#screeeeeeching into the void!!!

[ofcruelheart]

closed to @retrbution / deaw & theo

In the opulent aftermath of the night's opera at the Metropolitan, the air itself seemed to shimmer. The grand hall, a sanctum of art and arias, still whispered with the haunting echoes of 'Per Questo Dolce Amplesso.' Bouquets rained upon the stage like vibrant cascades, fragrant gardens plucked from their roots in homage. Gifts, each a microcosm wrapped in mystery, twinkled under the soft glow of chandeliers. The atmosphere, heavy with enchantment, seemed to weave a spell around the audience, each breath they drew a silent vow to cherish this night's memory like a sacred secret. "Un Dieu, un Deaw," a titled patron might have cried from the seclusion of their box. One god, one Deaw.

Yet, amidst the splendor, a peculiar sensation had haunted Deaw's performance—a persistent, almost spectral tug, akin to a finger delicately unraveling a single strand of hair or a ghostly caress against the cheek. This presence, elusive yet unyielding, remained static through the performance but began to stir as the audience ebbed away. It drew nearer, closer, stealthily, until just a few steps away, where Deaw's gaze lifted to the broad back of a young man, his silhouette outlined by the stage lights. Dark hair, fluid as spilled ink, broad shoulders that spoke of strength.

The urge to interrupt, to confront this pull, was overwhelming, yet decorum held sway. Surrounded by affluent patrons backstage, Deaw turned, seeking solace in the anonymity of the cold evening air. A lump formed in their throat, their hands fumbled for the comfort of a cigarette, their breaths coming in shallow gasps, as if that fleeting encounter had stolen more air than their entire performance.

But then, a flame flickered to life in the darkness, casting a warm, inviting glow. Deaw looked up.

[doomedandstoned]

13 Unusual Records That Rocked n’ Wrecked 2020

~By Billy Goate~

Photograph by Randy J Byrd

With all of the uncertainty and unrest we experienced in 2020, it was hard to imagine what kind of a musical year it would be last January. As it turned out, the music won out, with disquieted souls unleashing a bevy of sound and fury!

Following last week's parade of top albums from the Doomed & Stoned team, it's the editor's turn. I submit for your consideration 13 records that had me coming back again and again.

Nothing - The Great Dismal

The depressive rock vibes of Nothing captured so much of the spirit of 2020 -- wistful, jaded and, well, dismal -- with the sentiment, This will never end.. By October, we were really feeling it, too. Then along came NOTHING (originally a side project of Agalloch members Jason William Walton and Don Anderson) with what I regard as their finest longplay to date, spitting out along with it a plethora of visceral music videos that made The Great Dismal hard to ignore. Timely medicine for my jaded, weary soul. No surprise then that I listened to this album constantly throughout the year.

Isn't it strange Watching people Try and outrun the rain

5 R V L N 5 - The Black Mark

Chuck Clybourne (ex-Faces of the Bog) delivers one of the most authentic and gripping biographical albums of recent memory. I was in the Chicago studio on the final day of its recording and recall how dark and angry it seemed, a doomier kind of industrial metal. The Black Mark includes contributions from Chicago Doomed & Stoned Fest organizer Lara Noel. As I remarked on "Flesh" last January: "The song builds and builds in intensity, generating a wall of sound and fury contrasted with dreamlike vox and emotive synth licks that made me an instant fan of 5 R V L N 5. I suspect the effect will be similar for you."

Crimson Caravan - Big Big Bang

Screeeeeech! Stop the presses! Here's an unbelievable find! Didn't pick up on these Russian stoner-doomers until the New Year's dawn (to be fair, it was released on December 29th), but everytime I listen to Big Big Bang I'm awed at just how goddamn heavy it is. An outstanding specimen of the genre, with songs like "Heap of Junk" of an Electric Wizard, Monolord, or Dopelord aura.

Elder Druid - Golgotha

Those champions of winter, Elder Druid, brought us a compelling sophomore offering in Golgotha, which we were among the earliest to review on January 9th, at which time I gushed: "Every yard as epic as it’s title, its power and majesty bleeds through every low-fuzzed corpuscle and sinew." Almost one year to the day and I must say time was kind to this prodigious paragon.

Enslaved - Utgard

A worthy entry into a very crowded field of contenders, Utgard shows us the more experimental side of Enslaved -- roaring black metal meets seventies prog rock (yep, you read that right). Though their fifteenth (!) LP received some mixed reviews, it's definitely worth hearing because, you know, it's mother effen Enslaved! Plus it draws heavily on Norse mythology, which is always cool. As expected, the album was preceded and followed by a number of music videos that brought us the band in all its coldness, melancholy, and savagery

Ethyl Ether - Neon Chrome Jesus

It was a big year for the South African music scene, led by Cape Town's Ethyl Ether, who released their third album on the newly founded local label Mongrel Records. Keep an eye on this scene, and especially this band, in the year ahead. Psychedelic texture don an eighties rock sound for a very chill vibe, indeed.

Forming The Void - Omens

What can one say about this rapidly rising voice in metal, already a widely recognized voice in doom? The expansive soundscapes, serpentine vocals, and deluge of big low-end. Omens is another out-of-the-ballpark homerun for Ripple and a fitting fourth full-length for the band. We reviewed it in May, at which time I remarked: "It’s earthy moving rhythm is joined by the prophetic utterance of vocals that soar vastly overhead, surveying the horizon like a bird of prey. It’s a vibe that Slomatics fans will be used to, though arguably Forming The Void makes it much groovier. After all, you can’t avoid the influence of the blues in a place like Louisiana.."

Frayle - 1692

The Ohio atmospheric doomers outdid themselves in 2020 by taking us back to another year: 1692. It was on March 1st that the Salem Witch Trials began in Salem Village of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Witnessing their performance at Chicago Doomed & Stoned Show gave me a new appreciation for the thoughtful execution of every note, and the arch that links them all together. They played "Dead Inside", and it was all chills for me. You would be hard pressed to listen to a number like "Burn" and walk away with anything short of adoration.

Greg Puciato - Fuck Content

If you were missing the Dillinger Escape Plan in 2020, their enigmatic singer came back just in time with new solo material, published under the banner of Federal Prisoner. And while there's a lot to love about the album Child Soldier: Creator God, it's the live album that really reached me. It's hard not to get caught up in its adrenaline fueled performances ("Fire for Water"), grungy rumblers ("Deep Set"), incendiary ballades ("Don't Wanna Deal"), and narcotic chill ("Evacuation").

Hellvetika - redux series

Love Spit Love // redux by Hellvetika

Aaron D.C. Edge is one hell of an improviser and absolutely wowed us with this rather brilliant bunch of sludged-up tributes to the musical greats. Under the project name Hellvetika Aaron recorded whole albums of these damning transformations, including covers of: Alice in Chains, AC/DC, Deftones, NIN, Willie Nelson, STP, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure, Clutch, Depeche Mode, Helmet, Audioslave, Joy Division, Weezer, Radiohead, Sting, and a whole lot more. I have no idea how long the project took him, but it certainly gives release to a lot of pent up emotion, perhaps borne of crushing isolation, and if so that's something I can entirely relate to. The series is also available sans voix right here.

I Am Low - Illusions

Illusions by I Am Low

I've been sort of low-key predicting that Grunge is poised for a big comeback. It's only natural, as the last two decades we reexamined the music of the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Hell, Brazil is a few years ahead of us, with grunge bands popping up left and right. Now, from Sweden comes Grunge med båda fötterna på Umeås jord ("Grunge with both feet on Umeå's soil")...I Am Low. Great name for a grunge band that meddles in doom, by the way. Their EP 'Illusions' (2020) (another late-December release) pulls you right in with its filthy tone, shimmering solos, and characteristically dulled singing. Like the disaffected youth of yesterday, they come with a disaffected message:

Here we are now All forgotten They betrayed us All for nothing

Sleepwulf - Sleepwulf

Then out of nowhere the following month, these standing stones of southern Sweden sent us their sublime sounds. Needless to say, we were enamored with the band's eponymous debut. Their feet firmly planted in the Pentagram school of doom, Sleepwulf are kindred spirits of Denmark's Demon Head and Norway's Dunbarrow. The band's debut LP was reviewed by Reek of STOOM in February.

Slift - UMMON

We introduced them to you on episode 18 of The Doomed & Stoned Show, but French band blew up weeks before with the widely-praised single "Hyperion." We wondered where these psychedelic krautrockers had been all our lives! Toulouse is the answer, and UMMON wasn't their only laudible opus, either.

☿

What were your favorite records of 2020? Leave a comment below and let us know! As 2021 unwraps, we want you to join us on a quest to find the best in heavy underground music. Give Doomed & Stoned a follow on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for daily updates and subscribe to our weekly podcast for our choice cuts from the latest doom metal and stoner rock spins!

[tenwordsformybaby]

The coldest summer

This was supposed to be the best summer of your life, after so long you’re finally happy. You couldn’t wait to soak in the warm sun, feel that summer breeze in your hair like there’s nothing in this world that could take that happiness away from you. You found love and it was the best thing in your life! It wasn’t just puppy love, it was the kind that made you love yourself, the kind that made you want to live, the kind that made you want to work towards building yourself. Everything was supposed to be amazing, yeah life always has bumps in the way but that won’t stop you.

You took on everything with a positive mind, and looked at every bump in the way as a challenge to overcome, yeah it’s kinda sunny, a little too sunny and suddenly the heat is way too much to handle and it’s like you’re driving and you’re looking straight ahead but the light is blinding and suddenly SCREEEEEECH *CRASH* the light goes out, what you thought was a tiny bump turned into a major carcrash and everything you thought you had- slipped right out of your hands. You lost everything that night, your love, your childhood, everything that really mattered..and you could feel yourself flatline and the world tried everything to get you to a sinus rhythm, for what though?

You lost the will to live that night, they left, nana died and it felt like everything came crashing down on you and as much as you tried, those tiny hands of positivity just couldn’t take the weight of all this. What was supposed to be the best summer turned out to be the coldest one. It’s scorching outside but you’re freezing, the water is warm but you’re shivering. The sun doesn’t set until late but there is no light in your life. Nothing feels alright.

They tell you it’s gonna be okay and that you should “Keep moving forward” and you should “stay positive” but tell me, when you lose everything you ever cared about in less than 6 hours how can you possibly stay positive?! HOW CAN YOU NOT FLATLINE? how can you just MOVE ON?!

funny thing is how easy was to deal with death, but losing love at the same time broke you and you wish you were the one in the grave. Rather be dead than lost with no cause. You’ve known this feeling but it still takes you by surprise and it hurts like hell, way more than any kind of pain you’ve felt before. But you gotta keep moving forward right?

When it happened, you tossed and turned hoping for sleep. Now you spend all day in bed, refusing to wake up because waking up means feeling that void constantly, waking up means feeling pain of every kind. Waking up means driving around a lifeless body doing meaningless tasks for meaningless people in this meaningless world.

Food and water are just meaningless substances that you family and friends shove down your throat to keep your lifeless body alive.

You’re trying to heal, you get out of the country, you get to work. You see a million new faces, you meet all these brilliant people but you don’t want any of it. You want to get back to texting them at the end of the day instead of returning to an empty room. You just wanna get back to the comfort of laying in you nana’s lap while she strokes your hair, you want to be a little girl again, you want these tears trickling down your face to be because of skinned knees and not because of heartbreak or death.

Right now you’re feeling a lot of things but mostly cold, you’ve lost a lot and nothing can replace that. Right now you wanna die, but right now you have to live; if not for you then for others. Right now you need to get through your coldest summer.

[400legends]

Regarding Intruders (Day 131)

Voices in the void:

"I thought you were gonna help her."

"You're the mechanic."

"She's not a ship. What sort of tools can fix a Proxy, do you know? No. My point exactly."

"Should she be twitching like that?"

"Ah shit, hold on."

Power flowed through my body, and I sat up. "Hello. Thank you for stabilizing me," I said to the Cosmic Peanut and Iota, who knelt on either side of me.

I heard Requiem say, "I would like to help YOU, but I'm not sure about your master. Maybe we could keep you safe."

Iota stood up. "Yeah, let's help the little guy. It's just one crate."

Sara said, "What if you don't get what's in the box?"

"Smoosh" said an familiar voice. "He find me, and I smooshed."

"What if we all left? Then your master couldn't find you." Requiem looked at the captain with her eyebrows raised.

"I dunno," said the Cosmic Peanut. "I'm not feeling this. I mean, we're stuck here. Malaka still needs repairs."

Something was pulling my head to the left. Reaching up, I tugged a small power supply from my left ear. "This must be yours," I said to CP.

"Thanks. Hey, you could, like, scan that crate? What's in there that he wants so badly?"

"He?" It was then that I saw the winged creature sitting on its haunches talking with Requiem. In the orange glow of the emergency lights his green skin looked shiny gray. This creature, the abomination that had tried to rip me in two, sat with his arms curled around his legs. He shook his head, saying, "Master very, very powerful. Like..... Like 15 of me!"

Sara and Requiem nodded, and Requiem patted the creature's hand. I turned to the Cosmic Peanut. "I missed something, obviously."

She didn't reply, so I prepped for the scan, as requested.

I could tell that my systems had been damaged in the fight. A quick diagnostic revealed that I had lost over 700 seconds! A lifetime of data lost while I was dead. What transmissions missed, what data left unprocessed, never to be encountered again?

It would take a deep scan to try to determine the extent of the damage. For now I focused on the crate. "Wormholes," I announced. "This crate is filled with microscopic wormholes."

Requiem's sister Peony barked out a laugh. "You guys risked your lives over a bunch of data squirts?"

"These are medical grade," I said. "So they could serve myriad functions."

"Master want wormhole. Yes!"

Sara frowned. "We are guests of the GC, but perhaps we--"

"We're not opening the crate." The Cosmic Peanut's pronouncement fell across the group.

"Not friends! Not friends!" The creature stood, with its fists clenched.

"Let's start over." Requiem's eyes didn't leave the creature's face but her voice boomed through the hangar. "My name is Requiem. What's yours?"

"No name; no name. Names have power. I no power."

"My people also believe that names have power, but it's a power you give yourself." Requiem looked at her sister and smiled.

"Name myself?"

"Yeah," Iota nodded. "Be your own champion."

After a moment of silence the creature said, "I Screeeeeech. That be my name."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," said Requiem. "Now, what are you supposed to do with the wormhole?"

He put his hands together as if offering something to Requiem.

"Right, you give it to your master, but where? Where is your master?"

"Is your master on this ship?" Sara asked. "Is that why we have the intruder alert?"

Just then Commander Hin's voice came over the intercom. "Sssssara? Hin here. Are you sssssafe? Have you ssssseen anything unussssual in the hangar bay?"

Sara looked up and said, "There is a weird creature here."

After a pause Hin's voice said, "I'm bringing a sssecurity detail there. Sssstand by."

"We're outta time," said the Cosmic Peanut. "Sorry buddy, GC wins this time."

"What are they gonna do with him?" asked Iota.

Requiem crossed her arms and said, "I, for one, am not going to prioritize stuff over life. Seriously, there's been enough death today."

"Agreed," said her sister, and to punctuate her word, Peony pulled out a gun and shot the crate. Zerofoam spilled out and several small vials rolled free.

At the sound of the shot, I dropped to the deck, sure I'd been hit. The experience of the last hour had shown me that life in all its forms was indeed precious. I wanted to live and learn and understand this galaxy. Requiem's words echoed inside me: there had, indeed, been enough death for one day, my own included.

I heard CP say, "The little guys is gonna get his goods after all."

In answer Screeeeeech snatched a vial from Peony's hand and held it out. The vial vanished, and with a pop, the color drained from him. "I free!" he yelled.

Just then the hangar door began to rise. "Sssssara? Are you sssssafe?" Hin's voice came from the other side of the door.

"We can't let them find him," said Requiem.

"Hide him on the ship," said the Cosmic Peanut.

"He's too big." Iota shook her head.

"I be small." Screeeeeech was suddenly the size of a small, white fowl. "Small goosey is Screeeeeech."

"Smaller," whispered Requiem as she picked him up. Suddenly she held a fuzzy, silver caterpillar. "Perfect," she said as she tucked him into her pocket.

The orange lights ceased their flashing just as Hin ducked under the rising door. "Huh, the all clear? Hasssss the intruder been found?" He turned to one of the soldiers. "Sssstatus report, if you pleasssse."

As he strode toward our group, Iota stepped in front of the blasted crate, and Requiem sat down on another, sweeping zerofoam under her long skirt.

"Now that we have averted a crisssssissss, I have a favor to asssssk of you and your friendsssss." Hin folded two of his arms in front of him. "It issss no ssssurprisssse to you, Sssssara, that the Coalition issss sssstrapped for resssourcesss right now, sssso I asssk for your help."

The GC had, he told us, lost connection to a transport ship called Eternia. The ship was carrying a piece of comm tech called "The Nexus," and Hin and the Galactic Coalition were anxious to retrieve it.

Hin would finish repairs, add a basic ship AI to Malaka, and give us the coordinates to an unlicensed wormhole that would get us to the last known position of the transport in two days.

"It wasssss in the Palmera Sssssector," he told CP. "Frontier sssspace. Sssshe wasssss headed for the GC sssspacessssstation we have there. Return "The Nexus" to me, and then, assss a ssssign of friendsssship, I could give you more information about....."

"About what?" prompted CP.

"Yes," said Requiem, "about what?"

"About the current sssstate of the Nacora Galaxy."

No one spoke for a second, and then Iota said, "Gee, I dunno - leave Coalition airspace? Go where no one would tractor-beam our ship and hold us against our will?"

"Down, girl," whispered the Cosmic Peanut. "This uh, AI you want to give me....?"

"Ssssstandard fare, I asssure you."

"It could be quite beneficial," I said.

The Cosmic Peanut jumped slightly. "Don't sneak up on me like that! Can you check it out, Fleur? I don't want any, you know, surprises."

I had been standing by the captain's side since Hin had arrived, but I simply nodded and said, "Aye-aye." I executed a smart salute and started toward the mechanics already swarming over Malaka.

As I passed, I heard Hin say to Sara, "I really appreciate your friendsssship. Thissss issss a difficult time, sssso it issss good to know there are people you can trust. Do you undersssstand what I am sssssaying?"

If Sara answered him, I was too far away to hear, and soon I was deep into the code of the Class One AI we'd been given. Without realizing it, I had began to hum a Maeshari sailing shanty. I was, it seemed, as anxious to be away as my new friend Iota.