Cor­mac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-win­ning, Oprah-approved new nov­el The Road is almost com­i­cal­ly bleak. I hope that he keeps remind­ing us how ashen and black every­thing is, and that the night is always the dark­est night in his­to­ry. Also there are no birds. There’s a mimet­ic point being made, sure, but man is it ever being dri­ven home. It’s real­ly fuck­ing bleak. I get it.

[Book­slut’s note about Niall Grif­fith’s max­i­ma mea cul­pa still cracks me up. Try self-fla­gel­la­tion dude. It’d be easier.]

I saw this sec­ond on Obtusi­ty, a place I first learned about when han­dling most of Paper Thin Walls bull­horn duties. I think the first stuff I checked out there was their ret­ro­spec­tive of Bjork’s entire videog­ra­phy. Pret­ty cool stuff, if you ask me.

But the review that is spot-on at a dead run belongs to Mark Richard­son, a Pitch­fork vet­er­an who’s some­times in the mix in the Fork­cast too. The make­up is an obvi­ous homage, but Richard­son drops that sar­to­r­i­al note about Robert Palmer — wow — col­or me impressed. [Dude­man also reviewed the same Von Sü­den­fed track I did yes­ter­day, which was a fun coincidence.]

My review of Von Südenfed’s “The Rhinohead” is up today at PTW. Short­ly after I filed it, my copy of The Wire arrived with Mr. Von Pseud Mag Edi­tor and MoM on the cov­er. Yikes. To be com­plete­ly hon­est, I’m more con­vinced now that fea­tur­ing Mark E. Smith any­where is a sim­ple ploy to sell mag­a­zines, albums, any­thing real­ly to lure the throng of rabid fans who’ve held on through the years, the wives, what­ev­er. It’s pret­ty sim­ple real­ly, or at least it seems that way. It’s kin­da sad too because since Coun­try on the Click I think that Smith’s been fad­ing fast, and as fun as Von Sü­den­fed’s Tro­mat­ic Reflexxions is, it’s not the return to grace I’d hoped for.

If noth­ing else, this album ought to con­vince folks new to the Fall that those albums after This Nation’s Sav­ing Grace are pret­ty good too, up ’til a point. I con­sid­ered adding this extra-musi­cal bits and edi­to­ri­al­iza­tions in the review, but I felt that it would be a dis­ser­vice to the song to clut­ter the review with even more detri­tus about the Fall. There’s plen­ty out there. Explore that mighty abyss!

I just summed up my thoughts on Feist’s new album, The Reminder, in a par­en­thet­i­cal sen­tence over at Peanut But­ter Words. Is mil­que­toast total­ly in this year? I’m glad Mike’s polling the elec­torate because I’m find­ing myself express­ing my dis­like for Feist in hushed tones as though I’m an ear­ly Chris­t­ian wor­ried about being pun­ished under Roman law.

[Full dis­clo­sure: Mike and I had a back and forth about his the­sis ear­li­er tonight. Let’s say Newsweek — and not Pitch­fork — near­ly brought me to pur­chase a Lucin­da Williams record dur­ing my ten­der col­lege years. Lat­er, I found myself “appre­ci­at­ing” Steve Ear­le because future uncles-in-law did. Per­haps I’ve said too much.]

I should men­tion that this was inspired by Liz Colville’s suc­cinct review of The Reminder at Sty­lus. You can read her blog here.

I’m still try­ing to come back around to Ghost’s In Stormy Nights. I have a hard time believ­ing that it’s been, what, three years since Hyp­not­ic Under­world com­plete­ly blew my mind and that I’m find­ing so lit­tle to hang on to with their lat­est record. Of course, as I draft­ed this, “Moth­er­ly Blus­ter” sound­ed more appeal­ing than it had on pre­vi­ous lis­tens, so this may be a 180 degree turnaround.

Nonethe­less I’m find­ing sus­te­nance else­where: Marathon­packs has a track from Haru­mi, a band that pret­ty obvi­ous­ly had some impact on Ghost’s spec­tral psy­che­delia. Eric thinks he’s hear­ing new Dun­gen in it, but Haru­mi is way too inter­est­ing for a direct com­par­i­son to Tio Bitar. There’s plen­ty of sec­ond-rate Swedish psych to com­pare it to any­way. If you can’t tell, the new Dun­gen record isn’t find­ing favor with me. I mean, I went to at least three shows where they debuted no new mate­r­i­al and were just re-pre­sent­ing Ta Det Lugnt in more ambi­tious, insane­ly well-rehearsed fash­ion and then — poof — there’s hard­ly any evi­dence of that patience and dis­ci­pline on Tio Bitar.

As far as new psych is con­cerned, I’ve been using Raven Sings the Blues and home away from home Paper Thin Walls as repos­i­to­ries for new stuff worth audi­tion­ing. Most recent­ly it was Black Moth Super Rain­bow, which final­ly showed up in the mail on Fri­day [after I bought a used copy the day before.] Check it out at Raven Sings…but I’ll be sure to have some thoughts post­ed here shortly.

[Dare I say that Pitch­fork’s Fork­cast has had a few nice tid­bits inter­spersed with the detri­tus that neces­si­tates auto­mat­ic cov­er­age? I mean, even I have an imeem.com account now!]