Arson Cafe: October 2014

Friday, October 31, 2014

Happy Halloween!

Latest releases:

Nightbringer - Ego Dominus Tuus [Listen]
Winterfylleth - The Divination of Antiquity [Listen]
Darkspace - Dark Space III I [Listen]
Mare Cognitum - Phobos Monolith [Listen]
Inter Arma - Sky Burial [Listen]
Young And In The Way - When Life Comes To Death [Listen]
Horsehunter - Caged In Flesh [Listen]
Obituary - Inked In Blood [Listen]
1349 - Massive Cauldron of Chaos [Listen]
Bastard Sapling - Instinct Is Forever [Listen]
Occultation - Silence In The Ancestral House [Listen]
Ascension - Deathless Light [Listen]
Energumen - Void Spiritualism [Listen]
Den Saakaldte - Faen i Helvete [Listen]
Sempiternal Dusk - Sempiternal Dusk [Listen]
Under the Church - Under the Church [Listen]
Heresiarch - Wælwulf [Listen]

Which classic albums should I listen today?

* Epicus Doomicus Metallicus by Candlemass
* Them by King Diamond
* Season of the Dead by Necrophagia
* Dark Medieval Times by Satyricon
* Blood Fire Death by Bathory

Which classic horror films should I watch?

* Inferno (1980)
* Black Sunday (1960)
* Hellraiser (1987)
* Carnival of Souls (1962)
* Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Which Arson Café reviews should I read?

* Ravencult - Morbid Blood (2011)
* Warbringer - War Without End (2008)
* Abigor - Fractal Possession (2007)
* Nordor - Erga Omnes (2012)
* Gorgoroth - Pentagram (1994)

And don't forget to listen to the end of this world:

Saturday, October 11, 2014

How to go to shows alone

Casually lean against walls.

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Stand in the front row during sets so at least you feel involved enough in the sense that you are actually really 'seeing' the bands. Also, you can pay close attention to the bands and try to learn something by watching people play.

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Involve yourself in something pocket-sized between sets (small book, notebook, calendar, flyers etc...)

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Read everything on the walls around you. If you act interested, you might find that it actually is really interesting.

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Send a couple of funny texts to friends from out of town about your bleak social life or make a couple of phone calls between sets. BUT it's important not to be on your phone too much because you want to remain present (otherwise, what's the point?)

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To strike up brief conversation with neighbors, ask: "What band is this / is next?" or "did ____ already play?" etc.

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Remind yourself to stand tall, convince yourself via internal monologues to feel proud and dignified in the fact that despite loneliness and social anxiety, you are doing good things with your time and you are at a show for the music, a.k.a. the most important reason. Plus, you are brave and strong and loners are mysterious anyway and maybe someone has a crush on you or wants to be your friend because they keep seeing you at every show and they are starting to wonder about you.

Reckoning

From all the hills came screams. A piece of sky beside the crescent sun was detaching. It was a loosened circle of evening sky, suddenly lighted from the back. It was an abrupt black body out of nowhere; it was a flat disk; it was almost over the sun. That is when there were screams. At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover. The hatch in the brain slammed. Abruptly it was dark night, on the land and in the sky. In the night sky was a tiny ring of light. The hole where the sun belongs is very small. A thin ring of light marked its place. There was no sound. The eyes dried, the arteries drained, the lungs hushed. There was no world. We were the world’s dead people rotating and orbiting around and around, embedded in the planet’s crust, while the earth rolled down. Our minds were light-years distant, forgetful of almost everything.