NINE SONGS I LIKED THIS WEEK IN LIST FORM – JUN 16 – JUN 22

I don't usually have the time to write these intros, and I actually don't have the time right now. It's difficult enough to keep this crazy train running every week just on an existential level, so intros are often an afterthought. This one isn't, though, since I actually don't know how to keep this ship sailing or train running or spaceship shipping. It's been almost five years since my decision to move from basically a Hebrew-language blog with a shitty logo I did on MS Paint to what I had hoped would be a – as I think I've written a few weeks back – "trading post of the soul." A place where I could connect my life here to the galaxy of amazing music being made out there. That was when a lot of the bigger projects were started: The Albums of the Decade; The War Inside My Head; the MILIM KASHOT compilation series; the Patreon; the crazy-ass year end list thing; and this weekly post series, which has been running basically without fail (give or take five times or so) since September 2019. The idea was to create a multi-tier system that would allow my brain to just emit shit semi-automatically while also working on long-term bananas projects. All of it worked, which is nothing short of a miracle. But I have no idea where I go from here. Every now and again I feel like more people are exposed to what I "do," and that's nice. I like that, being appreciated in that "Oh shit man, I didn't know this site existed, what a treasure trove" type of way. But the grind is, as it always was, grinding. There is no "bigger label" for shitty blogs, nor would I choose to go on one if there was one. This is a labor of love based solely on the fact that I cannot live without the music I love, as simple as that, I guess. 

But five years of the same thing means, I think, that for me something needs to drastically changed. This is not a "product announcement" post nor is it a "saying goodbye" post. Some of you might be surprised to hear that there's very little on this leaky ship that I actually plan, an outcrop of the fact that it's always been just me . It's a "I don't know what's the value of what I'm doing anymore" post, presented without an answer to that question. Anti-climactic, I know, but also very real. The only thing I can think about (I actually was already moving on, but decided to add this because it just happened in my brain), is that since I have begun this newer "international" stage I have also evolved as a writer. My writing (not just here, in my own "writing writing") has changed and has become a source of constant renewal and life-giving. It just so happens that again my family and I are undergoing a squall of existential dread at the moment, and it's been so many of those just in the last four years. Come to think of it, this blog has more often operated during a pandemic and a war than it has otherwise. So, my writing has had to change to fit my pain and my life, but I just don't know if the vessel that is the "music journalism" thing can withstand the amount of change I think I need to happen for me to be happy or at least artistically satisfied. People have long moved on to video and audio, something I refuse to do. People want their content constant and reliable (EVERY WEEK) otherwise they drop off. And I just handle that shit anymore. On the one hand the existence of a set framework is wonderful for creativity. On the other, however, it begins to take over and replace it. So which way is the way forward now? Sure, I could do "We're afraid we're going to die and considering emigrating only to realize we would not be able to work our jobs elsewhere which means we basically start from zero" post basically every week, but realistically why should anyone care about that? Maybe I forget all that and just pump out mindless posts about wonderful music? I don't know. Here I am again, back here – I don't know. Any ideas?

1. Squelching Flesh – "Psychic Incarceration," from Psychic Incarceration (Alt 90s Brutal Death Metal – Lifeless Chasm). I actually don't know what kind of music this is. The vocals sound like they fit on a New Standard Elite release, and the music sounds like it's slowed down Carcass, but somehow the vibes are almost of a chopped-and-screwed Hum album. Does that even make sense? Pretty sure it doesn't. Maybe it's just a new genre of music, one I shall dub Alt 90s Brutal Death Metal. Whatever it is, it's fucking beautiful. FFO: SXAP.

2. Trelldom – "Between the World," from .​.​.​By The Shadows​.​.​. (Avant-Garde Metal – Prophecy Productions). I take it some of y'all have heard of and/or appreciated this Ghaal project given that it's decades old. I haven't. And I also take it that they haven't always sounded like a noir version of Ved Buens Ende and Virus having wild black-candle sex with Bohren & der Club of Gore. But that's what they sound like now, and given the fact that I HAVE CLOUT IN THE INDUSTRY (i.e. I get promos), this album has been to my soul like a swan floating in a Dutch canal. I realize some of you think that sounds boring given you may be Dutch and have constant access to canals, but I'm from a shitty suburb of Tel Aviv. And that to me sounds like actual heaven. FFO: Bands.

3. Black Wound – "Trench Blast," from Warping Structure (Black/Death Metal – Chaos Records). This is actually a 2023 release that I am only now acquainting myself with since one of the best pound-for-pound labels on earth has wisely decided to release it on CD (tape would have been better, but OK). Serious Abyssal/Antichrist Siege Machine vibes in that chaotic, almost dissonant atmosphere that creates a rift in the space-time continuum. So heavy and so fucking great. FFO: Bands. Also kind of Har too.

4. Wraithlord – "Master of the Whores," from Phantasmal Warfare (Black/Heavy Metal – Independent). One of the best raw-ish black metal bands around is back with a new album that takes everything that  was already brilliant about them and makes it brilliant-er. The medieval thing is there, but better, the bad productions is there, but better, the dynamic songwriting is there, but better, and the full-package of listening to something that's very beautiful and made by very weird people is very much better. This has "caution: addictive" written all over it's rugged face. FFO: Baazlvaat.

5. Vorare – "Vacuous," from Atelier (Noise/Experimental – Independent). Thumping music that makes you want to dance in a dark room where girls have black lipstick and leather boots and boys are in the only space in their lives in which they can be angry. Angry in that "I'm vibing to angry music" way, naturally, not in a "I'm being an asshole way." Dark, stuffy, claustrophobic sounds that still, like some black funnel, expand into the full spectrum of human anguish. I used to love those kinds of rooms. It's been a while since I've been in one. Maybe I should go back. FFO: Gnaw Their Tongues, The Body.

6. Emmeleia – "Ashore in the Abyss," from Umbra Dei (Black Metal – Independent). A Colombian black metal project that sounds like the echoing depression of the void that is this life formed a band and enlisted other very negative emotions to play in it. Or, perhaps, if Pixar's Inside Out followed only depression and darkness while ignoring every other emotion. To me it sounds like of like a depressive black metal version of Choshech, which is fucking awesome. FFO: Psychonaut 4, Argwaan.

7. Huntsmen – "In Time, All Things," from The Dry Land (Progressive Doom Metal – Prosthetic Records). Times are a shit, thus I tend to stay away from music that makes me actually feel good. Because, well, that's just how that works. But as much as every cell in my frail body tried to reject the sweet, sweet melodies and overall sense of strange optimism found in this new release by Chicago's Huntsmen I ended up loving it. This is not a proud moment for me. I do not listen to Ne Obliviscaris. And yet here we are. FFO: Uplifting yourself or some weak-ass shit like that.

8. Saidan – "Visual Kill," from Visual Kill: The Blossoming of Psychotic Depravity (Atmospheric Black Metal – Independent). Saidan are that cut pet that murders people if you disrespect it. They're ruthless, extremely musical, obviously very proficient, and just very unafraid to lay a whole-ass riff on your head every five seconds or so. Which, you know, being a Megadeth fan, is basically what I live for. So fucking awesome. FFO: Lamp of Murmuur.

9. Gutvoid – "For We Are Many," from Breathing Obelisk (Death Metal – Blood Harvest Records). It's been a big death metal week for me personally, what with Swampbeast releasing a new album and all that. But if Gutvoid are releasing, I'm here to for it, always. One of the finest practitioners of the kind of death metal that oozes all over your face for a few years now, they're coming with what appears to be an EP but hopefully isn't though an EP is nice too, I guess. Such a wonderful band. FFO: Nothingness, Chaotian. 

FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ONE: I keep forgetting to mention this, but Renato Gallina AKA that brilliant wonderful man also known as that dude form dISEMBOWELMENT has apparently decided to shed the veil of secrecy that has accompanied him in the few decades since the band called it quits and went ahead and started a whole Instagram page dedicated to old pics and beautiful stories from his musical life, including quite a bit having to do with dISEMBOWELMENT. It's fascinating and often heartwarming, and here it is right here.

TWO: DHG are seemingly teasing new music, which means I guess I won't be another 7 years or whatever for a new album.

THREE: A Mexican project by the name of Vitra Maximazer released what appears to be a first demo of some very gnary blackened thrash or thrashened black and it sounds pretty great.

FOUR: Man, I don't know. Life without mentally saying goodbye to everything you love every time you feel marginally happy isn't a sustainable thing for me. I don't think it is. 

FIVE: I wasn't kidding about the new Swampbeast, check it out.

ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: WordPress sucks. Just thought you should know that.