlFqU&start_radio=1 ↩︎
- nevar23 ↩︎
- debonaire: Recency bias is pushing me to three Silvana Estrada albums. I love her voice, I love the music, I love her with Charlie Hunter. ↩︎
- otherdog ↩︎
- fistfulofdave: Aussie punk in the vein of The Saints and Radio Birdman. ↩︎
- rothko ↩︎
- Chigaze: what happens when four guys to go a cottage in Ontario, find a flow state, and record an album over a few days. I got to see them play the album through at the Winspear in Edmonton and it’s way up there on my concert experience list. ↩︎
- evilchili: The Italian singer and composer’s debut is a hypnotic journey of loops, bloops, and dramatic and impassioned vocalizations. ↩︎
- nellie_m ↩︎
- fistfulofdave: Blues metal? Shoegaze blues? I don’t know or care, I like it. ↩︎
- tym || niels ↩︎
- jake4480 ↩︎
- santialone ↩︎
- Kingu ↩︎
- tym || demon6 ↩︎
- otherdog ↩︎
- MetalheadDana: I listened to this album when it first came out in 2021 but for some reason it didn’t click with me. But apparently 2021 Dana had horrible taste in music, because in early 2025 I randomly tried Dodsrit – Mortal Coil again and fell in love and have been obsessed with it all year, it’s the perfect blend of crust punk and black metal and I love it. ↩︎
- TG_Esq ↩︎
- rustynail ↩︎
- alicemcalicepants ↩︎
- Chigaze: nails it just as a solid Dropkick’s album but goes farther with songs made for the times. “Who’ll Stand With Us” and “School Days Over” are amazing workers songs while “Chesterfields and Aftershave” takes me back to my own grandfather. ↩︎
- thesinkingbelle ↩︎
- Braininabowl ↩︎
- riff: Most listened this year. ↩︎
- Mark52 ↩︎
- Moss ↩︎
- e (eva) ↩︎
- steveroyle: Leaving out Never Enough by Turnstile as I’m sure that’ll get plenty of votes. ↩︎
- fistfulofdave: Angular, noise rock, neo-post punk. Unsettling, laid-back, yet aggressive. And yes it was the last album Steve Albini recorded. ↩︎
- MetalheadDana || demon6 ↩︎
- soundclamp: Runner-ups – https://lineimprint.bandcamp.com/album/muzak-for-the-encouragement-of-unproductivity; https://myheartaninvertedflame.bandcamp.com/album/my-heart-an-inverted-flame-apparitions-split; https://timbarnes.bandcamp.com/album/lost-words-1 ↩︎
- buffyleigh: I’ve known of Fever Ray since first seeing the TV show Vikings, but I for some reason didn’t check them out further until this year, when their s/t album came up for a blog post. I was floored. As it happens, their kinda sorta live album was set to come out soon after my first listen of the s/t, so I got caught up on the full Karin Dreijer discography, got super duper obsessed with their spectacular ARTE concert (which is essentially the same versions performed on the new album), and proceeded to be immensely inspired – nay, awakened – by this artist. ↩︎
- Kingu ↩︎
- onuryasar: I’ve first discovered the song Apocalypse by Cigarettes After Sex (I know, late comer), which brought me to Greg Gonzalez’s Wikipedia page, that says “Gonzalez was heavily inspired by French singer Françoise Hardy and her album La question”. I remember this album being mentioned in my Fedi timeline recently, so I gave it a spin and it turned on and on for the remainder of the year. [Editor’s note: Also see the 1001 OA spotlight on this album from earlier this year!] ↩︎
- rachelcholst ↩︎
- mynameistillian ↩︎
- burnitdown ↩︎
- demon6 ↩︎
- donutage: I was a bit skeptical of this, and sure, in a 52-song project there’s some unevenness, but between the sheer audacity of the attempt & the frequent successes it scores, definitely one of the more remarkable records of the year. ↩︎
- Tak ↩︎
- e (eva) ↩︎
- Lizahadiz ↩︎
- mbr ↩︎
- brh ↩︎
- umrk: my fav album released in 2025 ↩︎
- superflippy ↩︎
- raisedfist ↩︎
- gavin57 ↩︎
- Mark52: Jade Bird has been by far my most listened to album this year. ↩︎
- poisonous ↩︎
- derthomas: I kept coming back to this album because it just fits every mood. It’s peak Jethro Tull if you ask me, it’s perfect in any way. Also the Steven Wilson Remaster sounds incredible. ↩︎
- burnitdown ↩︎
- jebeyer: a longer list is here – https://www.buymusic.club/list/whistlingkitty-some-of-my-favorite-2025-releases ↩︎
- thesinkingbelle: honorable mentions – Scare – In The End, Was It Worth It; Creatvre – Toujours Humain ; Guck – Gucked Up ; AVTT/PTTN – AVTT/PTTN; Saor – Amidst the Ruins ; Jessica93 – 666 tours de periph’ ; Deadguy – Near-Death Travel Services; LS Dunes – Violet; Aesop Rock – I Heard It’s A Mess There Too ; Fishbone – Stockholm Syndrome ; Dead Pioneers – Po$t American ; Ethereal Wound – Defile | Demise; Sci Fi Industries – Initial States ↩︎
- soundclamp ↩︎
- cloudtripper ↩︎
- rustynail ↩︎
- derthomas: My AOTY from a very underground Heavy Metal band from Austria. ↩︎
- platenworm ↩︎
- raisedfist ↩︎
- thesinkingbelle ↩︎
- t4s: Honorable mentions – The Halo Effect, Machine Head, Heaven Shall Burn, Spiritbox, Jinjer, Allegaeon ↩︎
- rachelcholst ↩︎
- 3rik ↩︎
- Wintergr33n: Percussion-driven music from Senegal on a self-released album: https://ra.co/news/82509. ↩︎
- platenworm: 5 things that ruled my world musically this year:
– The Analog Africa Label
– The Artist L.A. Salami
– The knowledge that you can have too much music
– The knowledge that you can make your solo debut album when you are 100 years old……Hail Hail Marshall Allen
– And that everybody loved Ozzy ↩︎ - nellie_m: The music project that somehow touched me most deeply was the result of two years of work by Max Cooper. „Powerful works of art have traditionally sprung from some source deep within an artist and, if they strike the right tone, resonate with an audience to leave a lasting mark. But what if that equation were reversed: what if an artist were to draw their inspiration from deep within their audience, and use that to reflect those ideas, emotions, hopes, fears, pains and aspirations back to us?…“ ↩︎
- niels || TG_Esq || sentynel || otherdog || umrk ↩︎
- eamonn ↩︎
- jake4480 ↩︎
- steveroyle ↩︎
- alicemcalicepants ↩︎
- BramMeehan ↩︎
- avi_miller: All three fall into the more ambient realm, and they all are absolutely phenomenal. I love music that is based more around textures and creating a mood than creating a melody, and this year had some really good ones. ↩︎
- niels ↩︎
- TG_Esq ↩︎
- 3rik ↩︎
- raisedfist ↩︎
- keefeglise: Compositions by Nicholas Gombert and James Weeks. Performed by Apartment House. Flanders/UK. Contemporary Classical (Debatable! Gombert died in 1560.) ↩︎
- evilchili: Two hipster kids from Brooklyn play 100 year old Appalachian folk tunes and make them come alive. Honest, reverential, and true. ↩︎
- riff: “Instantly burned in my brain” this year (well, it was actually their KEXP session from april that blew my mind, but since i have to submit an album, it’ll do nicely 🙂 ). ↩︎
- avi_miller ↩︎
- derthomas: I discovered this album this year on a metal journey (yeah, late to the party) and I loved it. It’s my favourite Ozzy album. ↩︎
- _slotek_ ↩︎
- mbr ↩︎
- tym: Oh and not a brand new release, but the remaster and new tracks for the 20th anniversary reissue of ‘Takk…’ by Sigur Rós are pretty great. That and ( ) are still what I listen to the most, this year and apparently every year. ↩︎
- Kingu ↩︎
- epu: I had all but forgotten party drug enthusiasm tracks like ‘higher than the sun’ from 1991, and it turns out they made so many albums since I last tuned in. This one really resonates with my reaction to USpol this year. It rekindled my love for this band; I bought Evil Heat import on CD, my first physical purchase since last year. ↩︎
- Mark52 ↩︎
- sentynel ↩︎
- Braininabowl ↩︎
- jiiruu ↩︎
- avi_miller ↩︎
- jiiruu || t4s || gavin57 ↩︎
- Steffi ↩︎
- superflippy ↩︎
- rustynail: most played ↩︎
- sentynel ↩︎
- debonaire ↩︎
- debonaire ↩︎
- TwoClownsEating: I discovered this band in 2025. Absolutely incredible, I’ve bought their entire catalogue and had the privilege to see them live a few months ago. Unbelievably good musicians. Magical music. ↩︎
- jomel: 2025 was a great year for Belgian music. Stef Kamil Carlens, co-founder of dEUS has released a gem with his new band The Poem. I have seen SKC twice this year, once in a solo gig, and the second time (in less then 2 weeks) for the “worst Case scenario” rewind from (and so with) dEUS, those two concerts were fabulous, and at the time, I wasn’t expecting this release.
Bonus Albums: The live album from Depeche Mode – Memento Mori: Mexico City; Arvo Pârt – Credo (released Alpha Classics label) which includes his “hits” – Credo , Fratres , Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten (my favourite one) https://outhere-music.com/en/albums/arvo-part-credo; 2025 Bryan Ferry release, with Amelia Barrat as female lead singer/speaker. Some of his material came from the 70’s and were updated, it’s a timeless album, and elegant as always https://soundcloud.com/bryanferry/sets/loose-talk-4 ↩︎ - jebeyer ↩︎
- jomel: (AKA 2manydj’s) Yep, those guys will make you dance, and rock, I guess they’ve listened to Kraftwerk & Front242. ↩︎
- Tak ↩︎
- nellie_m ↩︎
- cloudtripper ↩︎
- _slotek_ ↩︎
- t4s ↩︎
- Lizahadiz ↩︎
- slamma ↩︎
- e (eva): algorithmic mood music was my fav last year! but i’m still listening to it and i didn’t submit anything then. ↩︎
- Steffi ↩︎
- BramMeehan: I’ve listened to so much TDJ, though no one release in particular. ↩︎
- jiiruu ↩︎
- buffyleigh: There’s so many other albums I’d love to list here for exposure, but it feels more honest to list this masterpiece, my first obsession of the year, courtesy of catching their amazing set at the big Black Sabbath/Ozzy send-off concert. I mean, I even titled my AOTY list “Forty Six & 2”, since that was the first song Tool played there and got my attention. Said list is here. ↩︎
- epu: Ok, this one’s kind of a cheat, it’s an EP.
2024, my friend turned me on to Bug Club for its lo-fi production aesthetic, humor and infectious fun/dark undertones. Marriage from 2023 album ‘Rare Birds: Hour of Song’ was the hook.
You can get this band straight into your heart and mind with this EP. And it takes me back to that one time I did go to Wales. ↩︎ - jomel: This newcomer British female band has written the ultimate feminist anthem as opening track. || RolloTreadway: I don’t tend to be very much of a rock person, so for a big brash rock record to have such an impact on me must say something. It’s noisy and it’s loud and it has guitars and drums and punkiness. And, er, flutes. Harmonicas. Cellos. Weird interpretations of bible stories. All chaos and absurdity and celebration and being absolutely done with the patriarchy and above all else fun. So much fun. ↩︎
- soundclamp ↩︎
- santialone ↩︎
- steveroyle ↩︎
- jebeyer ↩︎
- donutage: far & away my number 1; an angry & desperate neo-grunge banger. Sonia Sturino is a force of nature. ↩︎
- RolloTreadway: In parts weird and experimental, in others traditional. Here there’s strange droney noise, and then there’s some light, old-fashioned fiddle playing. Electronic distortion, a choir recorded live outdoors singing a simple hymn. It’s an astonishingly creative and unique folk record. ↩︎
- donutage: not as jaw-dropping as their debut (my runaway 2022 fave), but with a lot of the same qualities. It’s dancy, smart, & sexy, without ever once being submissive. || slamma ↩︎
- alicemcalicepants ↩︎
- slamma ↩︎
- keefeglise ↩︎
- evilchili: Afro-futurist South African Hip-Hop Mysticism. Blakrok instantly became my favourite female MC. ↩︎
- Steffi ↩︎
#AOTY #AOTY2025 #CastleRat #Deafheaven #DieSpitz #Faetooth #ListenToThis #Messa #music #musicDiscovery #RiversOfNihil #TheNewEves #WetLeg
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I’ve Spent My Whole Life Refusing to Break, and It’s Slowly Breaking Everything I Love
8,993 words, 48 minutes read time.
They call me “the rock” at work.
At first, I thought it was a joke. Some intern started it during a brutal deadline last year. Half our team was losing it, one guy had a full-on meltdown in the stairwell, and I just… didn’t. I stayed late, knocked out my part, kept my voice even, answered questions, didn’t yell. Next day in standup, the intern goes, “Ask the rock, he never cracks,” and everyone laughed.
But it stuck.
Now my manager calls me that. “Put it on Matt’s plate, he’s a rock.” People say it like a compliment. Like it’s this badge of honor, being the guy who doesn’t flinch, doesn’t cry, doesn’t panic.
I pretended I didn’t like it. “C’mon, I’m just doing my job.” But I liked it. A lot. It felt like proof I’d finally escaped where I came from.
Growing up, the only thing worse than being poor in our neighborhood was being soft. I remember one time, I was probably eight or nine, playing basketball in the driveway, and I tripped. Scraped my knee so bad the skin just peeled back. I started crying, like loud ugly kid-crying—snot, hiccups, the works.
My dad walked out, looked at me, then at my knee, then back at me.
“You done?” he said.
“It hurts,” I blubbered.
He shook his head. “It’s a scrape, not a bullet. Stop crying, be a man.”
He went back inside. That phrase seared itself into my brain: Stop crying, be a man. I stopped crying. Not just that day. In general.
Whole life since then has been me trying to prove I listened.
So yeah, “the rock” fits.
What nobody at the office knows is I had to lock myself in a stall in the men’s room last week because my heart was racing so hard I thought I might pass out. I sat on the toilet lid, head in my hands, breathing like a woman in labor, trying not to make a sound because God forbid someone hears me having a panic attack.
Rocks don’t hyperventilate in bathroom stalls.
But that’s kind of my thing: feel something, shove it down, slap a lid on it, move on. I’m a professional at it now.
Church people call it “being strong.” Clinical people call it “emotional repression.” I just call it survival.
My wife, Emily, calls it “shutting down.” She says it calmly, like she’s reading a weather report, but her eyes get that glossy look that tells me I’m supposed to say something deep right there. I never do. I go for safe. Joke. Change the subject. Or pull the nuclear option: “I’m just tired, can we not do this right now?”
Which is basically our marriage in twelve words.
We’ve been married nine years. We have a seven-year-old daughter, Lily, who looks exactly like Emily except with my eyebrows, which feels unfair to her, but whatever. We met in college at some Christian campus thing I only went to because there were free burritos. She saw through most of my crap from day one, which I think is why I married her and also why I can’t stand her sometimes.
She’s a feeler. Like, professionally. She does counseling with teens at a nonprofit. She comes home wrecked from some kid’s story and wants to sit on the couch and process it for an hour. She cries at TV commercials. She said “I feel” more in the first month I knew her than my dad probably has in his entire life.
First time she cried in front of me, I freaked out internally. Panic, sirens, red lights. Externally, I was smooth. I put my arm around her, said all the right words. I didn’t know what I was doing, but she looked at me like I’d just parted the Red Sea. “I feel safe with you,” she said.
I should’ve told her then: “I don’t do feelings. I just do rescue.” But I liked being the safe guy. The rock.
Now, nine years in, that “safe” guy has turned into something else. A wall. A locked door. A black hole.
She sits at our kitchen table some Tuesday night, wine glass in hand, staring at me over a half-eaten plate of chicken and rice.
“You’re not here,” she says. “I mean, you’re physically here, but you’re not here.”
“I’m literally sitting right in front of you,” I say, stabbing a piece of chicken. “What do you want, a hologram?”
She doesn’t laugh. “Matt, I’m serious. I don’t know what you’re feeling. Ever. I don’t know when you’re scared. Or angry. Or sad. I can’t read you anymore. It’s like there’s this glass wall. I can see you, but I can’t reach you.”
I chew slowly to give myself time. Classic tactic. Delay, defuse, divert.
“I’m just tired,” I say. “Work’s a lot. Dad’s situation’s a lot. This is just… a season.”
Her jaw tightens at the word “season.” She hates Christian clichés, and I use them like shields.
“You said that last year,” she says. “And the year before. ‘It’s just a season.’ When does this season end, Matt? When you burn out? When we’re divorced? When Lily’s grown and doesn’t even bother to call you?”
“Wow,” I say, forcing a laugh. “Okay, that escalated.”
That’s another move: if I make her feel dramatic, I get to feel sane.
She takes a breath, looks down at the table. “I’m asking you to let me in,” she says, softer. “Talk to me. Tell me when you’re drowning instead of pretending you’re fine. You don’t have to be the rock, Matt. Not with me.”
There’s this moment where I actually feel it—the opening, the offer. Like a crack in the armor. I could tell her about the bathroom stall. About how sometimes at two in the morning my heart’s pounding like I’m on mile ten of a run and I can’t sleep, so I scroll my phone until my eyes burn. About the weird chest tightness that makes me think of my dad in the hospital, tubes and machines and beeping, and how I’m still that kid in the driveway trying not to cry.
I even start to say it. “Sometimes at work I—”
The words get stuck in my throat. There’s this primal shame that hits like a wave. If I say it out loud, it’s real. If she hears it, she’ll see I’m not a rock. I’m a scared dude in a grown man’s clothes with a half-charged iPhone and a Bible app he barely opens.
I clear my throat. “Sometimes at work I just need to, like, zone out, you know? Nothing crazy. I just power through.”
She watches me. She knows I pulled up right before the truth. I can see it in her eyes, that flash of disappointment before she buries it. She nods like she’s trying to accept the crumbs.
“Maybe we should go to counseling,” she says.
And there it is. The one word I refuse to let into my story.
“We’re not that bad,” I say, way too fast. “Counseling’s for people who are… like… actually falling apart. We’re just in a stressful patch. Money’s tight, work’s nuts, your job is heavy, my dad almost died. We don’t need to pay someone a hundred and fifty bucks an hour to tell us what we already know.”
“That’s not what counseling is,” she says.
I shrug. “You’re a counselor, obviously you’re pro-counseling. But I—what would I even say? ‘Hi, I’m Matt, things are fine, my wife just wants me to cry more’?”
She closes her eyes like my words physically hurt. “This isn’t about crying,” she says. “This is about you. Letting. Me. See. You.”
“I married you, didn’t I?” I say. “You see me. This is me.”
That’s the line I always throw out when I want to shut the conversation down—“This is just who I am.” It sounds like honesty, like self-awareness, but really it’s defense. A way of saying, “I’m not changing.”
She stares at me for a long time. Then she gets up, takes her plate to the sink without another word.
I tell myself she’s being emotional. That she’ll calm down. That it’s not that bad. That I’m not that bad.
That night, after she goes to bed, I sit on the couch with my laptop. I tell myself I’m going to do a little work, get ahead of tomorrow. Ten minutes in, I’m already opening a second browser window.
It’s funny how my brain knows the path without thinking. A couple keystrokes, a few clicks, and there it is: curated, pixel-perfect nakedness. I scroll, numb. That’s really what it is. Not lust so much as anesthesia. My own private pharmacy.
I justify it. I’m not sleeping with anyone else. I’m not on Tinder. I’m not at a bar hitting on girls who call me “sir.” This is safe. It’s victimless. It’s just… stress relief. And if I ever tried to talk to Emily about how I actually feel, I’d probably scare her. This way, I take care of it myself.
Self-sufficiency, right? That’s what being a man is. Handle your own crap.
I close the laptop an hour later feeling gross, but the guilt is dull. Familiar. Easy to ignore. I tiptoe into the bedroom. She’s already turned away from my side, curled in a C-shape near the edge. I slide into bed, careful not to touch her too much, in case she wants space. Or in case she doesn’t, because if she turns toward me, I might have to be present.
In the dark, my phone buzzes on the nightstand. I check it. It’s Marcus.
You good, man?
Marcus is my one semi-real friend from church. Taller than me, quieter. Used to be a cop, now does security at a hospital. He’s the kind of guy who actually listens when you talk. Like, fully. It’s unnerving.
He’s the only one who’s ever looked me in the eye and asked, “How’s your heart?” without smirking. I laughed when he said it the first time. “Bro, what are we, in a Nicholas Sparks movie?” He smiled, but he didn’t take it back.
I stare at his text for a second. My thumb hovers over the keyboard.
I’m fine, just tired, I type.
I delete “just tired.” It sounds weak. I send: I’m good. Busy with work. You?
The truth would be: I’m not sleeping, my wife wants to send me to counseling like I’m broken, I spent an hour watching porn to avoid feeling anything, and my chest hurts more days than not. Also sometimes I want to just drive until I run out of gas and start over somewhere no one knows I’m supposed to be “the rock.”
He replies: Same. Let’s grab lunch this week. Been thinking about you.
Cool, I send. Let me know when.
I set my phone down and roll onto my back, staring at the ceiling in the dark. Some random verse I half-remember from a sermon floats through my brain: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.”
I snort quietly. I’m not brokenhearted. I’m just busy.
Work does not care about your feelings. My manager, Jeff, cares about deliverables and client satisfaction scores and how many hours the team can bill without triggering HR. There’s a massive software deployment next month. If we nail it, it’s big for the company. If we blow it, we lose a multi-million-dollar client. No pressure.
We shuffle into the conference room for yet another war room meeting. Screens everywhere, coffee cups, people with that glazed “I’ve been on Zoom for 12 hours” look in their eyes.
Jeff slaps my back. “How’s my rock?” he says, grinning.
“Ready to roll,” I say.
“Good, because if this thing slips again, I’m gonna have to start sacrificing junior devs to the client gods.”
Everyone laughs. I do too, even as that familiar tightness creeps into my chest. I tell myself it’s just caffeine. I’ve had three coffees and a Red Bull. Anyone’s heart would pound.
Halfway through the meeting, someone mentions layoffs. Not directly, but hints. “If this doesn’t go well, upper management’s gonna be asking hard questions.” Translation: people will get cut. People like me. People like the guy who had a meltdown in the stairwell last year and mysteriously “transitioned to new opportunities” two months later.
Rocks don’t get laid off. Weak links do. If I crack, I’m a liability.
My phone buzzes. It’s a text from my mom: Dad had another episode. Doctors want to run more tests. Can you come by tonight?
I swallow, staring at the message.
You okay? Jeff says, noticing my face.
“Yeah,” I say quickly. “Family stuff. I’m good.”
I tuck it away. Mental note: hospital. Later. After being the rock at work, I get to be the rock for my mom. Then maybe, if I have any energy left, I’ll toss Emily a pebble and call it connection.
During a break, I slip into the men’s room. I splash water on my face. As I look up, my reflection stares back at me. Thirty-six, a little more gray at the temples than I’d like, dark circles under my eyes. But my expression is neutral. Controlled. Rock-solid. You’d never know that inside, there’s this constant hum of static.
My chest tightens again. The room tilts for a second. I grab the edge of the sink.
Not now. Not here.
I duck into a stall before anyone walks in, sit on the lid, elbows on my knees, hands over my face. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. I count my breaths. I feel ridiculous, a grown man hiding in a toilet cubicle trying not to pass out.
Somewhere behind the stall door I hear my dad’s voice: Stop crying, be a man.
“I’m not crying,” I mutter. “I’m breathing.”
Same thing, really. Trying to keep the dam from breaking.
I think, briefly, of all the verses I’ve heard about not being afraid. “Do not be anxious about anything.” “Fear not.” “The Lord is my rock.” It’s funny how I’ve basically replaced God with my own chest. My own calm face. Like, I’m my own Lord and rock. That’s not how I’d say it out loud, but that’s how I live.
After work, I swing by the hospital. Dad’s sitting up in bed, watching some game show with the sound off, wires stuck to his chest. Mom’s in the chair by the window, hands folded, Bible open but unread on her lap.
“Hey,” I say, stepping in. “How’s the party?”
Dad grunts. “Food sucks.”
“That’s how you know it’s a real hospital,” I say. “If they start serving steak, you should worry.”
He smirks. Mom gives me a tired smile. I do the thing I always do in hard rooms: crack jokes, keep it light, distract from the elephant.
“How you feeling?” I ask, even though I can read the chart as well as he can.
“Old,” he says. “Doctors say it’s not as bad as last time. Just gotta ‘take it easy.’ Whatever that means.”
“You gonna listen?” I ask.
He snorts. We both know he won’t. Men in my family don’t “take it easy.” We work until something breaks, then we duct tape it and keep going.
Mom looks at me like she wants to say something spiritual. She’s the only one in our family who does feelings out loud, but years married to my dad trained her to make them small.
“Been praying Psalm 34,” she says softly. “You know that one, honey? ‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.’”
She says it like it’s comfort, a warm blanket. I hear it like an accusation. Brokenhearted? Crushed? That’s not allowed. Not for men like us. We’re not brokenhearted, we’re just… busy. Tired. Overworked. Slightly malfunctioning machines.
“I like the one about ‘those who don’t work don’t eat,’” Dad says. “Keeps you honest.”
I laugh, grateful for the deflection.
Mom sighs. “Your father,” she says, half-affection, half-frustration.
On the drive home, the verse keeps replaying in my head. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.” If that’s true, then what does that mean for me? Because most days, God feels about as close as the moon. Beautiful, in theory. Useless, in practice.
Maybe the problem is I’m not brokenhearted enough. Or maybe that’s just another way to blame myself for something I don’t understand.
Thursday night is men’s group. I go mostly because it looks good. A married Christian dad who skips men’s group raises eyebrows. A married Christian dad who shows up, brings chips, cracks jokes, and nods thoughtfully during prayer requests gets approved.
We meet in the church basement, twelve guys in folding chairs in a sad circle under fluorescent lights that make everyone look tired and slightly dead. There’s the usual spread: chips, store-brand cookies, a veggie tray no one touches, and a big pot of coffee because apparently we’re all eighty.
Our leader, Dan, is a big guy with a beard that makes him look like a gentle lumberjack. He opens in prayer, then reads a short passage.
“Tonight,” he says, “I thought we’d just… be honest. No study guide. No video. Just us, talking about what’s real.”
That sentence alone makes my skin itch.
He reads Psalm 34:18. Of course. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
I feel it in my chest, right where the anxiety sits. The words are like a hand hovering over a bruise.
Dan looks around. “Who here would say they feel brokenhearted right now?” he asks. “Crushed in spirit? Not in theory. Right now.”
One guy laughs nervously. A couple shift in their chairs. I take a sip of coffee to buy time. No way I’m raising my hand. Brokenhearted is for widowers and addicts and cancer patients. Not white-collar project managers with upgraded iPhones and a leased SUV.
To my left, Jason clears his throat. He’s usually one of the louder guys, all stories about sports and his glory days playing college ball. Tonight, he looks smaller.
“I, uh…” He stares at the floor. His voice cracks. “My wife left last month. Took the kids. I haven’t told anyone ’cause… I’m embarrassed, I guess. I feel like I failed. I’ve been using porn for years. Said I’d stop a hundred times. Didn’t. She found stuff on my phone and just… had enough.”
The room goes quiet. My stomach twists. I keep my face still.
He keeps talking, words spilling now. “I always thought I had it under control, you know? Like, it was my thing. My stress relief. Better than cheating. That’s what I told myself. But she said it was cheating. She said I was choosing pixels over her. I don’t even… I don’t know how to live in my own skin right now. I feel… crushed. I don’t know how else to say it.”
Tears slide down his face. Full-grown man, shoulders shaking, crying in a church basement under bad lighting. Every alarm in my body goes off. Run. Joke. Change the subject.
Instead, something weird happens. Dan gets up, walks over, puts a hand on his shoulder. Another guy kneels and starts praying softly, nothing fancy, just, “God, be close. Help him.” No one mocks. No one rolls their eyes. A couple other guys are wiping their faces too.
I feel this pressure rising in my throat. It scares me more than any panic attack.
This could be you, a voice in my head whispers. You could talk. You could tell them about the stall, the late nights, the way your wife looks at you like a stranger. You could say you’re not okay. You could stop playing the rock.
I picture it for a second. Me, opening my mouth, saying, “Guys, I’m not fine. I’m addicted to being okay. And to porn. And to people thinking I have it together. My wife wants to leave and it’s mostly my fault.” I imagine their faces, their hands on my shoulder, the prayers. I imagine God feeling near instead of abstract.
My heart starts hammering. My palms sweat. My knee bounces.
Dan looks around. “Anybody else?” he says gently. “You don’t have to share. But if you want to, this is a safe place.”
Everyone’s eyes are suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. Shoelaces. Coffee cups. The scuffed tile. No one wants to be next.
I clear my throat.
“I mean…” I say, forcing a smirk. “My biggest sin is I eat too many carbs. So, uh, pray for me, guys.”
A few chuckle. The tension breaks a little. Dan gives me a half-smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
Inside, I want to punch myself. That was my out. My shot. I could have been honest. Instead, I threw a joke at the most honest moment I’ve seen in years like a grenade.
The rest of the night passes in a blur of surface-level shares. Work stress. Kids. “I should read my Bible more.” I mumble something about being busy. When we close in prayer, I mumble a safe Christian phrase: “God, thank you that you’re strong when we’re weak.” It sounds holy. It’s a lie coming from my mouth.
After group, as we’re heading to our cars, Marcus falls into step beside me.
“You okay?” he asks.
“I’m good,” I say automatically. “That was… heavy, huh?”
He studies me. “Yeah. But good heavy.” He pauses. “You sure you’re okay? You were twitchy during prayer.”
“Twitchy?” I scoff. “Bro, I had too much coffee. That’s all.”
He doesn’t push. “If you ever want to talk,” he says, “for real… I’m here. No judgment. None of us are as put-together as we look. You know that, right?”
I shrug, unlock my car. “I’m fine, man. Seriously. Just tired.”
That night, Emily’s on the couch when I get home, laptop closed, TV off. That’s never a good sign.
“How was group?” she asks.
“Good,” I say, dropping my keys in the bowl. “You know. Guys. Bibles. Bad coffee.”
“Did you share anything?” she asks.
I bristle. “What is this, a report card?”
She folds her hands. “I just… you’ve been off. For a while. I was hoping you’d talk to someone.”
“Talked to God,” I say. “That counts, right?”
She does that slow blink that means she’s trying not to explode. “You know what I mean.”
I do. I ignore it. I sit in the chair across from her instead of next to her on the couch. It’s a distance of three feet that feels like thirty miles.
She takes a breath. “I called a counselor,” she says.
Something in me snaps. “You what?”
“I called a counselor,” she repeats, voice shaking slightly but steady. “For us. For our marriage. Her name is—”
“We don’t need—”
“—Sarah Stevens,” she says, talking over me, which she almost never does. “She’s highly recommended. She has experience with couples where one partner is emotionally unavailable.”
“Emotionally unavailable,” I repeat, like it’s a slur.
“That’s what you are, Matt,” she says, and now the tears are in her eyes. “You’re unavailable. I’m married to a ghost. You show up physically, you pay bills, you fix things when they break, but you don’t let me see you. I feel like I’m begging you to be my husband.”
My defenses go up so fast I’m dizzy. “That’s not fair,” I say. “I go to work every day. I come home. I spend time with Lily. I go to church. I go to your family stuff even when I don’t want to. I provide. I don’t cheat. I don’t hit you. I don’t drink myself stupid. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do and somehow it’s not enough because I don’t sit around talking about my feelings?”
“You don’t talk about anything real,” she says. “Do you know how alone I feel? I would almost rather you scream at me than stay like this. At least then I’d know there’s something in there.”
“That’s insane,” I say, standing up. “You’d rather I scream at you?”
“I’d rather you be honest,” she fires back.
I pace. “Fine. Here’s honest: I don’t want to sit in a room with some stranger and have you list all the ways I suck while she nods and takes notes.”
“That’s not—”
“I’m not doing it,” I say. “I’m not broken. We’re not broken. We’re just stressed.”
“And I’m telling you we are broken,” she says, standing now too, voice rising. “We are so broken, Matt. I’m drowning over here. I lie awake next to you at night and I feel like a widow before I’m even forty.”
The widow line hits harder than I want to admit. My mom in that hospital chair, Bible open, eyes tired. Is that Emily’s future?
I can’t go there. Too much. Shut it down.
“This is drama,” I say, dismissive. “You’re making it worse than it is.”
Her mouth falls open. “Drama,” she repeats. “Okay.”
She walks past me, into the bedroom. I hear drawers opening, the squeak of the closet door. A minute later she comes out with a duffel bag. She starts throwing clothes in it. T-shirts, jeans, underwear, random stuff. No method, just motion.
“What are you doing?” I ask, stomach dropping.
“Going to my sister’s,” she says. “For a while.”
“You’re leaving,” I say, like I can’t process the words.
“I’m not filing for divorce,” she says. “Yet. I’m giving you space. And I’m giving myself a chance to remember what it’s like to breathe.”
“Emily, come on,” I say, moving toward her. “You’re overreacting.”
She stops packing, looks up at me, and laughs. It’s a bitter sound I’ve never heard from her before.
“You keep saying that,” she says. “Anytime I tell you I’m hurting, I’m ‘overreacting.’ Anytime I say we need help, you say I’m ‘making it worse than it is.’ I’m done gaslighting myself into thinking I’m crazy. This is real, Matt. I’m leaving because you already have. You left a long time ago. You’re just… physically present.”
“That’s not fair,” I repeat, because I don’t have any other words.
She zips the bag. “I’m giving you one more chance,” she says, voice trembling. “You call that counselor. You set up an appointment. You show me with actions, not words, that you’re willing to be vulnerable. To let me in. To let anyone in. If you don’t… I don’t know if there’s anything left to save.”
She walks past me, bag over her shoulder. She stops at Lily’s door, pushes it open. Our daughter’s asleep, sprawled sideways, stuffed unicorn under one arm. Emily kisses her forehead, whispers something I can’t hear.
“I’ll bring her back Sunday night,” she says quietly when she returns. “You can have the weekend to… think.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask, hating how small my voice sounds.
She meets my eyes. “Stop pretending you’re okay,” she says. “That’d be a start.”
The front door closes behind her. The house is dead quiet.
I stand in the middle of the living room, staring at the door like it might swing back open and she’ll say, “Kidding!” But it doesn’t. She doesn’t.
Instead of collapsing, I do what I always do: I make a list. Dishes. Laundry. Trash. Budget. I straighten the cushions on the couch, because God forbid a pillow be crooked while my marriage implodes.
Later that night, I get a text from Marcus.
Heard Emily and Lily are staying with her sister. You want company?
My heart stutters. News travels fast in church circles.
I stare at the screen. I picture Marcus on my couch, looking at me with those annoyingly kind eyes, asking questions I don’t want to answer. What are you afraid of? How are you really? When did you start disappearing?
I type: Nah man, we’re fine. Just needed some space. Couples fight, you know.
I delete “we’re fine” because even I can’t make my thumbs lie that hard. I send: Just needed some space. All good.
He replies immediately. You sure? I can be there in 15.
I put the phone face down on the coffee table. I pace. I pick it up again.
Come, I type. I delete it.
I’m not sure what I’m more afraid of: him seeing the stack of dirty dishes and empty wrappers that prove I’m not as together as I act, or him seeing through whatever story I spin and calling me on it.
I finally send: I’m good bro. Exhausted. Rain check?
Three dots appear, disappear. Finally: Okay. I’m here if you need me. For real.
I toss the phone onto the couch like it burned me. I grab my laptop instead.
By 1 a.m., the house is dark, the only light the blue glow of my screen. Pop-up after pop-up, tab after tab. My brain is buzzing, my body’s numb. I tell myself it’s better than thinking. Better than feeling. Better than sitting in the silence and hearing my own excuses bounce off the walls.
When I finally crash into bed, the sheets on her side are still warm from when she packed.
The next morning, Lily’s empty room hits me harder than I want to admit. Her bed is made (Emily’s doing), stuffed animals lined up, tiny socks in the hamper. I stand in the doorway, an intruder in my own house.
I go to work like nothing happened. Because that’s what you do. You compartmentalize. You put on the rock mask. You get stuff done.
My performance drops, though. It’s subtle at first. I miss a detail here, forget an email there. Nothing huge. But in this job, death comes by a thousand paper cuts.
A junior dev, Sarah, points out a flaw in my plan in front of the team. Normally, I’d thank her, adjust. Today, raw and sleep-deprived, I snap.
“Maybe if you’d read the full spec before chiming in, you’d understand why we did it this way,” I say, harsher than I mean to.
The room goes quiet. She shrinks back, face flushing. Jeff raises an eyebrow at me.
“Let’s take this offline,” he says.
After the meeting, he pulls me into his office.
“You good?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically.
He leans back, folds his arms. “Look, I don’t need to know your personal business. But you bit Sarah’s head off in there. That’s not like you.”
“Sorry,” I say. “Just… a lot going on at home.”
“Take a day,” he says. “Or a few. Whatever you need. This project’s important, but not as important as you not burning out.”
The irony of my boss telling me not to burn out while I’m actively burning out isn’t lost on me.
“I’m good,” I repeat. “I just need to focus.”
He studies me for a second. “You know,” he says slowly, “you don’t always have to be the rock.”
I actually laugh. “You started that, remember?”
He smiles. “Yeah. Turns out sometimes rocks crack. Just… don’t wait until you blow up to tell someone you’re drowning, okay?”
Everyone keeps using the same metaphors. Drowning. Burning out. Breaking. I keep dodging them like bullets in a video game. If I just keep moving, they can’t hit me.
Days blur. Emily and I text logistics about Lily. Pickup times, homework, dentist appointments. Nothing real. It’s like running a small business together instead of a marriage.
One Friday, I’m supposed to pick up Lily at four for her school’s little talent show thing. She’s been practicing a silly dance for weeks, making me watch it every night I had the energy to pretend I was watching. “You’re coming, right, Daddy?” she asked. “You promise?” I promised.
Friday afternoon, I’m sitting at my desk, headphones in, trying to yank my brain through a spreadsheet, when a familiar tightness clamps my chest. I take a breath. Another. It doesn’t let up. My vision goes a little fuzzy at the edges.
I check the clock. 3:50. If I leave now, I can make it.
I tell myself: Just one more email. Just fix this one thing. Then go.
I look up again and it’s 4:27.
“Crap,” I say aloud, ripping my headphones off. I grab my bag, half-run to the elevator, curse at the slow doors, sprint to my car.
On the drive, my phone buzzes with texts. I don’t check them. I don’t want to see.
I pull into the school lot at 4:58, heart pounding. I jog toward the auditorium. It’s emptying. Parents filing out, kids with glitter on their faces and handmade certificates.
Emily stands near the doors with Lily. Lily’s in a sparkly shirt, hair in two lopsided pigtails, holding a crumpled ribbon. Her eyes are red. When she sees me, her face does this thing—lights up, then falters, like she’s trying to decide whether to be happy or mad.
“Hey!” I say, forcing cheer. “I’m so sorry, traffic was—”
“Traffic?” Emily says, voice flat. “Show started at four.”
“I know, I just—work ran late and—”
“You promised,” Lily says quietly. That hurts way worse than Emily’s tone.
“I know, bug,” I say, kneeling. “I’m sorry. How’d it go?”
“Fine,” she says, shrugging, looking at her shoes. The word is a knife. It’s my own word coming back to kill me. I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.
“Mom filmed it,” she adds. “You can watch it later.”
It’s an offer. A consolation prize. I hate myself for being the kind of dad who has to watch his daughter’s life on a screen because he can’t show up when it counts.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’d love to.”
Emily just looks at me. No lecture. Somehow, that’s worse.
On the drive back to my place, Lily hums a bit of her song in the backseat. I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles go white. I want to cry. The feeling is so foreign it scares me. I swallow it. It goes down like a rock.
That night, after I drop Lily back at her aunt’s, I sit in my dark living room alone. The quiet isn’t peaceful. It’s accusatory.
On the coffee table, my Bible sits under a pile of mail. I don’t remember the last time I opened it for me, not for a group or to find a verse to toss at someone else.
I push the mail aside, flip it open randomly. It lands in Psalms. My eyes fall on familiar words like they’re highlighted just for me:
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
No escape this time. No sermon. No small group. Just me and a sentence that won’t shut up.
I stare at the page until the letters blur. Something in my chest finally gives. Not a big cinematic break, just a tiny hairline crack.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Fine. I’m… not okay.”
The words feel like ripping duct tape off my soul. My throat burns. My eyes sting. My body, not used to this, fights it. But my arms suddenly feel too heavy to hold up. I slide off the couch onto my knees without meaning to, Bible still open on the cushion.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I mutter. “I don’t know how to be… brokenhearted. Or whatever. I don’t know how to…” I wave a hand vaguely, like God needs me to pantomime emotions.
Tears spill over. Real ones. First time in… I honestly can’t remember. Maybe when Lily was born. Maybe before that.
It feels… ridiculous. A grown man, kneeling by his IKEA couch, crying into old carpet. I half-expect lightning to strike or a worship band to appear in my hallway. Instead, it’s just me and my ragged breathing and an almost-tangible sense that something—Someone—is near.
For a second, I actually feel it. Like a warm weight on my shoulders. An invisible Presence sitting in the mess with me. Not fixing it. Just… close. The verse slams into my chest again: The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
Maybe this is what they mean. Maybe all the sermons and testimonies and emotional people with their arms raised weren’t just making it up. Maybe God actually shows up in the raw places. Not the polished, rehearsed testimonies, but the ugly middle.
“Okay,” I whisper again. “I’m scared. Is that what you want me to say? I’m scared my dad’s gonna die and I won’t know how to grieve. I’m scared my wife’s never coming back. I’m scared I’ve already ruined my daughter’s life. I’m scared if people see how weak I am they’ll lose respect for me. I’m scared you’re not actually here and I’m just talking to my furniture.”
It all comes out in a rush. Confession, sort of. Not the respectable kind you share in group. The embarrassing kind.
For about thirty seconds, it feels like the safest place in the world.
Then, just as quickly, another voice kicks in. Not literal, not demonic, just… me. The old script.
Stop crying, be a man.
Crying won’t fix your marriage. Emotions won’t get you a raise. Vulnerability won’t put food on the table. You’re kneeling on a stained carpet, talking to someone you can’t see, while your actual life is on fire. Get up. Be practical. Make a plan. God helps those who help themselves. (Which, by the way, isn’t in the Bible, but I quote it like it is.)
I scrub my face with my hands, annoyed at the dampness. The Presence I felt a moment ago suddenly feels distant again. Or maybe I just pushed it away.
“Yeah, okay,” I say out loud, like I’m closing a meeting. “That was… something.”
I stand up, legs stiff. The room looks the same. Couch. TV. Empty picture hooks where our family photo used to hang before Emily took it. No angels. No burning bush. Just my stupid, beating heart and the hum of the fridge.
My phone buzzes on the table. It’s a notification from some Bible app I downloaded months ago and never use: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. – Psalm 147:3”
The timing is creepy. Or perfect. Or both.
I hover over the notification, feel the temptation to sink back down, to lean in, to actually let myself be wounded in front of God. To admit that I’m not just “off” or “tired” but actually… broken.
Instead, I swipe the notification away.
“I don’t have time to fall apart,” I mutter.
I open a browser and type the same old sites into the search bar. The algorithm knows me well. It feeds me what I want: distraction. Control. A world where nakedness is scripted and no one expects anything from me.
Later, in bed, I stare at the ceiling and tell myself I’ll call the counselor tomorrow. Or the day after. Or after this project. Or after Dad’s next appointment. Or after Emily gives me another ultimatum. There will always be a better time to be honest than now.
Months pass.
The project at work launches. It’s not a disaster, but it’s not the triumph it could’ve been. My performance review is “meets expectations” with a few pointed notes about “needing to delegate better” and “watching interpersonal tone under stress.” Translation: You’re slipping, man.
I don’t get fired. I also don’t get the promotion I’d been quietly gunning for. Jeff gives the lead on the next big project to Sarah—the junior dev I snapped at.
“She’s showed a lot of initiative,” he tells me in his office. “And you, honestly… you seem like you’ve got a lot on your plate. Thought this might be a good time for you to take a step back, catch your breath.”
Step back. Catch my breath. It’s like there’s this conspiracy in the universe to get me to stop pretending I’m okay.
I nod, say the right things. “Totally understand. Happy for her.” Inside, I feel humiliated. Replaced. Useless.
I don’t tell Emily. We barely talk beyond logistics anyway. The counselor’s number is still on a sticky note on my fridge. I move it occasionally when I wipe the counters. I’ve memorized the digits without ever dialing.
Lily spends every other weekend with me. We do what I think dads are supposed to do. We go to the park. We get ice cream. We watch movies. I make sure she’s buckled in right and that she brushes her teeth. I tell myself that’s enough. That love is mostly showing up and making sure they don’t die.
But sometimes, when she’s coloring at the table or building something with Legos on the floor, she’ll look up and just… watch me. Like she’s trying to figure out something she doesn’t have the words for yet.
One Sunday, as I’m dropping her back at her aunt’s place, she hugs me tighter than usual.
“Daddy?” she says into my shirt.
“Yeah, bug?”
“Are you sad?”
The question catches me off guard. I pull back, look at her small face. Her eyes are big, searching.
“Why do you ask?” I say.
“You look sad,” she says simply. “And Mommy looks sad. And Aunt Claire says it’s okay to be sad. But you always say you’re fine.”
The word stings again. Fine. My mask.
“I’m okay,” I say automatically.
She tilts her head. “It’s okay if you’re sad,” she says. “I won’t be scared.”
I should say it. Right there. To my seven-year-old. “Yeah, I’m sad. I miss you when you’re not here. I miss Mommy. I’m scared I messed up.” That would be vulnerability. Not oversharing, just honesty.
Instead, I pat her shoulder. “Don’t worry about me, kiddo,” I say. “That’s my job. To worry about you. You just be a kid, okay?”
She nods slowly, like she’s filing away data for later. “Okay,” she says. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I say, and it’s the one thing I’m absolutely sure of.
After she runs inside, I sit in my car and grip the steering wheel. I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, staring down at a body of water that might save me or drown me. The jump is admitting weakness. The cliff is made of all the years I spent being told that men don’t cry, don’t talk, don’t crack.
I don’t jump.
Instead, I drive to church.
It’s easier to go when I don’t have Emily giving me side-eye during worship because I’m scrolling my phone under the seat. I can just show up, say hi to people, drink bad coffee, sing words I barely think about, nod through another sermon about some aspect of the Christian life I’m supposedly living.
Today, though, the pastor does something different. He doesn’t preach. He brings a guy up to share his story.
The guy is in his forties, shaved head, tattoos, looks like he could bench-press me. He takes the mic, clears his throat.
“I used to think being a man meant never showing weakness,” he says. My spine goes rigid. “My dad was old-school. ‘Quit crying, tough it out,’ that kind of thing. I brought that into my marriage, my friendships, even my faith. I believed in Jesus, but I didn’t actually trust Him with anything that made me look bad. Or weak.”
People chuckle. I don’t.
He talks about an affair. About losing his job. About almost losing his kids. Then he talks about the night he finally broke down on his kitchen floor, sobbing, telling God he was done pretending. How Psalm 34:18 popped into his head—“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted”—and how, for the first time, he actually felt it.
“I thought vulnerability would make me lose respect,” he says. “But hiding was what was killing me. My secrets hardened my heart. I was a shell. It wasn’t until I got honest—with God, with my wife, with some guys from this church—that anything changed.”
The sanctuary is dead quiet. People are leaning in. A couple of visibly tough dudes are wiping their eyes. I sit there, arms crossed, jaw clenched.
He keeps going. “I still struggle with pride. I still want to put on the strong face. But I’ve tasted what it’s like to let people see the cracks. And I’ve tasted what it’s like to have God meet me there, not when I’ve got it together but when I’m a mess. And I’ll tell you this: there’s more life in that than in all the years I spent playing the rock.”
Somewhere deep inside, something in me is nodding. Yes. That. Do that. Say something. Move.
I don’t.
After service, people swarm him. Thank you for sharing. That was powerful. I walk past, give a noncommittal nod. Inside, I’m seething. Not at him. At myself. At the distance between what I know is true and what I’m willing to live.
In the parking lot, my phone buzzes. Marcus again.
How are you really?
There’s that word. Really.
I stand in the cold air, thumb hovering.
I’m falling apart but pretending I’m not, I type. I delete it.
I’m tired, I type. Delete.
I settle on: I’m good. God’s got me.
Even my lies are wrapped in Christianese.
I don’t hit send yet. I stare at the blinking cursor. Beside me, a guy straps his toddler into a car seat, kisses his wife, laughs at something she says. Normal. Messy. Human.
The phrase from the testimony loops in my head: Hiding was what was killing me. My secrets hardened my heart.
I feel my own heart. Not metaphorically. Literally. My chest. It feels… hard. Numb. Like it should hurt more than it does.
Do I want God that close? Close to the brokenhearted sounds nice until you realize it means you have to admit you’re brokenhearted. Not over business, not over some abstract injustice. Over your own life. Your own choices. Your own refusal to be weak.
I could tell Marcus. Right now. I could say, “I’m not okay. Can we talk?” He’d answer. He’d show up. I know he would.
Instead, I backspace my half-typed message.
I send him a thumbs-up emoji.
That’s my spiritual state in one tiny yellow hand.
I get in my car, close the door, and the world goes quiet again. Just me, the dashboard, the buzz of the engine.
I think about Psalm 34:18. I think about my mom in that hospital chair, whispering it over my dad. I think about Emily at the kitchen table, begging me to let her in. I think about Lily asking if I’m sad and promising she wouldn’t be scared.
I think about the night on my knees by the couch, the fleeting sense that God was actually, tangibly near when I finally let something crack.
And I think about how fast I slammed that door shut.
That’s the thing no one tells you about vulnerability. You can get a glimpse of it, taste it for thirty seconds, and still decide you’d rather be alone in a locked room than risk anyone seeing you naked in your soul.
So that’s where I am.
In the car. In the locked room. Playing the part I’ve played my whole life.
The rock.
From the outside, I still look solid. Steady job. Decent clothes. Church attendance. A few Bible verses I can quote if needed. A daughter who still hugs me. A wife who hasn’t technically divorced me… yet.
Inside, I know the truth.
I’m not a rock. I’m a man-shaped shell built around a frightened kid who learned early that tears equal weakness and weakness equals rejection. I never unlearned it. I baptized it, gave it Bible verses, dressed it up in productivity and moral respectability.
Maybe one day I’ll break for real. Call the counselor. Call Marcus. Call out to God and not shut Him down when He shows up. Maybe I’ll finally let someone see how much I’m not okay and discover that maybe—just maybe—weakness isn’t the end of my story but the door to something like real strength.
But today?
Today I turn the key in the ignition, watch my reflection in the rearview mirror as I back out. My face is calm. Controlled. Unreadable.
Ask anyone who sees me drive away how I’m doing, and they’ll say the same thing.
He’s good. He’s strong. He’s the rock.
They’d be half right.
The other half?
The rock is crumbling. And I’m the only one who can hear it.
Author’s Note
I wrote this story because “I’m fine” has become one of the most dangerous lies men tell.
Not because everything has to turn into a group-therapy overshare, but because a lot of us have learned that being a man means one thing above all: don’t crack. Don’t cry. Don’t need. Don’t ask for help. Just keep performing—at work, at home, at church—and hope nobody notices how much of it is duct tape and denial.
Matt is fictional, but the patterns are not. The late-night anxiety. The quiet porn habit as a pressure valve. The marriage that looks stable from the outside but is running on fumes. The way “being strong” becomes a way to avoid being known. I didn’t want to write a neat testimony with a bow at the end. I wanted to sit in that awful in-between space where a man knows he’s not okay and still chooses to keep hiding.
If you picked up on the tension around Psalm 34:18—“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit”—that was intentional. The verse is there like a constant background noise in Matt’s life. He hears it from his mom, at church, in group, on his Bible app. The problem isn’t that God is silent; it’s that Matt refuses to be the kind of man that verse is written for: brokenhearted, crushed, honest.
Underneath all the details, this story is about fear of vulnerability:
- Fear of losing respect if you admit weakness
- Fear of not knowing what to do with your own emotions if you stop stuffing them
- Fear that if you open up to God or other men, you’ll be met with judgment or awkward silence instead of real presence
The tragedy for Matt isn’t a dramatic car crash or public scandal. It’s the slow erosion of his soul and relationships because he clings to the image of “the rock” more than he clings to God or the people who actually love him. He gets glimpses of another way—a raw confession at men’s group, a quiet moment on the carpet where he finally lets himself cry, a daughter asking if he’s sad—and he still pulls back. That’s the haunting part. Nothing changes… and yet everything is slowly falling apart.
If this story resonated with you at all, even uncomfortably, that’s kind of the point. Not to shame you, not to diagnose you, and definitely not to tell you what you “have to” do. Just to hold up a mirror of what it actually looks like when hiding becomes a lifestyle.
Some men crash hard and obvious. Others, like Matt, just slowly harden. Their job title still works. Their faith still has all the right words. Their family still posts decent photos. But the inside is hollow. And the thing about hollowness is that it echoes. It haunts.
The core idea behind this whole series is simple and costly: Vulnerability is not an optional add-on to the Christian life or to healthy masculinity. It’s the doorway. To real brotherhood. To actual intimacy in marriage. To a faith that’s more than performance. To experiencing the God who is “close to the brokenhearted,” not to the perfectly put-together.
What you do with that is up to you. This story doesn’t end with Matt calling the counselor or breaking down in front of Marcus or sprinting back to Emily with a grand apology. It stops where a lot of men actually are: still in the car, still saying “I’m good,” still sending a thumbs-up emoji instead of telling the truth.
If anything in you recognized yourself in that final scene, don’t rush past it. Sit with the discomfort. Ask yourself, honestly, where you’re playing “the rock” and what it’s costing you. And if you decide to talk to God, or to a friend, or to a counselor about it—that’s your story. Not Matt’s. And it doesn’t have to end the way his does.
Call to Action
If this story struck a chord, don’t just scroll on. Join the brotherhood—men learning to build, not borrow, their strength. Subscribe for more stories like this, drop a comment about where you’re growing, or reach out and tell me what you’re working toward. Let’s grow together.
D. Bryan King
Sources
- Psalm 34:18 – The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
- John 11:33-35 – Jesus wept
- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 – Power made perfect in weakness
- James 5:16 – Confess your sins to each other
- APA – Men and Mental Health: Why Men Are Less Likely to Seek Help
- APA Monitor – The Crisis in Masculinity and Emotional Expression
- Masculinity and Help-Seeking: Implications for Depression and Suicide Risk (PubMed)
- Gottman Institute – How Emotional Withdrawal Destroys Relationships
- Pornography Use and Relationship Satisfaction (NCBI)
- Psychology Today – Why Vulnerability Is Essential for Healthy Relationships
- BibleProject – The Bible and Emotions
- Desiring God – The Power of Admitting Weakness
- The Gospel Coalition – Real Men Cry
- Barna – Masculinity, Identity, and the Church
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author. The information provided is based on personal research, experience, and understanding of the subject matter at the time of writing. Readers should consult relevant experts or authorities for specific guidance related to their unique situations.
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Sempre per cominciare bene l'anno vale la pena di ascoltare la conferenza di Cory Doctorow "A post-American, enshittification-resistant internet": https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
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Stuck in the Filter: January 2026’s Angry Misses By Kenstrosity
Finally, the new year is upon us! A fresh start for some, same shit different year for others; mainly, my minions who toil in the mines ducts of the Filter. Since they don’t get any holidays, they probably don’t even fucking know it’s 2026 yet, but that’s okay. As long as they come back to HQ with a substantial haul, their ability to know when it is is immaterial.
These are the sacrifices we (not me, though), make to ensure you get the goods relatively on time-ish. So say thank you!
Kenstrosity’s Freaky Foursome
Upiór // Forefathers’ Eve (Redemption) [January 2nd, 2026 – Self Released]
Featuring members of Gorod (Benoit Claus) and Xaoc (Kévin Paradis), Upiór pinged my radar after a certain cosmic Discordian pinged me. A blistering combination of Fleshgod Apocalypse opulence and Wachenfeldt aggression, sophomore release Forefathers’ Eve (Redemption) impressed me immediately as “The Black Paintings ripped my face right off. “A Blessing or a Curse” doubled down on speed, blasting rhythms, and eerie melodies to propel itself straight into my Song o’ the Year long-list. Even with three instrumental interludes, all of which are quite fluffy, Forefathers’ Eve (Redemption) crams pummeling riffs, exuberant percussion, and dramatic lushness into its 51-minute runtime. “Forefathers’ Eve (Part I),” a fantastic companion to Fleshgod Apocalypse’s “Cold As Perfection” without aping its features, conjures a similarly affecting character that draws me in completely. Forefathers’ Eve (Redemption)’s middle section continues to build personality and develop greater dynamics from that point, represented most clearly in melodic riffs and expressive leads/soloing (“The Woman that Weeps”). Leading into its conclusion, a tonal shift towards the dire at this junction foreshadows the imminent release of Upiór’s second act, Forefathers’ Eve (Damnation) (due in early April), charring songs like “Forefather’s Eve (Part II)” and “Between the Living and Dead” with blackened rabidity and dissonant flourishes. All of this to say, Upiór launched this latest arc with a striking blow, and I can only imagine what’s in store for Damnation.
Forefathers’ Eve (Redemption) by Upiór
KadavriK // Erde666 [January 9th, 2026 – Self Released]
Germany’s melodic death metal quintet KadavriK have been cranking out records since 2007, but I only heard about them this year, once again, thanks to Discord. Erde666, their fifth outing, takes an unorthodox and progressive approach to melodic death metal, which makes comparisons difficult to draw. Stripped down and raw in some moments, mystical and lush in others, Erde666 is all about textures. Its opening title track explores that spectrum of sounds and philosophies to its fullest, even drawing heavy influence from blues, psychedelia, and sludge at times (“Getrümmerfreund”), but it all coalesces seamlessly. Following up an opener as strong as that would be a tall order for anyone, but KadavriK are clever songwriters, and the long form served them well even compared to the more straightforward tracklists of previous installments (“Nihilist,” “Das Ende Des Anthropozäns”). Off-kilter guitar melodies countered against twinkling Kalmah synths and sweeping strings do a lot of work to elevate and liven the crushing chords of their high-impact riffs as well, which adds a ton of interest into an already unconventional melodic death record (“Widerhall”). All of this makes for a record that might not be as immediate or fast-paced as most aim for in this space, but, counterintuitively, significantly more memorable. Don’t sleep on this one, folks!
Luminesce // Like Crushed Violets and Linen [November 20th, 2026 – Self Released]
Prolific at a scale I haven’t witnessed since Déhà, Luminesce mastermind Alice Simard, based in Québec, piqued my curiosity for the first time with Like Crushed Violets and Linen, her sophomore effort under the Luminesce moniker. Boasting machine-gun rapidity (“Exploited Monochromaticism”), off-kilter rhythms (“Silver”), and a downright romantic sense of melody (“Like Crushed Violets and Linen,” “Lamp of Fulguration”)—countered by lyrical themes ranging from guilt complexes to gender identity (“To Restore”)—Like Crushed Violets and Linen is a deeply personal record forged in a melodic technical death metal mold. And as such a record, it recalls the vicarious guitar pyrotechnics of Inferi and Obscura while securing a melodic sensibility more in line with neoclassical composition (“The Covenant of Counterfeit Stars”). Unlike many of her contemporaries, however, Alice is a master of editing. Filled with killer ideas and instrumental wizardry without involving a drop of bloat, each of these seven songs coalesce into a buttery-smooth 30-minute excursion that punches far above its feathery mass. The addition of delightful chiptune dalliances helps distinguish Luminesce further from the pack (“To Restore”), though I’m torn about how far forward they are in the mix. In fact, the mix is my main gripe, as Like Crushed Violets and Linen is muffled and a bit flat, despite boasting a much-appreciated meaty bass presence. Nonetheless, if you’re looking for an unlikely tech-death contender, Luminesce might be just what you need.
Like Crushed Violets and Linen by Luminesce
Bone Storm // Daemon Breed [January 30th, 2026 – Self Released]
As the CEO of this Filter company, I withhold the right to break the rules and include a very cool bonus fourth option, Bone Storm’s cavebrained Daemon Breed. Do you like Bolt Thrower? Yes, you do. Do you like Bear Mace? Yes, you do. By proxy, then, you already like Connecticut’s Bone Storm as they draw from the same chunky, groove-laden school of death metal. At a somewhat overachieving 50 minutes, Daemon Breed pummels the listener beneath a veritable smorgasbord of neck-breaking riffs built upon a framework of triplet grooves, swaggering syncopations, and galloping double bass assaults. Their approach is simple and unburdened by blistering speed, fiddly technicality, or atmospheric deviation, and in that way recalls the undeniable immediacy and brutal effectiveness of records like Black Royal’s Firebride. With highlights “Heaven’s End (Burn Them All),” “Plaguerider,” “Sanctimonious Morality,” and above all “Ritual Supremacy,” Bone Storm use that approach with aplomb, proving that the spirit of classic, no-frills death metal is vital and vicarious. Delightfully cogent roars and gutturals allow the most difficult deliveries (see “Daemon Breed”) to feel vicious and purposeful, while a subtle thread of melody (see “Cursed Born”) affords the record a small measure of songwriting variety to break things up just when Daemon Breed needs it most. Heavy reliance on triplets and perhaps a zealous desire to put down every idea that seems good even if it’s placed immediately adjacent to much better one (“Halo of Disease” and “Hammer of Judas” bookending “Ritual Supremacy” are tough positions to defend, as is “Wrist Slitter” next to the fun Frozen Soul-esque “Blood Priest”), hold it back from higher praise only mildly. Moral of the story? Enter the bone zone, with haste!
Creeping Ivy’s Riffy Remainder
Lord Elephant // Ultra Soul [January 30th, 2026 – Heavy Psych Sounds]
Sometimes, you don’t need dynamic songwriting, harmonic density, or even a vocalist. Sometimes, all you need are riffs. Okay, and maybe some psychedelic leads to go over those riffs. Ultra Soul, the sophomore album from Italian instrumental trio Lord Elephant, delivers 48 minutes of pure, mostly unadulterated stoner-doom. In the feudal jungle of heavy riff rock, Lord Elephant pays scutage to King Buffalo, similarly forming longish compositions where simple, bluesy figures reign supreme, stretching their limbs in grassy patches. Occasionally, guitarist Leandro Gaccione, bassist Edoardo De Nardi, and drummer Tommaso Urzino lock into some lively, head-bobbing grooves (“Gigantia”). But mostly, Lord Elephant keeps things meditative, hypnotizing listeners with Earthless drones and lurches (“Smoke Tower,” “Black River Blues”). De Nardi’s bass often leads the way (“Electric Dunes”), the underwater tone of which reminds me of falling for Isis.1 Lord Elephant aren’t reinventing any wheels here; the familiarity of their bluesy riffing simply won’t interest those for whom such bluesiness is a staid marker of old-man rock. The absence of vocals, however, makes Ultra Soul work as pseudo-ambient music that can set the mood, or accompany tasks, or gateway a normie. Closer listening will reveal, though, a tight trio reveling in the rudiments of rock music—a drummer, bassist, and guitarist vibing on a riff.
Andy-War-Hall’s Salvaged Windfall
Juodvarnis // Tékmés [January 23rd, 2026 – Self Released]
Lithuania’s Juodvarnis cooked for a long six years between albums for their fourth record Tékmés. With the confidence and sharpness displayed on all levels by Juodvarnis here, that was clearly time well spent in the kitchen. Sporting a brand of progressive black metal that blends the Enslaved framework of prog-black with the epic heft and melody of Iotunn and the crushing rhythms and harsh vocals of Gojira, Tékmés is tight, lively and achieves a remarkable level of melancholic thoughtfulness without neglecting the average listener’s chronic need for riffs. Translated to “flow” from Hungarian,2 Tékmés navigates inter-song and album-wide progressions of pummeling rhythms (“Dvasios Ligos”) and slow marches (“Tamsiausias Nušvitimas”), impassioned clean vocals (“Platybės”) and razor-throated screams (“Juodos Akys”) to achieve a gradual, natural sense of advancement across its 42-minute journey. If progressive black metal that knows how to riff and can turn the reverb off 11 sounds like a good time to you, give Juodvarnis’ Tékmés a shot sometime.
Thus Spoke’s Obscure Offerings
Ectovoid // In Unreality’s Coffin [January 9th, 2026 – Everlasting Spew Records]
Normally, it takes copious amounts of reverb, wonkiness, melody, or turbo-dissonance for death metal to be palatable to me. Every once in a while, however, an album like Ectovoid’s In Unreality’s Coffin comes along and shows me that there is another way. The music’s stickiness has a lot to do with its boundary-straddling take on OSDM. Ostensibly, the battering, percussion, sawblade riffing, and gruff gurgling growls mark it as your everyday modern no-nonsense death metal, somewhere between Cryptopsy and Immolation. But In Unreality’s Coffin is more like tech-death, disso-death, and brutal-death in a trench coat than it is any one of them, or another subgenre.3 Its arpeggios can be rhythmically snappy, sometimes combined with equally sharp vocal delivery (“Intrusive Illusions (Echoes from a Distant Plane)”), but more often than not channel a churning chaos that resists punchiness for a darker unease I find addictive (“Collapsing Spiritual Nebula,” “Erroneous Birth”). The music is constantly speeding up or slowing down, churning guitars collapsing with slides (“Dissonance Corporeum”) or pitching upwards in squeals (“In Anguished Levitation”), or evolving into mania as screams and growls fragment and layer (“Formless Seeking Form”). Rather than being exhausting, it’s exhilarating, with expertly-timed releases of diabolically echoing melody (“Collapsing Spiritual Nebula”) or a new groove to latch onto (“In Unreality’s Coffin”) coming to keep you afloat. Ectovoid keep you guessing without actually really pushing the boundaries, making In Unreality’s Coffin both a lot of fun and straightforwardly br00tal enough to sustain a savage workout; or just a really intense 45 minutes.
In Unreality’s Coffin by Ectovoid
Exxûl // Sealed into None [January 15th, 2026 – Productions TSO]
Phil Tougas has had an impressive start to the year. Before Worm’s Necropalace this February, came Sealed into None, the debut by Exxûl—a genre-blending, kinda blackened epic-power-doom-heavy-metal group also comprising several of Phil’s Atramentus band-mates. Several people brought up this album in the comments on my Worm review, often to the tune of “Exxûl better,” and while I respectfully disagree on the quality ranking of the two, I can’t deny how fabulous Sealed into None is. Here again are genres of music I’m usually unable to connect with—in this instance, power and classical heavy metal—but shaped in a way that opens my eyes and ears. Yes, the high-pitched wail style of singing first took me a little off-guard when they first arose on “Blighted Deity,” and they offend my usual tastes. But they are impressive, and work in a way I thought only harsh vocals could when following the trajectory of distorted keys and guitar (“Walls of Endless Darkness”), or shouting into an atmospheric abyss (“The Screaming Tower”). Oh, and of course, the overall vibe of magnificent, melodramatic blackened doom that sets the scene, capped off with—predictably—phenomenal guitarwork, is just magic and enough for me to get past my knee-jerk vocal ick and love it not in spite of that, but because of what it can bring to the whole. I love the slow builds to dazzling solos (“Bells of the Exxûl through to “Blighted Deity,” “The Screaming Tower”) and the way the camper, heavy-metal sides blur into something darker (“Labyrinthine Fate”). I just love this album, to be honest.
ClarkKent’s Canadian Catch
Turpitude // Mordoré [January 1, 2026 – Self Released]
Since 2019, Alice Simard has been a prolific presence in Quebec’s underground metal scene. She consistently releases albums for several different projects, from the ambient atmoblack of Coffret de Bijoux to the tech death of Luminesce (also uncovered in this month’s Filter by our Sponge Fren). Mordoré, the fourth full-length for Turpitude, thrives on its riffs and carries a cheerful energy reminiscent of the carefree raw black metal of Grime Stone Records stalwarts Wizard Keep and Old Nick. Yet Simard opts for traditional instruments, no synths, though production choices make the drumsticks sound as if they’re banging against blocks of wood, give the guitars a lofi reverb, and cause Simard’s voice to fade into the background in a cavernous growl. The riffs are the real star, with some terrifically catchy melodic leads and trems throughout (“La Traverse Mordorée,” “Aller de L’avant”). This combination of riffs, a raw sound, and often upbeat tunes draws comparison to Trhä and To Escape. While Mordoré keeps a mostly cheery tone, Turpitude’s no one-trick pony. There’s a tinge of the melancholic on the moody, atmospheric “Peintra,” as well as a successful stab at covering a non-metal song a lá Spider God on “Washing Machine Heart.”4 This is a worthwhile endeavor for those who like their black metal raw and energetic.
Grin Reaper’s Heavy Haul
Valiant Sentinel // Neverealm [January 16th, 2026 – Theogonia Records]
Greek heavy metal heroes Valiant Sentinel dropped their sophomore platter Neverealm back in mid-January, unleashing forty-six minutes that reek of high fantasy. Galloping riffs, driving drums, and vocal harmonies aplenty supply a cinematic adventure that basks in fun. While the pacing of Neverealm mainly operates in high-energy bombast, Valiant Sentinel smartly weaves in mid-paced might, evidenced by how the controlled assault of “Mirkwood Forest” provides a breather after opening chest-thumpers “War in Heaven” and “Neverealm.” Acoustic pieces “To Mend the Ring” and “Come What May” further diversify Neverealm’s heavy metal holdings, and while I’m usually keener on more aggressive numbers, these two tracks comprise some of my favorite moments on the album.5 Mostly, Valiant Sentinel summons comparisons to Germany’s heavy/power scene—chief among them Blind Guardian—going so far as to bring in BG drummer extraordinaire Frederik Ehmke. I also catch fleeting glimpses of Brainstorm and Mystic Prophecy in Valiant Sentinel’s DNA, though guitarist and composer Dimitris Skodras does a commendable job carving out a distinct identity for the band. Featuring skilled performances across the board and guest spots from Burning Witches’ Laura Guldemond (“Neverealm”) and Savatage’s Zak Stevens (“Arch Nemesis”), Valiant Sentinel packs loads of drama into a streamlined package. So what are you waiting for? Go grab your polyhedrals and a Spelljammer, and set sail for Neverealm.
Fili Bibiano’s Fortress // Death Is Your Master [January 30th, 2026 – High Roller Records]
Does Shredphobia keep you away from metal? Does the sultry siren call of licks, riffs, and chugs make you break into a cold sweat? If so, I strongly urge you to stay away from Fortress’ sophomore album, Death Is Your Master. Channeling Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath and 80s Judas Priest, Fortress drops six-string shenanigans that’ll get your booty shaking and the floor quaking, offering a romping retro slab that goes down slow ‘n’ easy. The overt classic 80s heavy metal worship on tracks “Flesh and Dagger” and “Night City” delivers riff after riff recalling the glory days, giving Fortress an authenticity that expands what could have otherwise been a one-dimensional LP. Guitarist Fili Bibiano sizzles with axe-slinging abandon, occasionally conjuring the neoclassical debauchery of Yngwie (“Savage Sword,” “Maze”). Still, it’s not all about the guitar, and drummer Joey Mancaruso and vocalist Juan Aguila nail their contributions as Fortress wends their way through a trim thirty-four minutes. On a guitar-forward album featuring slick songwriting and singalong jams, Death Is Your Master bumps, dives, and wails in a slow-burn frenzy of classic heavy goodness. Dig in!
Death Is Your Master by Fili Bibiano’s Fortress
Baguette’s Brutal Burglary
Skulld // Abyss Calls to Abyss [January 23rd, 2026 – Time to Kill Records]
While last year was alright for death metal and notably starred Dormant Ordeal, I felt it was lacking in quantity of impressive releases for said cornerstone of the metal underground. Fortunately, Italian group Skulld is here to start off the year with a bang! Abyss Calls to Abyss takes Bolt Thrower’s tank-rolling grooves (“Mother Death”) and Dismember’s melodic buzzsaw action (“Wear the Night as a Velvet Cloak”) and adds in some crust punk influence as extra seasoning (“Le Diable and the Snake”). It feels like they’ve taken some influence from both Finnish and Swedish varieties of death metal as well, and I’m here for it! The band is fluent in switching things up at the drop of a hat without sacrificing energy or cohesion. “Mother Death” and “Drops of Sorrow” go from heavy, dissonant chords to big lead guitar melodies, which in turn lead to a chunky and punky death metal groove that’s bound to get your head moving. Teo’s drumming controls the mood in excellent fashion, adding fast blast beats or slow-pummelling stomps when called for. The vicious, varied growls of Pam further cement the violence contained within and add to the album’s attitude. At a brief 34 minutes spread over eight songs, it wastes no time going for your throat in a multitude of ways. Get this album into your skull or get Skulld!
Total Annihilation // Mountains of Madness [January 16th, 2026 – Testimony Records]
What would happen if you took Vader, Slayer and Sodom and threw them in a big ol’ manic death/thrash blender? The answer is Mountains of Madness! While Swiss Total Annihilation’s earliest works were more in line with classic ’80s thrash metal, they have increasingly moved towards more aggressive and relentless pastures, and their songwriting is all the better for it. Fourth album Mountains of Madness channels records like Vader’s Litany and Sodom’s Tapping the Vein in particular (“The Art of Torture,” “Age of Mental Suicide”), taking advantage of a relentless, drum-forward groove and a furious vocal performance. The album’s dual guitar attack weaves together thrashier tunes with parts that reach straight up Swedeath territory, be it melodic or not. In addition, tracks like “Mountains of Madness” and “Choose the Day” throw some melodic thrash akin to Sodom’s self-titled album into the mix for that extra bit of variety and replay value. Mountains of Madness isn’t afraid to slow things down with a satisfying lead riff, but most of Mountains of Madness is at a respectful lightning-fast pace, as thrash should. Another brief but powerful addition to the January pile ov skulls!
Mountains Of Madness by Total Annihilation
Polaris Experience // Drifting Through Voids [January 2nd, 2026 – Distant Comet Entertainment]
On the earliest days of the year, Japan delivered an awesome surprise drop of death metal-influenced progressive thrash! Polaris Experience features various Cynical riffs (“Interplanetary Funambulist,” “Bathyscapes”) while sporting a similarly old-school guitar tone throughout. Being progressive thrash, the main focus is naturally on the oh-so-sweet instrumentation that balances melody and groove seamlessly. The instrumental “Parvati” alone highlights how tight everything is, from the snappy drumming to the bouncy bass work. Most importantly, the music is catchy and memorable despite its relative complexity and lack of brevity. Additionally, Drifting Through Voids uses vocals sparingly but in all the right ways, complementing its technicalities with a traditional thrashy, harsh bark. The fact that it’s a two-man project and a debut makes it all the more impressive. Fans of similar recent progressive and technical shenanigans like Species should take notes post-haste. Considering we’ve already had this and Cryptic Shift this early in the year, and how prog/tech thrash is usually only allowed one or two notable albums per year, we could be in for a banner year for the subgenre. It also marks the first time in ages that a Japanese album has genuinely good production. Welcome to the new millennium!
Drifting Through Voids by Polaris Experience
#2026 #AbyssCallsToAbyss #AmericanMetal #Atramentus #BearMace #BlackMetal #BlackRoyal #BlackSabbath #BlackenedDeathMetal #BlindGuardian #BoltThrower #BoneStorm #Brainstorm #BurningWitches #CalliopeCarnage #CanadianMetal #CoffretDeBijoux #CrypticShift #Cryptopsy #Cynic #DaemonBreed #DeathMetal #Dismember #DistantCometEntertainment #Doom #DoomMetal #DormantOrdeal #DriftingThroughVoids #Earthless #Ectovoid #Enslaved #EpicMetal #Erde666 #EverlastingSpewRecords #Exxûl #FiliBibianoSFortress #FleshgodApocalypse #ForefatherSEveRedemption #Fortress #GallowglassGalas #GermanMetal #Gojira #Gorod #GreekMetal #Hardcore #HeavyMetal #HeavyPsychSounds #HighRollerRecords #Immolation #InUnrealitySCoffin #Inferi #InternationalMetal #Iotunn #ItalianMetal #Jan26 #JapaneseMetal #JudasPriest #Judovarnis #KadavriK #Kalmah #KingBuffalo #LikeCrushedVioletsAndLinen #LithuanianMetal #LordElephant #Luminesce #MelodicDeathMetal #Mitski #Mordoré #MountainsOfMadness #Neverealm #Obscura #OldNick #PolarisExperience #PowerMetal #ProductionsTSO #ProgressiuveMetal #ProgressiveBlackMetal #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Punk #Review #Reviews #Savatage #SealedIntoNone #SelfRelase #SelfReleased #Skulld #Slayer #Sodom #Species #SpiderGod #StonerDoom #StonerMetal #StuckInTheFilter #StuckInTheFilter2026 #SwissMetal #SymphonicDeathMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tékmés #TestimonyRecords #TheogoniaRecords #Therion #ThrashMetal #TimeToKillRecords #ToEscape #TotalAnnihilation #Trhä #Turpitude #UltraSoul #Upiór #Vader #ValiantSentinel #Wachenfeldt #WizardKeep #Worm #Xaoc -
Photos: The Next Generation (Film Edition)
I put up a post the other day with some photos I took when I went to the ocean and Plum Island. At the time I said there would be a film edition of the post to follow and this is it.
Sort of.
I shot two full rolls of film. One 35mm and one 120. I also finished off the last few shots from an old roll of 35mm. I got them all developed and the scans came back the other day and last night I uploaded them all to Flickr and now it’s time for another post here.
Sort of. I am saving the 120 shots for another post. These are just 35mm pics. I’m also thinking of trying to sort of mirror the previous post. This plan probably won’t last for long, but let’s see.
The sunrise view sort of sucked, but I got a little glimpse of it. This is my Nikon FG-20 shooting my first ever roll of Lomography 800. I like the way the sun flares. At least the tiny bit of the sun we could actually see.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259853513/in/album-72177720333420003
I think my plan to follow the first post is already dead… maybe not. I think this is from Salisbury Beach but I’m not sure. This is from my Pentax K1000 shooting Kentmere 400.
(note: on second look, I’m pretty sure this is Hampton Beach when the digital post was still at Salisbury Beach. Let’s not worry about that now though)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259969154/in/album-72177720333420003
This next picture is crap, but speaking of sun flares! Woah!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259947719/in/album-72177720333420003
Here’s one that I took on both film and digital. I can’t tell which is better. Maybe the film?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259947629/in/album-72177720333420003
Another that I can’t tell whether it is better or worse than the digital version. This was with a 50mm lens and the digital was with an 85mm so the crop is different. Is crop the right word? I don’t think so.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259853678/in/album-72177720333420003
The digital version of this is way better. Oh well.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55258815672/in/album-72177720333420003
Shooting black and white at the beach seems sort of silly, but I kinda dig it.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259874793/in/album-72177720333420003
That moment when the sun came out… nice.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259853758/in/album-72177720333420003
I thought maybe the light was better at this spot when I was shooting film than it was for digital. Maybe not.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259874823/in/album-72177720333420003
Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. Please don’t explode, m’kay?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55260133470/in/album-72177720333420003
For the birds, at Hampton Beach.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55260112620/in/album-72177720333420003
More birds. I don’t think I have enough bird-centric film pics to stay on track with the previous digital post. Sorry.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259947814/in/album-72177720333420003
Plum Island airport.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55258815817/in/album-72177720333420003
Why do I always stop here on the way out to the lighthouse? I haven’t a clue.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259947914/in/album-72177720333420003
The Merrimack River from Plum Island.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259947944/in/album-72177720333420003
Dig that blue water.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robj_1971/55259947959/in/album-72177720333420003
And by this point both 35mm cameras were out of film and I was not going to take the time to reload so this is where this post ends. There will be another post from this day that will have the 120 film shots. That’s going to be grouped with some pics I took in Boston last week. I’ll explain later.
#35mmFilm #AtlanticOcean #filmPhotography #merrimackRiver #nikonFg20 #PentaxK1000 #photography