One heavy metal album for taking to the afterlife? The Thing About is a series of short, simple heavy metal reviews. Scroll down to the headings that interest you most or read the whole thing. The previous installment was about the album Anesthetic by Mark Morton. “I had not thought…

Is justice dead? — The Thing About is a series of short, simple heavy metal reviews. Scroll down to the headings that interest you most or read the whole thing. The previous installment was about the album Extirpation Paradigms by Traumatomy. My personal Approved Vendor List for long-playing records has been periodically throwing Mark…

Is this the album climbing out of your drain? — The Thing About is a series of short, simple heavy metal reviews. Scroll down to the headings that interest you most or read the whole thing. The previous installment was about the album Wind by Frigoris. The first time I heard Analepsy’s Atrocities from Beyond (2017), I knew I had…

The usual grift a shade darker John Updike’s novel The Witches of Eastwick (1984) has a lengthy passage in which the devil relates the behavior of a certain parasite, and it’s nightmarish reading. …

Is there a better black metal whisperer? — The Thing About is a series of short, simple heavy metal reviews. Scroll down to the headings that interest you most or read the whole thing. The previous installment was about Utbyrd’s album Varskrik. Heavy metal, especially black metal, is obsessed with the cold. Bands try to capture this sound…

Is the Arctic Circle big enough to contain such chaos? — The Thing About is a series of short, simple heavy metal reviews. Scroll down to the headings that interest you most or read the whole thing. The previous installment was about Pharaoh’s The Powers That Be. Black metal is a history in extremity. Extreme speed, extreme raw, extreme lo-fi, extreme…

The world weaves as Frigg spins — Frigg spins blood tonight Yet no drop stains the city As dusk falls, stars wink — by J.P. Williams In the warmer months of the year, I enjoy sitting on my balcony as the sun sets. A residential area lies in one direction and an urban business area in the…

Can metal explode the master-slave dialectic? — The Thing About is a series of short, simple heavy metal reviews. Scroll down to the headings that interest you most or read the whole thing. The previous installment was about Ablaze My Sorrow’s Among Ashes and Monoliths. “They say the Pharaohs built the pyramids. Do you think one Pharaoh…

Dreams matter, so I investigated one of mine — Note: I originally posted “A Vision of the World Serpent” to Medium on April 2, 2020. It was a personal piece for me and one I’ve continued to think about in the years since. This version is annotated via footnotes expanding some of the lines of thought. …