As a teen I made scores of mix tapes, anthologies of metal and heavy rock compilations on cassette (often using 4 packs of C90s from Woolworths). I even made covers with photos from Kerrang! I spent hours doing this. Years!…
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In 2018 I watched watch far more films than I usually manage, and I also read far more for pleasure – though watching films and reading for pleasure are also vital for inspiration and to recharge the batteries of my…
Goes some distance into explaining why we are where we are, right now, in the West, both as divided societies and as anguished individuals within these societies. A revelation on every page about the catastrophic damage that inequality (particularly status…
Ben Lovett’s awesome ‘The Ritual’ score is now available on vinyl for UK customers as well as those in the US (and I contributed some sleeve notes). https://mondotees.com/collections/music/products/the-ritual-original-motion-picture-soundtrack-lp From Lakeshore and Death Waltz Records: “Death Waltz, in association with Lakeshore…
Couple of outsiders, and I’m keeping all of my eyes on India for a bright future in supernatural horror. The opening 5 mins of ‘The House Next Door’ resembles a terrible pop video, but stick with it. The film is…
‘Revenge’ is an outstanding vigilante revenge fantasy imo, and as for ‘The Rover’ few do psychotic episodes in an arid landscape like the Aussies. I found it hard to look into Guy Pearce’s eyes and he kept up the same…
I still think the best way to understand war is to read the memoirs, diaries and poems of those who participated. So another recommendation for Great War memoirs is the extraordinary ‘A Chaplain at Gallipoli: The Great War Diaries of…
For those interested in shockingly candid accounts of The Great War, a couple of weeks back I also read Ernst Jünger’s simply incredible memoir, ‘Storm of Steel’. The first substantial narrative I’ve encountered from the other side too. His experience…
That complete immersion in a book when you’re held fast by a writer’s voice, for hours, doesn’t happen for me as a reader as much as it did when I was younger. But it still happens. This week Robert Graves’s…
I’ll let you imagine my elation at having a short story included in this volume – ‘The Folio Anthology of Horror Stories’ – edited by Ramsey Campbell. I grew up in houses filled with their distinctive slip-cased editions and still…