In this interview, we chat with Marianelle and Navka of the Ukrainian symphonic metal band Thy Despair to discuss how they combine keyboards and vocals to shape the group’s dark, atmospheric sound. The duo also opens up about the emotional reality of playing live in Kyiv, navigating the metal scene as women, and the unexpected places they find musical inspiration.

Reuel

Hello Marianelle, hello Navka! I’m happy to chat with you. How are you doing?

Marianelle

Hello! Thank you for inviting us. We’re glad to be part of this conversation. These are difficult times for us as Ukrainians because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Like everyone else in Ukraine, we have difficult days, sleepless nights and moments of exhaustion. But music helps us stay strong and move forward. That’s why we’re always grateful for every opportunity to share our music and connect with people.

Navka

Hello, nice to meet you! My deepest gratitude to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. These brave men and women give us the opportunity to live in our own home, create music, and share our work with the world.

Reuel

Two of the main elements that define symphonic metal and make it unique are the keyboards and the vocals. How do you two work together to combine these parts and shape the band’s sound?

Marianelle

We often discuss arrangements and details together with the band, especially when it comes to harmonies, backing vocals and creating the right atmosphere. I think this interaction helps tell the same story from different angles and contributes to the overall character of the band’s sound.

Navka

I’m always open to arrangement discussions and creative debates, because that’s the only way to craft a truly rich and multifaceted composition – especially when we’re talking about symphonic metal!

Reuel

Your music deals with heavy themes like freedom and resilience. How do you get ready emotionally before a live show?

Marianelle

To be honest, it’s not always easy to feel fully prepared emotionally. There are times when we feel exhausted after difficult nights and constant attacks. But we truly love what we do. Every time we step on stage and connect with the audience, we gain new energy. For a while, we can completely immerse ourselves in that shared atmosphere and that helps us keep going.

Navka

I think back to our previous performances and the wonderful feedback from our beloved audience, and I realize that today we will bring them joy once again, while they will once again reward us with their warmth and enthusiasm. In these difficult times that all of us are living through, every positive emotion feels like a breath of fresh air.

Reuel

As women in the symphonic metal scene, what has your experience been like, and do you feel there’s a strong community among female musicians in the genre?

Marianelle

For me, music has always come first. I’ve never really thought about my place in the scene in terms of gender — I prefer to focus on the music, the performance and the connection with the audience.

Navka

Most of the people in our community do not place much emphasis on gender. What matters more is your skill with your instrument and your ability to work as part of a team.

Reuel

You’ve been playing shows in Kyiv recently. What does it mean to you personally to play live and connect with the audience there right now?

Marianelle

It means a lot to us, especially now. We live in very difficult times, and despite regular attacks, power outages, sleepless nights and even when the subway may not be running normally, people still find a way to come to our shows.

What makes it special is that we’re all going through the same reality. For a few hours, the distance between the stage and the audience disappears and it feels like everyone is sharing the same moment together.

Navka

It is a never-ending source of inspiration that motivates me to keep creating and improving.

Reuel

What new sounds or ideas are you most excited to try out in your future music?

Marianelle

We’ve always been open to experimenting and exploring different sounds, and we never want to limit ourselves creatively. At the same time, what matters most to us is the emotion behind the music. Whatever direction we take, our goal is always to create something honest, meaningful and true to who we are.

Reuel

What are your thoughts on how women are represented in music today, and what do you think can be done to promote more inclusivity and support for female musicians?

Marianelle

I think the most important thing is to focus on musicians for their talent, creativity and dedication rather than their gender. The best way to support female musicians, or any musicians, is to support good music, encourage new artists and create an environment where people are judged by their work and not by stereotypes.

Navka

The best support for a creative person of any gender is validation within their inner circle. And this should come without trying to fit them into a Procrustean bed of behavioral, appearance or creative standards – something that, unfortunately, women face more often. However, over the last 10-15 years I’ve seen a steady trend toward breaking down these standards, and that’s really cool! The support of family and friends can keep you afloat when the whole world is against you; at the same time, even at the peak of success, a person can feel deeply miserable if the people who matter most belittle and ridicule them.

Reuel

What was it like joining a band that already had so much history, and how did you put your own spin on their older songs?

Marianelle

I’m grateful to have joined a band with such a long and rich history. What makes it even more special is that the music truly resonates with me, so being able to perform these songs together with the band means a lot.

As for adding my own touch, I think it happens naturally. I bring my own emotions, experiences and feelings into every performance while staying true to the spirit of the songs. My goal is not to change them, but to express it in the most honest and authentic way I can.

Reuel

How do you handle singing the band’s older songs compared to the new ones you helped create?

Marianelle

For me, the main difference is not between old and new songs, but between representing the different moods and styles. Thy Despair’s earlier and newer material is quite different, and I really love this diversity.
My musical education has given me a strong foundation to work with different kinds of material, so I feel comfortable performing both older and newer songs. What matters most to me is connecting with the music emotionally, and I enjoy performing all the band’s material.

Reuel

What got you into symphonic metal, and which vocalists influence you the most?

Marianelle

Norwegian sympho-gothic metal band Sirenia completely changed my life. They were the band that introduced me to metal and made me realize that I not only loved this music, but also wanted to sing myself. That was the beginning of my journey, and their influence is still very special to me.

As for vocalists, I’m inspired by several incredible singers, especially Emmanuelle Zoldan, Vibeke Stene, and AnnLouise Lögdlund. Each of them has a unique voice and artistic identity that I deeply admire.

Reuel

Navka, how has your approach to the keyboards changed as the band’s overall sound has evolved over the years?

Navka

As time went on, the band grew to sound increasingly heavy, grim and powerful. It became clear to me that symphonic orchestral arrangements were absolutely essential. You could hear our initial foray into this sound on our recent release. Currently, I am crafting the keyboard arrangements for our new release, aiming to forge an intensely dark and epic atmosphere.

Reuel

Where do you get your inspiration when writing the atmospheric keyboard parts?

Navka

I draw inspiration from many things: from the books I read and the stories I hear, to my favorite music – ranging from folk music to symphonic black metal – and long weekend walks in the woods. Yes, sometimes to create music you just need to listen to the silence.

Reuel

How do you balance staying in the background for atmosphere versus taking the lead on melodies?

Navka

A keyboardist isn’t just staying in the background for atmosphere — it’s a full-fledged participant in a musical performance with a solid place in the mix. That’s why I can either drive the main melody or accentuate things like a guitar solo or vocals, depending entirely on how the arrangement is structured in a specific song or its fragment.

Reuel

Thank you for your time, ladies! Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Marianelle

It’s still difficult to make long-term plans while the war in Ukraine continues, but we keep moving forward and creating music.

We’re currently working on something new, and we hope to share more details soon. But it’s still too early for big announcements. Until then, stay with us, support Ukraine, support Ukrainian metal and let us touch your souls with our dark and powerful music.

Navka

Music has always been an anchor and a source of support for me. In the times our country is going through right now, this is especially valuable, and the feedback from our listeners becomes incredibly heartwarming.

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The post Interview | Marianelle and Navka of Thy Despair: “Sometimes to create music you just need to listen to the silence” first appeared on FemMetal – Goddesses of Metal.

The Plot in You was originally published on HM Magazine by Andy Schiemo.

The Plot in You was originally published on HM Magazine by Andy Schiemo.

Some albums invite the listener into a vast landscape; Inside invites them into a house where every room seems to know something. The fourth album from The Memory Of Snow, the solo project of Albin Wagener, follows an alt-gothic noir trail through ordinary spaces made uncanny: kitchens, diners, basements, courtrooms, screens, and the uneasy silence of neighbours who thought they knew what lived next door.

For Wagener, that contraction of space is meaningful. The Memory Of Snow has always carried the suggestion of distance, weather, and vanishing landscapes, its name rooted in Arctic silence, childhood winters, and the fragile beauty of snow in an age of disappearance. Earlier records often looked outward, toward coastlines, isolation, northern light, and the emotional weather of survival. On Inside, that coldness is brought indoors. The horizon disappears, and the familiar melancholy of the project becomes something more forensic: not only the ache of distance, but the chill of evidence left behind.

That inward turn also extends Wagener’s own artistic history. After years of music-making with earlier projects, including Overcast, The Memory Of Snow emerged from a decade of silence and creative paralysis, a period he has described as a kind of mourning before melody, lyric, and atmosphere returned. Since then, he has treated songwriting less as genre exercise than emotional architecture: each track built around a specific world, a specific tone, a specific pressure in the air.

With Inside, that method becomes darker and more narrative. Wagener has framed the album as a humble echo of David Bowie’s Outside, but the record does not attempt to mimic Bowie’s art-crime labyrinth. Instead, it turns the idea inward. Where Outside sprawled through fragmented futurism, performance, and grotesque mythology, Inside feels grimly intimate: an alt-gothic noir dossier in which violence is traced through home, gender, media, law, grief, and revenge.

There is a Lynchian undertow in that exchange as well. Bowie’s Outside has long been understood in relation to Twin Peaks: a murdered girl, an investigator, a strange community, and a mystery that feels as psychological and metaphysical as it is criminal. Inside finds its own path into that same dark wood, but Wagener brings the unease closer to the floorboards. His mystery does not drift above the songs as a concept; it moves through their physical details

Basslines, synths, electronic textures, guitar figures, programmed rhythms, and Wagener’s deep melodic vocals do more than support the story; they turn each track into a room with its own temperature and evidence. The songs unfold slowly, with patience, dread, and eerie beauty, asking what lingers after horror has passed through a place, and what remains inside the person who keeps searching.

“To The North Sea” opens the album as a nocturnal drive toward a body of water that feels like both escape and erasure. Wagener is already contaminated by what he has witnessed; the sea promises cleansing, but the song knows better. Its motion is propulsive, almost motorik, yet emotionally it sounds stranded between flight and confession. The North Sea is not a romantic horizon here. It is where someone goes when the human part of the self has begun to fail. Musically, the track rides on a taut post-punk pulse, with a steady drum machine drive and thick, grungy bass movement that give the song the sensation of headlights cutting through dark rain. The guitars do not dominate so much as blur at the edges, treated almost like weather, while the synths spread a cold marine haze across the arrangement. Wagener’s voice stays low, controlled, and haunted, less like a confession than like a man trying not to break while recounting something unbearable.

The title track, “Inside,” makes the concept explicit. Wagener tears away the façade of domestic happiness and finds violence hidden behind clean rooms, family appearances, and the sentimental myth of home. There is a grim callback to the title of his first album, Home Is Where The Heart Aches, but the phrase now feels less like poetic melancholy than a forensic conclusion. The song’s atmosphere is heavy and deliberate, built around a cold, steady momentum that mirrors the narrator’s drive toward the scene of another tragedy. This is the album’s thesis: the most frightening doors are often the ones already inside the house. The arrangement sharpens that thesis with a blend of acoustic guitar, pulsing bass, patient programmed drums, glassy synth pads, and a slick electric guitar figure that has a Southern, almost surf-guitar twang to it. That clean, shadowy riff gives the song a strange cinematic quality, as if domestic horror has been filtered through desert noir and coldwave at once. Wagener’s baritone delivery carries a Peter Murphy-like gravity: grave, theatrical, and intimate without tipping into excess.

“All The Things I Shouldn’t Have Seen” moves from the particular to the philosophical. Instead of treating violence as an eruption from somewhere outside ordinary life, Wagener catalogues its motives: boredom, revenge, domination, excitement, power, grievance, and the hunger for attention. The song asks the album’s most terrible question: what actually keeps people from becoming violent? Morality? Luck? Love? Social pressure? Habit? The arrangement gives that question a dark, circling weight, as if the narrator is pacing around the same impossible thought and finding no safe answer. Musically, the track is grungy and ritualistic, built around a heavy rhythmic drag and a low-slung bassline that seems to circle the same dreadful thought again and again. The synths hang above it like a bruised nocturnal canopy, thick but not grandiose, while the guitars and electronic textures keep to the shadows. Wagener sings with a weary steadiness, as if the vocal itself has been numbed by the catalogue of violence it is forced to name.

With “Noise In The Basement,” the horror contracts into the most ordinary domestic details: sheets, a kitchen, a radio, a television, a diary, clothes, and all the household objects that become unbearable once violence has passed through them. Wagener’s writing is careful and unsensational, letting the room itself carry the dread rather than turning the crime into decoration. Beneath the song’s controlled surface, however, grief and rage keep pressing upward; justice remains the stated purpose, but vengeance has already begun to darken the edges. The arrangement builds slowly and atmospherically, with sparse, tense elements leaving space for unease before bass, percussion, and synth pressure thicken like walls closing in. The guitar textures feel clipped and watchful, adding a noirish severity rather than ornament, while Wagener’s voice straddles narration and accusation, echoing the dramatic restraint of Bowie and Scott Walker: composed enough to recount the scene, but charged with the emotion of someone who may not be able to remain only a witness.

“Pandora” widens the frame to the audience. Once the box is opened, everyone wants to look: grief becomes a headline, violence becomes entertainment, and the death of a child is fed into the machinery of content. The song is one of the album’s sharpest social critiques, aimed not only at television and social media but at the appetite underneath them. Wagener does not let the listener stand outside the spectacle; he asks why people keep watching, commenting, sharing, and consuming after compassion has already been replaced by fascination. The track opens with bagpipes over a shuffling drumbeat, immediately giving the song the feel of a funeral procession dragged through a media loop. A thick low-end hum gathers beneath the arrangement, which carries the weight of a dirgeful lament. Wagener’s vocal is evocative and severe, doubled with a carefully layered backing take that gives the delivery a ghostly, communal quality, as though one voice has become many witnesses staring into the same terrible scene.

Then comes “Such A Nice Neighbour,” perhaps the record’s most unsettling portrait of denial. Its horror lies in its ordinariness: the polite man, the clean house, the trimmed lawn, the friendly wave from a distance. The song captures the language communities use after the fact, when the evidence has become undeniable, but appearances still feel safer than truth. Wagener understands that monstrosity rarely arrives dressed as monstrosity. Sometimes it smiles, shaves, helps with the car, and knows exactly how to disappear into the rituals of respectability. Musically, the track carries the sideways art-pop unease of Bowie’s Low, particularly reminiscent of “Sound and Vision”, though here the atmosphere is more discordant and anxious. Rhythmic drumming keeps the song moving with nervous precision, while horn flourishes cut through like bright, unsettling signals. Clipped guitar strums add a dry twitch to its groove, and a deep melodic bassline gives the track its deceptive charm, turning neighbourly familiarity into something faintly grotesque.

At the album’s midpoint, “The Diner” offers a fragile pause. Coffee, eggs, routine, and the familiar kindness of a waitress become a temporary defense against horror. It is the warmest setting on the record, but not a truly safe one. The narrator imagines innocence, escape, childhood unstained by violence, a world where the bad guys are stopped before they can act. The diner becomes a chapel of ordinary comfort: not salvation, but a place to sit while the world tries, and fails, to heal. The song opens inside the hum of a public eatery, with muddled, distorted voices placing the listener in a room where ordinary life continues around private collapse. Beneath it, a Vangelis-like synth glow settles in, joined by an old-school rhythmic synth melody that gives the track its gently mechanical sway. The drums hit like a march, and the bass moves almost like a piano, melodic and rounded rather than merely supportive, while Wagener’s vocal begins with the dry intimacy of beat poetry before gradually washing over the arrangement, as if the narrator’s thoughts are dissolving into the room’s neon-lit blur.

“A Man In Every Monster” brings the album’s social argument to the surface. Wagener rejects the comfort of treating evil as some exotic exception, placing monstrosity inside structures of masculinity, family, power, sex, abuse, and silence. It is one of the album’s most confrontational moments, suggesting that violence survives through habits, permissions, and hierarchies ordinary life often protects. Retro organ-synth pulses give the track a grim, vintage glow, while noir synths and guitar drones wail through the arrangement like sirens swallowed by fog. A churning bassline keeps the song moving with heavy insistence, pulling it toward the mood of sorrowful ’90s alt-rock. The atmosphere is densely layered, like a street sinking into late-night haze with steam rising from a sewer grating, as Wagener’s voice cuts through as both witness and accuser: grave, steady, and morally exhausted.

The courtroom arrives in “Justice Has Not Enough Time For The Dead,” but it does not bring peace. The song recognizes the necessity of law—lawyers, judges, evidence, witnesses, juries, procedure—while understanding its insufficiency. A court can punish, interpret, and contain; it cannot resurrect. It can speak on behalf of the living, but the dead remain beyond its reach. The track opens with an ominous, sepulchral dirge of thick sustained notes and choral synth samples, while buzzing and murmuring sounds twitch in the atmosphere like anxious thoughts in the back of the room. Then the bass kicks in, moving in dense pulses before growing more intricate and melodic, guiding the song into a jazzy, noir-inflected cinematic lament. Wagener’s voice carries the frustration with grave restraint, not rejecting justice but grieving its limits, as though every legal word arrives too late for the person who most needed it.

“She’ll Never See New York” is an elegy that restores personhood where violence and media can reduce a victim to a case. Here, Wagener writes about dreams: travel, sky, space, imagination, and the future that should have belonged to a girl whose life was stolen. The song is devastating because it refuses abstraction. It does not merely mourn innocence; it remembers ambition, fantasy, brightness, and the private inner life that brutality attempted to erase. In the darkness of Inside, this is one of the rare moments where tenderness feels stronger than despair. The arrangement is haunted and ornate, full of small pieces and strange flourishes: clicking sounds, old-world mechanical noises, violin accents, and a riff that feels like a Victorian-gothic cinematic gesture. The sound builds slowly, gathering grief in layers until the rhythm section finally steps in, only for the song to fracture again around dire organ notes. Wagener’s vocal carries the weight carefully, less as accusation than remembrance, allowing the song to become a small monument to the life that should have continued beyond the crime.

“Patchwork Pathway To Hell” expands that grief into indictment. Ordinary life becomes a procession of ignored warning signs: people going to work, children exposed to violence, small horrors normalized, cowardice disguised as comfort, justice misunderstood until blood makes it personal. The song suggests that hell is not always a sudden destination. It is assembled piece by piece from the compromises, cruelties, and failures a society allows itself to excuse. Musically, it has one of the album’s more urgent drives, pushing the record toward its final moral crisis. An electronica drumbeat gives the track a tense, mechanical propulsion, while a descending bassline carries the funereal weight of Bauhaus’s “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” Ghostly gothic guitar strums move in the background like signals from an empty hallway. Wagener’s vocal shifts from controlled shouts to a more inward recounting of the situation, and as the beat grows faster and more electronic, his delivery becomes more subdued, making the song feel as if panic has been forced into a cold, terrible clarity.

The closing track, “Into The Eyes Of A Stranger,” is the album’s most dangerous descent. At over six minutes, the song’s protagonist faces the perpetrator and is forced into the unbearable recognition that both belong to the same species. The murderer tries to collapse the distance between them; the protagonist resists, then breaks. What begins as interrogation becomes revenge fantasy, then physical violence, then a terrifying sense of catharsis. The song does not present vengeance as triumph. It presents it as contamination: the final proof that looking too long into horror can make horror look back. Musically, the track pushes the record into its hardest territory, with an industrial charge that at times edges toward industrial metal. The synths bubble and warp with the album’s strongest ’90s electronic feel, while thick, menacing guitars give the confrontation a brutal physical weight. The arrangement stretches out like a cinematic final act, moving through pressure, release, and renewed threat as the narrator loses his grip on moral distance. Wagener’s vocal leans into a Bowie and Scott Walker-like theatrical severity: part witness, part avenger, and part man horrified by the rage he has discovered in himself.

By the end, Inside has become less a case to be solved than a record about the damage a case leaves behind. Its victims are not symbols; its investigators are not clean heroes; its spectators are not absolved. Wagener is interested in the residue: the anger justice cannot absorb, the tenderness that refuses to disappear, and the moment when moral certainty begins to tremble.

That balance is what keeps the album from becoming a true-crime exercise. Its alt-gothic noir surfaces—steady rhythms, shadowed synths, spectral guitars, pulsing basslines, industrial pressure, and Wagener’s grave melodic instinct—serve a work of atmosphere and conscience. Bleak as it is, Inside remains human, because it understands that horror does not only live in monsters; it survives in silence, appetite, ritual, and the places people keep calling home.

Listen to Inside below, and order here.

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The post The Memory Of Snow Compiles an Alt-Noir Dossier on Violence, Grief, and Revenge With “Inside” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

The post Fish And Scale Holy Man Review appeared first on Edgar Allan Poets – Noir Rock Band.

Time To Kill Records is proud to announce the vinyl reissue of MISERY INDEX‘s landmark 2001 debut EP, Overthrow, arriving on LP for the first time on December 15th, 2026.

A defining release in the early evolution of modern deathgrind, Overthrow captured the raw energy and uncompromising vision of a newly formed band destined to become one of the genre’s most influential names. Across five relentless tracks including a blistering cover of Terrorizer‘s “Dead Shall Rise,” MISERY INDEX forged a sound that fused death metal, grindcore and hardcore with sharp social commentary and unrelenting intensity.

Originally self-released on CD through the band’s own Anarchos Records, the EP has remained a cornerstone of extreme music history for more than two decades. Now, Time To Kill Records proudly brings this essential release back to vinyl, faithfully preserving the ferocity and impact of these historic recordings. The vinyl edition also features 3 bonus tracks recorded by the band a year after the Overthrow release (which appeared on the 2002 split with Commit Suicide).

For the first time the recording is also mastered for vinyl by Virtalähde Mastering.

Track-list:

Side A
1. Manufacturing Greed
2. Your Pain Is Nothing
3. Blood On Their Hands
4. Pulling Out The Nails
5. Dead Shall Rise (Terrorizer cover)

Side B (Bonus Tracks)
1. My Untold Apocalypse
2. Alive?
3. Reality Distortion

Frontman Jason Netherton comments:

“Its been a long time since we released this back in 2001 yet its awesome to see how much of an impact its had, and its staying power has been inspiring. We often get requests for these songs to this day and we are stoked that its finally getting the proper treatment with a fresh vinyl master from Time to Kill”.

Preorders:

https://timetokillrecords.com/collections/misery-index

https://miseryindex.bandcamp.com/album/overthrow

Look for the band to release their new single “Feral Future” on 7″ vinyl as well via Time To Kill Records later this month and be sure to check out MISERY INDEX on tour in Europe and the UK this summer.

Misery Index – An Epitaph for Endtimes EU + UK Summer Tour 2026:

July 28 – Helsinki, Finland @ Kult [TICKETS]
July 30 – Wacken, Germany @ Wacken Open Air [TICKETS]
August 1 – Dortmund, Germany @ Dortmund Death Fest [TICKETS]
August 2 – Saint Maurice de Gourdans, France @ Sylak Open Air [TICKETS]
August 4 – Deinze, Belgium @ Elpee [TICKETS]
August 5 – The Hague, Netherlands @ Musicon [TICKETS]
August 6 – Schloteheim, Germany @ Party San Open Air [TICKETS]
August 8 – Swansea, United Kingdom @ Sin City [TICKETS]
August 9 – Manchester, United Kingdom @ Rebellion [TICKETS]
August 11 – Bridgwater, United Kingdom @ The Cobblestones
August 13 – Munich, Germany @ Backstage [TICKETS]
August 14 – Dinkelsbühl, Germany @ Summer Breeze [TICKETS]
August 15 – Sulingen, Germany @ Reload Festival [TICKETS]

MISERY INDEX:

https://www.miseryindex.com/

https://miseryindex.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/miseryindex.official/

https://www.facebook.com/MiseryIndex

Time To Kill Records:

https://timetokillrecords.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/timetokillrecords/

https://www.facebook.com/timetokillrecords/

https://www.youtube.com/c/TIMETOKILLRECORDS

https://timetokillrecords.com/

It’s that time of year again where we talk to as many bands as we can who are raring to blow you away at Bloodstock! Imbrium will be rocking the New Blood stage on the Saturday… Simple things first – where are you guys from? We’re all quite spread out across England, I [Alex- Keys] … Continue reading Road To Bloodstock 2026: Imbrium

The band feature a trio of former Amon Amarth members.

The post Fimbul Winter (Ex-Amon Amarth) Joined By The Crown’s Johan Lindstrand For “When The Sun Comes Out At Night” appeared first on Theprp.com.

A counterculture icon with broad appeal, he compared himself to Bob Dylan and developed an especially fervent following among working-class youth.

You would think after having a sack ripped out of my face, having my computer break down, my phone stop working, and almost losing a family member, that the nerves in my body would be like shredded newspaper at this point. I’m still here though, and I’m still making music! Stress has a funny way of trying to manipulate you. At its core, stress is no more than a bee buzzing around your face, avoiding your every attempt to swat it away. Once it stings you, and that venom starts coursing through your veins, it can be hard to deter its effects. I suppose I should at least try to explain some of the madness I’ve dealt with over the past few weeks, if nothing more than as an exercise in releasing some of these thoughts out into the world so I can possibly be rid of them once and for all.

The face thing has been a nuisance for years, decades even, with a small little bump appearing on my cheek that my best friend, and now wife, used to love popping occasionally. After some time, it dawned on me that popping this twisted little pustule might not be the best idea, so I had the bright idea to go to a doctor and figure out how to get rid of it. Obviously, I was prepared for some form of excision, a process I am no stranger to, having had plenty of cysts removed before, but I was not prepared for the recovery phase afterwards when I was told to avoid smiling so as not to tear the stitches. Now, as someone who is somewhat known for his maniacal laugh and smile that rivals the Joker’s most disturbing, demented grin, this proved to be somewhat difficult. On top of all that, the doctor made sure to remind me not to do anything that would raise my blood pressure for a few days so my scar could have a better chance at healing. This was when my phone decided it would be a great time to stop working.

Arriving at the Apple Store for a repair that I was told would take an hour, only to find it was going to take five hours, was enough to make the massive bandaid on my face start folding at the seams, but that wasn’t what quite sealed the deal on my stress for the day. It was the long trip back when I realized I didn’t have my wallet with me, and they refused to give me my phone back because they couldn’t confirm it was me without an ID, even though I had literally just been there, and it’s quite hard to forget a goofy-looking jackass with a giant bandaid on his face. Nonetheless, they reviewed the security camera footage and confirmed it was me. Then, before sending me packing, they slipped in the fact that they couldn’t activate my newly repaired phone, and that I had to travel to a Verizon store for that process. This is when I started hearing echoes of my doctor saying, “Make sure you don’t do anything to raise your blood pressure for a few days!” swirling around my head like the clown that tormented Bart Simpson: “If you should die before you wake!” Thankfully, my inner nerd took over, and I was able to set up the phone myself by calling an automated Verizon support line and figured everything out.

As for the computer, I’ll admit I’m not the type of guy to buy shitloads of gear every time the latest, greatest tech arrives on store shelves. I tend to buy once, cry once. Spend a lot up front on something that will last me a long time. This was the case with my last computer, a 2017 5K iMac that I bought fully loaded at the time, and has gotten me through some amazing creative catastrophes. Unfortunately, Apple, in their infinite wisdom, decided this machine was obsolete and stopped supporting updates. Not to mention, anything I’ve tried doing with it video-wise was like trying to race a Porsche while driving a riding lawn mower. It was clearly time to upgrade, but the current state of the computer industry has its balls in a vice due to an ongoing memory shortage. So I couldn’t just go to the Apple Store and buy a new computer that would arrive in a day or two. Shipping was now pushed out for months with new computers, but the refurbished store on Apple’s website has always been a bastion of hope for me, so I set up alerts and notifications there to see if anything popped up. Lo and behold, I was able to secure a new Mac Studio along with a Mac Studio Display to go with it, and as I type this lovely article that two people will read on a machine horribly overpowered for what I do, I couldn’t be happier.

On the subject of happiness, and I won’t dive into too much detail on the next topic, as I feel family stuff should remain somewhat private when it deals with those outside my day-to-day circle. I’ll just say that I am extremely grateful and happy that things took a turn for the best in that department. We had a close call that scared the living shit out of everyone, but for the most part, it all tempered down, and things seem to be in a manageable state. Quite the opposite from when shit hit the fan, and we all thought we were going to lose someone incredibly important to us all. This is where hope rewards faith, and you are reminded of just how fragile and incredibly fleeting all these moments are. Perspective helps navigate them in the future, but when you are in the midst of such stress and turmoil, you can easily lose sight of not just where you are going, but who you truly are deep down.

Not only am I thankful for the family I have, but also the friends both on and offline who helped me get through all of this. Not by any intentional means, but rather the smaller, trivial moments where a text or two would be enough to kick my brain out of misery and into a better place, even if for a few seconds. Those little pieces certainly help ease the burden of life’s many unimaginable challenges, just as it does when I pick up a guitar and let my fingers express what’s buried deeper in my soul that words could never touch. Which is where I’m at now, as I continue to chip away at the next Autumns Eyes album. An entry that is certain to please fans of “Ending Life Slowly” and bring back the Halloween vibes that warm all of our haunted little hearts. So until then, stay tuned, stay in touch, and if shit is hitting your fan as it did mine, reach out to someone for a bit of distraction. It’s such a curious thing how distraction can help us focus, but it really does work in those cases. Unless, of course, my new phone and computer shit the bed next week, in which case all of this goes out the window. Fingers crossed!

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Still hard to believe he’s gone.

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