Thy Art Is Murder (photo by Jake Owens)

I’m two-thirds of the way through a month-long festival orgy. First was Maryland Deathfest in Baltimore, then helping to put on our very own Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle, and this coming week will be Ascension Festival in Iceland. After that I’ll probably just check into a hospital. I wonder if hospitals take reservations?

Between the festival orgy, my fucking day job, and a nagging cold I contracted at MDF, I’ve fallen way behind in my round-ups for NCS, and it’s unlikely I’ll get another one done while I’m in Iceland. But I did spend some time listening to new things last night. I decided to focus on music I added to my listening list just from appearances over the last few days; the thought of trying to crawl through everything I noticed beginning with MDF week was just too daunting.

From last night’s explorations I picked nine tracks, divided into two segments. If you don’t see Part 2 later today, you’ll see it first thing tomorrow, as a prelude to my first SHADES OF BLACK column in a month (another casualty of the festival orgy). Continue reading »