Terrasite (noun) A devourer or destroyer of land or earth

The end of year... that means music writers are desperately searching and compiling their AOTY list. It was a slog for sure and I wish I had more time...a few are rushed additions. Anyway, that said, I discovered a bunch of great tmusic and found a lot of bands that surprised me. Not sure why there is so much Death & Black Metal on the list. I think a lot of band have some Death and Black Metal elements but aren't true representation of the genre. Not I that care. Identify as whatever you want extreme bands! My list:

1. Cattle Decapitation - Terrasite Heavy, brutal yet melodic and diverse. Executed with precision and fervor. Not surprised this album is getting the accolades it is. It's an absolute killer.
2. Night Verses - Every Sound Has a Color in the Valley of Night… Wow. A new favourite band discovered during this AOTY process. Incredible stuff. If early Russian Circles (which was amazing) had a baby with Gojira.
3. Fires in the Distance - Air Not Meant For Us Finesse and power. Delicious. Love the piano.
4. Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium Heavy, proggy. What a journey. Another newly discovered favourite.
5. Tomb Mold - Enduring Spirit Canadian boys with a majestic musical feast.
6. The Lion’s Daughter - Bath House
7. Panopticon - The Rime Of Memory Another quality release from this artist.
8. HELGA - Wrapped in Mist Unexpected, softer addition. Such a curious vibe.
9. Blackbraid - Blackbraid II Hyped for a reason. It's great!
10. Sulpher Aeon - Seven Crowns and Seven Seals
11. Obituary - The Dying of Everything
12. In Flames - Foregone
13. Hellripper - Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags One guy did all that? *gasp!*
14. Orbit Culture - Descent
15. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs -Land of Sleeper Doomy Pigs.
16. The Supervoid Choral Ensemble - The Supervoid Choral Ensemble Instrumental powerhouse.
17. Maruja - Knocknarea Oh! I still love you post-rock!
18. De Lumière - Nebulae Come Sweet
19. High Priest - Invocation
20. Immortal - War Against All

ALL of this music is on bandcamp. (Bandcamp streams sounds great BTW.. WAAAY better than Spotify.) Sigh. I just don't know what will happen to so many bands if we lose Bandcamp...

Yes Julia. People are shit. But we are all we have...

Bdot was away the entire weekend at dog trials. Saturday I was really sore after Friday night ball hockey. So all my grand ideas to get stuff got curtailed dramatically. Ugh. Sunday I dogsat for the SiL. Juno doesn't really like being separated from his family. He was largely a nervous wreck. He also got overly excited at the cats. The cats were not impressed. He chilled out after about 4-5hrs. Sigh. I finished my AOTY list and watched Leave the World Behind. I went into this one blind. I actually thought it was going to be about a disease or zombies. I didn't know Julia Roberts was in it. Anyway, the RT audience score is very low, I was surprised as I really enjoyed this slow burner. I thought the acting was excellent and all the little digs at humanity and America were on point. Gritty Julia was impressive too. I've read a lot of people were disappointed or baffled by the sudden Friends ending, but I thought it worked. (and didn't it make Rose soooo happy??!) It was suggesting humans are a sloppy, messy species. A clean, everything solved ending would have been incongruous with the plot IMHO. I liked it a lot more than I was expecting. Lots of subtle wisdom and character in this film, and some wild camera work. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

My thoughts exactly on this film

Once Bdot finally got home Sunday night and we said goodbye to Juno we settled in for couch time with the Christmas film Spirited. Yep. The plot was an interesting idea but the singing. SO MUCH BAD SINGING. I just can't...⭐⭐

Now Open in Bolton

Finally made it to the newly opened Fortinos in Bolton today with my lovely wife. It seems bigger than the Zehrs somehow. Interesting separate fresh foods food court area. As with all grocery stores, the selection varies item to item... the pricing was similar to Zehrs. Also a full wine/beer aisle. Place was packed, I'm sure they are racking in dough.

UPDATE!

Sad Cake is Sad

Somehow from miscommunication... A cake, which was actually an ice cream cake was put in the fridge instead of the freezer. The cake didn't die completely but did suffer some serious disfiguration. It was still consumed, and Christmas was not ruined.