Twenty-one gun salute

Yes, the marriage to the SBH is now old enough to drink. And drink I shall.

Slowly we rot, or, better late than never

Greatest DM (death metal or dungeon master, listener's choice) album ever?

Don't sleep on Altars. Seriously, don't, or you'll wake up the not-that-secret ingredient of a pentagram stew. Mmmm, stew. Bunch of crazy crap happening in meat world, but fancy gizmodic contraptions aside, new shit same as the old shit YEEEAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH. 'twas vaguely Daltrynstic no? though I'm more skilled in the Axl arts, not the paparazzo face punching bit 'cause I love you all like Ozzy. Reference your own frontdude/chick for three easy installments of 39.95, please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.

Been cleaning [read: attempting to maybe possibly try] out the house 'cause like every firstworlder, got too much garbage even for Oscar, and came across a shot of the fam post-arrival of the alien known to interwebzians as Offspring the Elder, mom classy in a Justice tee, yours truly nattily clad in a Seasons, both sporting giant glasses which was, along with onions on the belt, the style at the time.

No, I didn't wallow in any of that stupid "woe to you o earth and sea what a world what a world we leaveth with thee" shit because are you fucking kidding me, life expectancy and an end to feudalism aside though I hear that's making a comeback in select markets, see above.

In the past, you couldn't ignore what was stabbing you.

Thanks to cheap anesthetic hawked by the real Satanic cult, now you can, but you're still gonna end up as someone's meal.

Midlife, no crisis

Look man, adrenaline junkie shtick's fine for vapid hacks surfing vapor trails to nowhere. Me, I dig a grimy rut slicked with oily mope. It's right there, points the skeletal digit, hand hallucinating over a shaky ticker, ears flapping as yours truly breezes wearily through discarded puns on the band's name and/or the Cretaceous. Eureka, that signifies old, and lo, a couple more greys than yesterday.

So what? As we learned last time out, "maturing" is for musical halfwits, but aging fully graced, a magically different ballad. Once upon an Angus: "I'm sick and tired of people saying that we put out 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've put out 12 albums that sound exactly the same." Here, a stretch, but it's new Alice, they've been at it since before my kids were born and so know what the fuck they're doing, the unbreakable Motörhead of mood metal.

Don't get naming the entire album after the sole "topical" track, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here for the under-a-rock adjacent, but everyone's brainwaves are different. Song's certainly eerie, though, though Hung on a Hook, whoa, Layne or no, see despondency through a glass, darkly. Funny how Chuck Woolery infernos used to blast open proceedings, but a deep (ten of twelve tracks clocking over five minutes) Hollow has good n' plenty of a sticky, bendy gait, defiantly smacking away one of the album's few flaws, namely that a speedy, let 'er rip once in a full moon would be keen.

Contradicting myself, brick wall drones are wheelhoused, but second single Stone hasn't stuck yet (neither had Lab Monkey, which I already like thrice more than Monday), but the Jar of Flies-worthy Voices, lordy, 'tis No Excuses horizontal harmonizing with a daydream haze, birthing their love child. Opposite, 99 44/100% pure facelifting with the chromatic, rambling, ergo self-titled-ish Phantom Limb, and har ye har ye, new guy getting more turns at the mic this time around beyond righteous and mandatory two-parts.

We all wanna tap our foot, crack open our skulls on the stage, feast on the goo inside. It's why pop craft welded to brontosaurs riffs makes overcast barbs like Low Ceiling soar, whilst Scalpel is cut primarily out of the former, a chorus of pure fucking ear candy. Being either moody or cranky or both, this stomper of a record, peppered with singer-songwriter longhair jams once strung out so lovely in Cantrell's solo oeuvre, perhaps less black and more grey, riffs that once lopped off bloody chunks now grinding gobs of weathered flesh instead, still guards the sound of a cold, rainy day. Like today! (sadly, not that cold) Brings an invisible ink smile to my face.