If you’re not listening to Weird Scenes…

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"Doc" Savage, cult film, cult music, Cult television, Euro horror, Louis Paul, Weird Scenes, Weird Scenes inside the goldmine

…you’ve missed lively, Siskel vs. Ebert-esque discussions on directorial filmographies, genres, cult television and music like:

…Warm Southern Zephyrs

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Abrupt Demise - The Pleasure to Kill and Grind, ARMAGEDDA - Svindeldjup Attestup, Front Beast - Shadows, Gloom - Rider of the Last Light, Helldprod, IRAE - Lurking in the Depths, LADY BEAST - The Vulture's Amulet, Mighty Spells Records, Necro Chaos - Spiral of Obscurity, Nordvis, Pombajira, Raw Skull Recordz, Reaper Metal Productions, SEPULCHRAL CURSE - Only Ashes Remain, Signal Rex, Spread Evil, third eye cinema podcast, Thrashera - NAO GOSTO!, Transcending Obscurity Records, WITCHES - The Fates

And here’s the second half of this batch of reviews, here (mostly) covering materials and labels from more southmost climes.

So without any further ado-ing, let’s put some wax on the trax and slide on into this, to paraphrase Adam Ant…

Grim Northern Winds…

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Aleah, Astral Sleep - Astral Doom Musick, Bindrune Recordings, Candlelight / Spinefarm, Eave - Phantoms Made Permanent, Edged Circle, Eisenwald, Eye Of Nix - Ligeia, Fellwarden - Wreathed in Mourncloud, Kairon; IRSE! - Polysomn, Kingart, Leading Light - ''It hurts'', Mosaic - Harvest: Songs of Autumnal Landscapes and Melancholy, Obnoxious Youth - Mouths Sewn Shut, Osi and the Jupiter - Appalachia, Persekutor - Permanent Winter, Polymoon - Caterpillars of Creation, Prophecy, Prophecy productions, Saarni Records, Self Hypnosis - Contagion of Despair, svart records, Taake / Deathcult - Jaertegn, The Glorious Dead - Into Lifeless Shrines, The Moon And The Nightspirit - Aether, Third Eye Cinema, Transcending Obscurity Records, Winterfylleth - The Reckoning Dawn

And as this neverending virus keeps asserting its presence (despite a corporatized national hubris in trying to reassert an imaginary “status quo” of yore) and a fed up youth actually find some small changes being enacted in the face of protest (for the first time in literal decades), we keep on truckin’ along, waiting for that second stimulus check they kept promising and hoping it actually hits the people this time instead of being yet another golden parachute corporate cash grab.

(groans, facepalm, shakes head in disgust)

Darkness, Seen Red and Redefined

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AKURION - Come Forth to Me, Ancient Temple Recordings, ANGEROT - The Divine Apostate, Araki Records, Aseptic - Cascading Fluids, Brigante Records, Brotthogg - Echoes of the Past, Chrome Ghost - The Diving Bell, CURSE - The Awakening..and the Old, Grave Bathers -Feathered Serpent / Death Hand EP, HOT GRAVES - Haunted Graves EP + A Magnificent Death, Ian Blurton Future Now - Signals Through the Flames, Keverra, Machinations of Fate, Meridian Dawn - The Fever Syndrome, Nuclear Winter Records, O ZORN! - Your Killer, Pajama Party, Pale Mare - II, PLAGUE - Portraits of Mind, Redefining Darkness Records, Sarcator - Visions of Purgatory, Saturnal Records, Schattenfall - Das Verderben, Seeing Red Records, SKAM - The Sound of Disease, SOVEREIGN - Neurotic, Subtype Zero - Ceremonious Extinction, third eye cinema podcast, TOMBSTONER - Descent to Madness, TORN IN HALF - Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth, UNTITLED WITH DRUMS (aka UW/D) - Hollow, VAKI - Kuolleen Maan Omaksi (Succumbed to the Dead Soil), Wolfspell Records

So, yeah, it’s been a bit since we’ve dropped one of these Roundup Reviews. You’ve gotten another Coronavirus special over at Weird Scenes, a few opera updates and a vintage comic book based TV movie review to keep ya busy in the interim, but here’s what so many of you have been chomping at the bit for.

So without further ado, let’s tackle the backlog of another label or two, bringing us up to date on ’em for the entirety of 2020…

DVD Review: Doctor Strange (1978, Peter Hooten)

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Clyde Kusatsu, Doctor Strange, Dr. Strange, Frank Brunner, Gene Colan, Jessica Harper, Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, Peter Hooten, Shout! Factory, Steve Englehart, third eye cinema podcast

42 years old and still better than Marvel Studios’ version.

Catching up on opera live from the Met…

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Anna Netrebko, Audrey LUna, Bryn Terfel, Cecilia Bartoli, cosi fan tutte, Diana Damrau, Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, Isabel Leonard, Juan Diego Florez, Jules Massenet, L'Elisir d'Amore, La Sonnambula, Le Nozze di Figaro, Live at the Met streaming, Manon, Metropolitan opera, Mozart, Natalie Dessay, opera review, Piotr Beczala, Pretty Yende, Renee Fleming, Rigoletto, The Tempest, third eye cinema podcast, thomas Ades, Vincenzo Bellini, Zeljko Lucic

Well, it’s been a few weeks since our last chat, and while there’ve been a few thoughts appearing at the Facebook page along the way, some things have become clear over the past 11 weeks of free nightly streams.  If this lockdown hasn’t upped your opera cachet dramatically, then on your own head be it…not like we haven’t done our part to intrigue the casual fencepole sitter!

Fun and Frolics From France and Italy vol. 2: France

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DEATHMAZE - EAU ROUGE, fange, FANGE - PUDEUR, Helldprod, MOURIR - ANIMAL BOUFFE ANIMAL, SATAN  - TOUTES CES HORREURS, third eye cinema podcast, Throatruiner Records, Throatruiner Records/ GPS Prod/ Fer De Lance Records, Throatruiner Records/ Amertume Records/ Croux Records/ Deaf Death Husky/ Itawak Records/ Jungle Khôl/ Lilith Records/ Repulsive Medias, Vectis - No Mercy for the Weak, VERDUN - Astral Sabbath

And here’s the other part of yesterday’s offering, this time from the cool Gallic (relative) Northern shores of la belle France.

Well…one from Portugal managed to slip in there, somehow.  Don’t ask.

Allons-y, n’est pas?

Fun and Frolics from France and Italy vol. 1: Italy

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Acathexis, Amor Fati / Entropic, Asofy - Amusia, Avantgarde Music, Drought - Trimurti, Earth And Pillars - Earth II, Nexion - Seven Oracles, Plateau Sigma - Symbols - The Sleeping Harmony of the World Below, Profetus - The Sadness Of Time Passing, Sivyj Yar - Горе / Grief, third eye cinema podcast, Vastígr - Aura Aeternitatis, VERDUN - Astral Sabbath, With The End In Mind - Tides Of Fire, Wolvencrown - Of Bark And Ash

And here’s one that started out as an international cooperative of sorts, but which turned out to have enough of a backlog to separate after all.

So without any further ado, let us debark to the sunswept climes of the Meditteranean, hoping all is well at this stage of the notable national lockdown they were one of the earliest to suffer under…

Andiamo!

The Swedish Connection

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Arcada - Projections, Beyond The Storm Productions, Black Lion, Black Lodge Records, BOMBS OF HADES - PHANTOM BELL, DRÅPSNATT - Skelepht, Drittmaskin - Sosial Prolaps, Edged Circle, EXISTENZ - Meltdown, Finnegans Hell: Work is the Curse of the Drinking Class, FORNDOM - Faþir, Grift - Budet, Heptown Records, Immortal Souls Productions, KILLHEAD, Kvaen - The Funeral Pyre, LION'S SHARE - “Pentagram”, LUSTRE - The Ashes of Light, Magick Touch - Heads Have Got to Rock'n'Roll, MUSTASCH - KILLING IT FOR LIFE, Nordvis, Noterious Music, Project Aegis - "And the Rest Is Mystery", Queenmaker - Under the Kiss, Scarab: Martyrs of the Storm, Signum Regis - The Seal of a New World, Sterbhaus - Krampusnacht, The Bastard Within - Better Dead Than Friends, THE GUILT - NEW KNIVES, third eye cinema podcast, TRITONUS RECORDS, Ulterium Records, Vicisolum Productions, Wild Kingdom, Wormwood - Ghostlands - Wounds From A Bleeding Earth (reissue)

And for today’s festival of fun, we head on over to sunny Sweden, home of the once famed Swedish stewardesses the likes of Austin Powers and Willie Aames of Charles in Charge fame used to go on about all the time. You know, Christina Lindberg, Marie Lildejahl, Scorpio Films, Joe Sarno, Ingmar Bergman…

…well, okay, maybe one of those isn’t exactly a tight fit with the others, but you get the idea.

Ever Lengthening Shadows

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Crowhurst and Gavin Bryars - Incoherent American Narrative, Dool - Summerland, Drown - Subaqueous, Lotus Thief - Oresteia, Perchta - Ufang, Prophecy, Secrets Of The Moon - Black House, Sylvaine / Unreqvited - Time Without End, The Mystery Of The Bulgarian Voices feat. Lisa Gerrard - Shandai Ya / Stanka, third eye cinema podcast, Unreqvited - Mosaic II: la deteste et la detresse, Vuur & Zijde / Impavida split

Another day, another label brought up to date.  Let’s jump in straightaway, shall we?

More opera chat – Live at the Met continuing coverage

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Giuseppe Verdi, Live at the Met streaming, Luisa Miller, Marnie, Metropolitan opera, Nico Mulhy, opera review, Piotr Beczala, Sonya Yoncheva, third eye cinema podcast

We’re now at the dawn of Week 8 in the Met’s free streams of great (and not so great) performances from recent history…and it’s come to the point where they’ve actually started to dig back into the archives and air some standard definition classics, rather than sticking to performances filmed in and for their HD series (previously shown in theatrical simulcast as well as through their own subscription service and live onstage).

But that’s not the only oddity that’s surfaced with the passage of time and the airing of so many operas.