SHUFFLIN ALONG 08 - Life Shifts Up and Down / Everybody Knows It's Wrong

HAUNTED by CRESCENDO

Pleasant shoegazy Dream-Pop that sounds a bit like a less kitschy version of The Casket Girls. I like the "narcotized play date with troubled girls" vibes that you get with a lot with 2010s-2020s indie dreamgaze bands.

DIVIDE ET IMPERA by ROPE SECT

From the cover art and the introductory Bible verse, you'd think you're in for something ridiculous and insane like Coil. Instead, this is straight-forward goth rock. You get some guitar solos and traditional structure and a singer with a pleasantly spooky baritone voice. Kind of a breath of fresh air to be honest. Like, there's room in the goth tent for bands that sound like The Cult and bands that sound like Anaal Nathrakh AND bands that sound like Ghost. No need to be exclusionary.

BLADE RUNNER BLUES by VANGELIS

Top 5 Film OST of all time? I dunno. It's definitely Top 10, right?

SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME by JULIE LONDON

I find this track really funny because I am the kind of person who imagines Julie London replacing Quint in JAWS when I hear it. It is also really funny to imagine a modern trailer for JAWS that uses the "moody cover of a well-known song" trope.

I AM THE LIVING DEAD by HARLEY POE

I get the sense from this song that Harley Poe could be one of those artists (like Voltaire, Alestorm, and Abney Park) who ends up on a lot of Renassaince Festival-related roadtrip playlists. (Not to play into stereotypes, but any home that contains a Voltaire record will also contain multiple sets of polyhedral dice, at least one book by Neil Gaiman or Charles de Lint, and at least one set of steampunk goggles.) I usually like DnD flavored folk/cabaret/goth lounge stuff in small doses. Harley Poe, however, is a little bit different from that because there's a midwestern crust-punk edge to a lot of their work, and I find it very appealing. They also get bonus points for writing this catchy folk-punk song about walking through the modern world feeling like a zombie who just wants to bite people. I relate to all of this. More exploration is needed.

SMOTHERED HOPE by SKINNY PUPPY

Probably my favorite band. One of the appealing things to me about Skinny Puppy is that I always find something new and interesting every time I listen to them. There's always some weird sound low in the mix or some crazy esoteric sample with a backstory or some new piece of unsubstantiated lore. For example, allegedly this song is about the time that Ogre accidently smothered his pet mouse in his sleep. I don't think that's true at all, but I'd never read that story until today.

SUPER CHARGER HEAVEN by WHITE ZOMBIE

I have, like, a seriously longform piece on Mr. Zombie's artistic output in me somewhere. Suffice it to say that when he's on, he manages to capture these perfect little glimpses into a low-bar trailer-trash scumfuck horror aesthetic that feels completely honest and true to both itself and the culture that inspired it. When he's off, he gets really self indulgent and kinda silly. This whole album is a blend of those two things, but this track in particular is really very silly. But's it's my kind of silly, and sometimes I just want to yell "DEVIL MAN! DEVIL MAN!" over and over to achieve catharsis. Mr. Zombie might actually be the true king of the Ren Fest Roadtrip Playlist microgenre now that I think about it.