The Black Angels Announce New Album, Here’s the First Single and Video

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The Black Angels have a new album coming out! Titled Death Song, the album drops on April 21st. You can preorder it on iTunes or at The Black Angels’ site.

The band released the first single off the album, a tune called “Currency,” which I included below. It harkens back to the sounds of 2006’s Passover, falling somewhere between The Velvet Underground and Jefferson Airplane. The music is more distant, the vocals less present. It has a more primitive feel, for lack of a better term, and I’ve already seen fans celebrating a return to the band’s roots.

I love it. Haunting, beautiful, drony…it’s a gorgeous song, and I can’t wait for the full album. As much as I loved the more modern sound of Indigo Meadow, “Currency” definitely pushes me to sit back and blow bubbles of contentment and delight.

The Black Angels’ Death Song

Speaking of The Velvets, the album name—Death Song—brings the The Black Angels’ own name full circle. It was taken from The Velvet Underground’s “The Black Angel’s Death Song,” a jaunty little ditty if ever there was one. One way or another, I do hope it’s not a figurative hint at this being a last album, or anything.

Whispers 4

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The bathroom is steamy, the mirrors fogged. I’m drying off when I see it. A large X on the medicine cabinet mirror. A loose circle surrounds it. Hastily scrawled, like it was spray painted.

It wasn’t there yesterday. Or the day before. Or a month ago.

Or ever.

No one else uses my bathroom. No one’s even been up to my floor.

But there’s a giant X on the mirror.

Stranger Things, an Awesome Show from Netflix

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Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhsquuuuuueeeeeeeeeee! I loves me some Stranger Things! That’s a Netflix Original series. It came out in July, and if you’re cooler than me you’ve already watched it. But this toy started and finished it a few days ago.

Man, oh man, but is it good. Because I love you, dear reader, I won’t do any spoilers, but I do want to you tell you about it.

But first, here’s one of the official trailers:

Actors

Good Writing and Bad

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It’s a funny thing about writing. It turns out it’s hard. In my efforts to become a published novelist, I’ve had many opportunities to learn some things about writing fiction. One of my first lessons, for instance, was that a Venn diagram of writing skills for journalists and writing skills for fiction has surprisingly little overlap. It probably looks something like this:

Venn Diagram of Journalism Skills and Fiction Skills

Imagine my surprise in discovering this.

In arrogance rooted somewhere between general competence and blissful ignorance, I started my novel with the assumption that my ability to properly string words together for an article would lend itself just fine to writing books.

Again, imagine my surprise.

Chaffin’s Razor

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I have this theory, something I’ve been working on for many years. One of our listeners (D. Scott Frey) on The Apple Context Machine came up with the name “Chaffin’s Razor,” and I quite fancy that name, so let’s go with it. In any event, here’s my thought:

When someone does or says something that appears irrational, there is almost always a piece of missing information that would either explain the behavior or cause the observed to behave or speak differently.

That’s the shortish version, but the long version starts with the fact that very few people are crazy. Sure, some people are straight up, legit insane, but not many. Yet all the time our friends, acquaintances, enemies, and strangers do things that appear crazy.

“WTF? Seriously? He did that?”

“Why on earth would she say that?”

Whispers 3

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It’s Sunday. A day for sleeping late. A day for not worrying about getting up. Or meetings. A day for no alarms save the morning sun peeking past my shades.

Sunday is the kind of day night owls with day jobs love. At least this night owl. It’s one of two days when I get enough sleep.

I love Sundays.

I lay there, scrunched into my covers.

Spring is fighting with winter, but the old lady still has a grip on the outside. It was enough to make luxuriating alone in bed as long as possible that extra bit of delicious. I feel warm. And safe. It’s perfect.

Bryan’s Tips for Making a Tasty Iced Latte

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My Death Wish Coffee review was fairly popular, and I thought it would be nifty to follow it up with some tips on making coffee espresso lattes iced lattes. At its heart, all forms of coffee are chemistry-in-action, and while I won’t pretend to understand that chemistry, trial and error has helped me optimize my favorite beverage.

Flavor Is Everything

First things first: I like my lattes iced and flavored with syrups. I don’t like the flavor of espresso, I like the flavor of espresso when it has been combined with a sugar-based, flavored sweetener and drowned in ice and milk. You can take your sugar-in-the-raw, simple syrup, and anything made from high fructose corn syrup, and do whatever you’d like except dump them into my iced lattes.

I noted in my Death Wish review that my daily driver sweetener is Torani’s Irish Cream. I also like Amoretti’s Premium Irish Cream, Amoretti’s Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Bean, and Torani’s French Vanilla. That’s pretty darned particular, but whatever your preferred syrupy poison, these tips will make your drink better.

Beans

Death Wish Coffee Quick Look

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I Instagrammed a photograph of the Death Wish Coffee Dave Hamilton sent to me, and several people asked me to review it. Accordingly, I pulled a couple of espresso shots with it this morning, and I’m delighted to report that Death Wish Coffee is good.

Whispers 2

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It’s been a while. Those whispers. More than a year. I’d kind of forgotten about them because the house has been…I don’t know. Not quiet, exactly. Acquiescent? There’s always a bit of a feeling around here.

But then today I was taking a shower. It was the middle of the day, a perk of working from home. I was singing “You Can’t Do That,” a favorite Beatles tunes, and was leaning into the water. It was relaxing.

That’s when I felt it. A tap. Two of them. On my shoulder.

Not “like” a tap. It was a tap. A finger touching me, quick and firm. Tap tap on the back of my shoulder demanding attention.

My mouth slammed shut and I spun around. I’m not sure what I expected to see, but I was alone. Just me and the water.