Blood, Death, Satan & Metal

Best album of 2023. I didn’t expect my favorite album of 2023 to be a punk album. While I like punk, it ranks much further down the ladder than metal, noise, electronic, and even alternative pop for me. Why? It’s good, but it’s stale . Every metal subgenre gets a revival every 10-15 years, it seems like. Black metal used to be pretty monolithic and kvlt, and then around 2008ish it exploded into a diverse array of technical, atmospheric, gazey, death-y, folky, whatever-y stuff. Death metal is doing the same right now. Punk generally doesn’t innovate without splintering- emo isn’t really punk anymore, for example, and screamo folded into (bad) metal. Traditional, hardcore and crust/blackened punk have been the only “true” punk I’ve been able to stand for a long while, and finally something new comes along! Serf punk! No, not “surf” punk. Poison Ruin is the perfect music for RPG nerds. Poison Ruin are doing something that someone should’ve thought of long before this. They’ve taken the fa...

The dim light of a single bulb illuminates the messy stacks of dusty boxes in your attic. Treasures await. You hone in on what you seek. The lid of the foot locker creaks open on its damaged hinges. A rag of stray webbing clings to the interior, and the spider lays dead atop the messy stack of comics and roleplaying modules. Peeking out is the video game guide you seek, Vermis II: Mist & Mirrors . The rediscovery of Vermis ignited your curiosity, and you thought of the sequel you bought but never remember playing. You can't find the game disc in the foot locker. Good enough for now, you think, I can dig through the guide and pick up a copy later. You sit down on a cardboard box, flipping the cover open.   The knells of the bell echo along the endless corridors. The mist engulfs everything. Those glassy eyes that chase you wherever you go are none but your own. You eagerly devour the age-faded pages, losing track of time in the quiet attic, finding yourself in the world of th...