A Totally Normal Day at a Totally Normal Coffee Shop

In the morning, Olivia London walked into her coffee shop on Brass Tacks Lane, Third Chance, Argo, and saw a monster sitting at one of the tables.

It hadn't come in through the door - she knew that because she'd only just unlocked it. A trail of slime from the old fireplace, which existed as decoration thanks to central heating, told her that it had come down the chimney. It was shapeless and faceless, a gelatinous black blob the size of a man, shifting and oozing as it squatted in the chair like a fat toad. Occasionally a vaguely greenish bubble or sphere protruded from within the black mass, glittering from within, before being absorbed back into it. A smell that combined petroleum, rotten leaves and stagnant pond water filled the air.

The average human being would have taken one look at such a thing and immediately run screaming from the room. Such things did not belong at the tables of coffee shops. They belonged in the pages of old gothic novels, or lurking at the deep abyss of oceans, or in the corridors of temples waiting to swallow unsuspecting explorers.

Instead, Olivia London smiled.

"Morning, Shgshthx!" she said, cheerily. "You're early this morning!"

The blob rippled and made a horrible, wet noise akin to a cowpat being forced through a leaf-blower. It was the only noise it could make, lacking the vocal cords or other apparatuses to make any kind of speech. And yet Olivia understood it as

"Got up before the alarm?" Olivia nodded as she walked past the table. "I getcha. Can't stand that, myself. I just lie in and wait for it to go off!"

She found her way behind the counter and began flipping on every appliance that was there - the blender, the kettle, the sandwich toaster. There was a lot to do before the shop opened officially and she didn't exactly have the staff to fall back on to ensure everything was ready before the morning rush. Aside from the two other people she had on staff,, this had been a one-woman show for some years now - although some, knowing where the money to buy the place had come from, would disagree.

But as far as she cared, they could all rack off. 

As she worked, she turned back to the black blob in the chair and shot it yet another cheery, winning smile.

"What'll you have this morning, Sghshthx?" she asked.

Shgshthx wobbled and squelched.

"Black, one sugar? Sure thing!"

The Invitation Part 2

When Kaydence opened her eyes, it was eleven in the morning and her head throbbed like a cartoon finger smashed by a hammer.

It took her a lot of groaning to start piecing together the events of the previous night. It came back to her in flashes and impressions, piece by piece, and it took her a while for her to put them together in any semblance of any order. Let's see... There was the club. That was a good time - she'd be disappointed if it hadn't been. There was that cute guy she met - that had been a very good time indeed. And...

She looked to her bedside table, and saw the plain white card on there.

Oh. There had been that.

The images slowly crawled back into her mind like scolded puppies. Coming home to find the envelope on her bedside table. The other dimension she'd been suddenly brought to - the vibrant colours, the sunshine, the smell of the air. Meeting the metal woman - Lindy, her name was - and. Scattered bits of info on this... Parallel Games thing. What it was about, and why she'd been invited.

She stared at the card for a long, long time. 

Then she pulled herself out of bed and ambled to the kitchen.

This tournament thing... how come she hadn't heard of this thing before? Surely Dawn, or even Vent, the two Kobbers who'd had the biggest knowledge of inter-dimensional travel, would have mentioned this before, even if in passing. Why had it only now come to the attention of anybody in this particular dimension? Why hadn't anybody from the Zoofights universe been invited beforehand?

Old, die-hard instincts demanded that she immediately grab the stickiest energy drink she had in the fridge. She ignored it and flicked the kettle on. Coffee sounded like a much better solution. 

What was the prize? That was a question that she should have asked right up top. It had to be something big for a tournament that took place across the infinite parallel dimensions. But did they already announce that beforehand, or did they keep that a secret for when the tournament began? And if the latter, why? Would it be something dangerous? Something that would give Dawn horrible flashbacks and require Jumpropeman to stand by in case of emergencies?

She turned on the hob, put a pan on, then began throwing her ingredients together. Egg, cheddar, home-made ketchup, pepper and parsley. Throw that between two slices of toasted bread.

Mmmmh. Pure genius. 

Why her? There were plenty of other candidates in the Zoofights universe alone for this thing! People way stronger than her! People who'd done really cool shit! Why not her boss, or any of the other OG Kobbers out there who'd done it for way longer? And even if not, why not somebody from that Weav place? Why not a Planeswarden? Why-?

She stopped chewing as she realised why she was thinking like this. She remembered how she felt as the tournament was explained to her, and recognising why she was feeling that way.

She drew in a breath through her nose.

And then... she calmly and quietly finished her breakfast. She took two paracetamol and chased it down with the last of her coffee. She took a long shower, paying special attention to her hair. She found some clean clothes and put them on, and then picked up her dirty ones, threw them into the washing machine and set them to go. And by that time, the headache was mostly gone.

She went back to her bedroom and picked up the invitation from her bedside table. She looked at it for a long, long time.

Then she looked up, although she couldn't quite explain why.

"Lindy?" she said aloud. "I've made my decision-"

And then she was gone again.

---

The Invitation

It had started, as many of these things do, innocuously enough, with Kaydence Roberts returning home from a Friday night outing.

The downtime between Kobber seasons was fast becoming something she appreciated. The months between frantic battles, mystery solving and punching bad guys had become her 'me time', as she'd put it. Do some shopping, catch up on her socials, do extra streams for additional income. And, on the odd night, she'd make a beeline for the town and do what she loved best - drinking and dancing. The perfect way to not worry about villains or reality twisting itself into a knot.

And this had been a productive one, too. Cheap drinks thanks to a special offer at her favourite dive bar. The local club had played all the old dance standards when she'd arrived. And an encounter with a very handsome young man which, without going into details, had ended with swapped numbers and a promise to look each other up again. 

So she was in a very good mood indeed as she reached her front door and, after fumbling with the keys for a moment, unlocked the door and threw it open. Flushed and grinning, she sauntered straight to her bedroom and immediately began to undress. Alcohol still buzzing away in her system made her careless, elated and unworried by any expectations of decorum. She was all too ready to immediately slide into bed, without even showering or putting on pyjamas, and drop right off to sleep, knowing that the weekend was coming up and she didn't have to do squat the next day.

Then she saw the envelope on her bedside table.

It caught her attention initially because the whiteness of it stood out so sharply against the black wood finish of said table. But when she stopped and actually looked at it, she realised why. Because it was a level of white that was... well, unnatural. Even for paper. It was so pristine and pale that it looked as though it had been dipped in bleach.

"The fuck?"

She picked it up, noting how light it was even for something made of paper, and turned it over. There was nothing on the front. No name, no address, just a completely blank white sheet. And that was even weirder than the fact that it had just... appeared.

She stood there in her bedroom, fighting against the mild drunkenness fogging her brain as she went down the list of options. Did she lock her door before going out? Stupid question, she was fumbling with the keys not more than a minute ago. Did she shut her bedroom window? A quick glance over at the pane confirmed that no, she had indeed closed it - the curtains did not rustle with the chilly March breeze. Had there been some other method by which somebody had snuck in? She wasn't sure, but then again, she was drunk...

Deciding not to dwell on that idea, she ripped the envelope open.

If she'd been confused by the presence of the blank envelope, she was utterly bewildered by what she found inside it. A piece of material that might have been plastic, but shimmered a bit too much for that to be true, no bigger than a birthday card. The entirety was plain white, almost the same shade as the unnatural whiteness of the envelope, with the exception of a golden border around the edges.

No, not plain. When she turned it over, she saw words, seemingly engraved into the material.

CONGRATULATIONS

Kaydence Roberts of Earth ZF-001,
You have been cordially invited to participate in the
16th PARALLEL GAMES

To confirm your acceptance to participate, speak aloud before
APRIL 30 2026
(according to your dimension's timescale)
and further details will follow.

If you have further questions, speak them aloud.

Her drunk mind, already not putting in much effort when it came to rational reasoning, threw up its metaphorical hands altogether.

"...am I being punk'd?" she asked aloud. "Because if I'm being punk'd-"

And then, suddenly, she wasn't there.

A Review of OVO (2000)

Anyone who's been in my company for more than five minutes - and some might say that's still too much - will know that I am terminally obsessed with the Y2K aesthetic. The visuals, trends, fashions, tech music and general pop culture of the late 90's and early 2000's, the big, shiny chrome beacon at the end of the 20th century. This makes zero sense if you also know that I was born in 1992, far too late to be able to appreciate any of those trends in any capacity. By rights, I am a 2000's kid and should be into Frutiger Aero, Green Day or literally anything else that was out around the early 2000s. But nope, give me the drum and bass, give me the chrome and aqua, give me the vague appropriation of anime and manga aesthetics.

But nostalgia is a double-edged sword, and it's all to easy to swing it the wrong way and hack your own feet off. Looking back on stuff like this can give you a real insight into how trends in culture, art and society change over time, and it's fascinating to see what was considered fashionable back then and what that says about us at the time it was made. But then you get slapped in the face with some casual homophobia or racism and remember that oh, right, this was a different, not neccesarily good time. You have to take these things as a warts-and-all deal to fully appreciate them, otherwise there's a real risk of learning the wrong lessons.

That is, if there's even anything to learn from them at all. Which brings me to... this thing.

Full disclosure, I rewrote that opening spiel about three or four times because I had no idea how to approach this thing at first. Listening to this thing for over a week, parsing over each song, trying to wrap my head around the frankly bonkers narrative, I suspect that my feelings matched that of somebody like Cao Cao as he plotted his next great battle. I wonder if, like me, he ever considered reaching for a glass of wine to fortify himself.

Right, okay. Let me back up and just give a little context.

Penned by former Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel, OVO was created to soundtrack a Cirque du Soleil-style show performed at the Millennium Dome in London during the year 2000. The show, and by extension the album, is a high-concept affair dealing with themes of generational responsibility, overcoming prejudice, coexistence with nature, the shaky co-dependency of humanity and technology, grief, uncertainty in a changing world and hope for the future. All of this is told in the allegorical parable of three generations of a family on a fantastical island and their conflicts with another tribe as they struggle to ensure the ongoing survival of their fellow beings.

If all of that sounds like pretentious guff, then that's because it is. But we'll get to that in a minute.

I'm being a bit cheeky with this one, in all honesty. While I started the series to cover all the music that I delibaretly ignored as an angsty teenager, this one's going much father back. I was about eight at the time the Millennium Dome was a thing. I have vague memories of visiting the Dome maybe once for a Pokémon-related thing, although I wonder nowadays if those are fake, retroactively created by my own brain. I certainly never saw the show this album was penned for. I suspect that a lot of it would have gone over my head and I would have had zero understanding of it.

Listening to this now, I can state that kid me wasn't missing much.

Two things are working against OVO. The first is that it's a soundtrack album, written with a visual element in mind, so listening to it divorced from the context of the stage show is definitely not going to bring across the intended experience. That's an unavoidable pitfall when you listen to any soundtrack album, of course - I love Kung Fu Panda 2's music, but part of that love comes from having it be paired with the on-screen action. It loses a lot if you haven't got the film in front of you, or if you haven't even seen the film at all.

 But this is compounded by the second thing, in that said intended experience is about as substantive as a cotton wool life raft. The album progresses from sleepy folk music to spine-tingling industrial to thrashing battle drums to new age strings to probably the worst rap I've ever heard in my life, but so little of it feels like it has anything real or profound to say. And I sincerely doubt that watching a bunch of leotard-wearing performers jumping about elaborate scaffolding is going to help fill the gaps.

And the second problem is the album's biggest handicap, because OVO is trying to say something. It's a concept album wearing the skin of a soundtrack. The entire structure, from track ordering to sound to lyrics, is telling a story, albeit an allegorical one. But the story on the surface level is complete nonsense to the point that I had to stop several times and nurse my forehead to make sure my brain hadn't tried to escape my skull. And even then, said story is just a vehicle for empty platitudes about mankind's place at the dawn of the new millennium, about as filling and meaningful as fairground candy floss.

But I get ahead of myself. Let's just take this thing track-by-track, as always, and see what we can make of it.

--- 

Low Light
I initially mistook this for an instrumental, but there are actually some spoken words in Irish Gaelic in here. This track, low-key and slow like a rising sun, works as an opener, giving a very "dawn of time" feel to ease you into the overall narrative, but you probably won't remember it by the time the album's over.

The Time of the Turning
Richie Havens and Allison Goldfrapp do some back and forth about the cycles of the seasons, agriculture and the steadfast hardiness of those who live in nature. It's fitting for the vaguely mythological/fairy-tale atmosphere of the album, but not that much of a standout. The chorus gets stuck in my head, though, which is at least something noteworthy.

The Man Who Loved The Earth/The Hand That Sold Shadows
The first major instrumental of the album, and it's... not good. Half of it is droning digeridoos punctuated by the occasional drum hit, and the other is an oddly-sinister whirlwind of timpani, flute and electric guitar that ends up being tonally jarring. It feels like two tracks hastily shoved together, regardless of whatever narrative it's trying to bring across.

The Time of the Turning (Reprise)/The Weaver's Reel
Two remarks. One: I feel it's odd to have a reprise so early in the album, and so soon after the track that it's reprising. Normally you'd want a fair distance between those. And secondly, I think this track's been named backwards - the segment I think of as "The Weaver's Reel" comes first, followed by the reprise of "The Time of the Turning".

Regardless, this song mostly picks up in the second half. We get something akin to an Irish jig or harvest festival with lots of fast-paced flutes, followed by sudden and frantic clattering drums as though something had gone horribly wrong. I definitely remember that particular drum beat from the commercials for the Millennium Dome - I wonder if they sampled this track for it?

Father, Son
Odes to fatherhood don't work on me. Mostly because my own dad was an alcoholic womaniser who sold me and my sister's GameCube for booze money. And mawkish, crooning songs don't work on me, either. Peter Gabriel going on about doing yoga with his elderly dad to a bare-bones piano and string backing fuses those two things into a something that I bounce off of like a golf ball bouncing off of an elephant's arse. Bad, bad track.

Call me heartless, but a song with a lot of personal relevance to the person who composed it can still suck. Even if you had a good relationship with your father, I can't see anyone un ironically enjoying this.

The Tower That Ate People
Okay, this is a track I like. After all the folk and woodwind, the sharp turn into industrial, with pounding, metallic drums and distorted flute, is a welcome relief from everything else that's come before. I've found myself bopping my head to this more than once on the walk in the park or on the train to work. Peter himself clearly isn't ashamed of this track either - it's recurring on his set-lists and turned up in a few compilation albums.

And out of all the tracks, this is one of the few that remains surprisingly prescient in today's times. Between  the concerns over the rise of AI and the increasing prevalence of social media in our lives the image of people increasingly becoming prisoners inside the tower, yet unable to cope without the shelter of it, only gets stronger. "Man feed machine, machine feed man", indeed.

Revenge
Filler instrumental with rapid-fire drumming meant to invoke a sudden battle or uprising. Skippable.

White Ashes
A slow, weird mix of wild calls and lyrics on the fall of the tower and the death of the one in control of it. Feels weirdly post-apocalyptic, more of a semi-sarcastic celebration of societal collapse than of true joy and relief. Still not that memorable a track.

Downside-Up
Another double-act song, this time between Elizabeth Fraser and Paul Buchanan, that muses on the sudden collapse of stability and upending of status quo. Again, nothing much to say, which is becoming a running theme of this review. I do have one thing to say about it, but that'll come later.

The Nest That Sailed The Sky
A weird, floaty instrumental spiritually akin to those binaural ASMR music vids you watch to help you go to sleep. I definitely don't hate this one - it's weirdly calming and pleasant, and I can definitely see myself turning it on for a few minutes when I'm a bit stressed out. 

The Tree That Went Up
Yeah, trees tend to do that.

Sarcastic comments aside, I keep getting this one confused with The Nest That Sailed The Sky. And I have a distinct feeling that this track might be out of order with everything else. Really, this thing should come before Downside-Up, if we're going by the bonkers narrative that this thing is strung around. But when a lot of these airy instrumentals bleed together in the way they do, I suspect that the people putting this thing together didn't much care overall.

Make Tomorrow
A ten-minute encore from every performer on the album thus far as they appeal to the audience to actually go out and make the new millennium happen. Put down the distractions, figure out what mankind is worth. And while there's a definite poetry about this one that I can appreciate, ten minutes is too much time to spend beating the listener over the head with your album's final unifying thesis with the care and grace of a drunk clown with an industrial mallet. Maybe I need to listen to it a few more times for it to really resonate, but still, ten minutes. Ugh.

The Story of OVO
Ooooh, boy. This is what you all came to read.

See, I've been pulling a bit of a fast one on you all. The track listing I've been using isn't the one used by the album's public release. It's based on OVO: The Millennium Show, an alternative version of the album originally exclusive to the Dome. That version of the album has this track, a rap-based summary of the fictional narrative of OVO, as a separate disc. The public release removes the track "The Tree That Went Up" and sticks this track at the very start.

That was a stupid fucking decision for two reasons. One: The backing to this track is directly taken from "The Man Who Loved The Earth", so if you hear this track first, it makes the latter track come off as the derivative one and cheapens it. Two: this song fucking sucks. It's the lamest, frill-less, commercial rap I've had the misfortune to inflict upon my eardrums, with its unenthusiastic vocals punctuated by a droning "Ovoooo" chorus akin to a broken forgorn. There's no enthusiasm or energy, no lyricism, no care for the material, and given that the material reads like something a bored primary school kid would scribble out, can you blame them?

"Father, Son" just makes me roll my eyes - this one's genuinely embarrassing. Putting it at the front was a mistake and I hope the executive responsible for that idea steps on a Lego brick.

---

So... yeah. This isn't very good. A few redeeming tracks, but it's ultimately nothing. A smashing together of various disparate genres, attempting to tell a bonkers narrative that is essentially meaningless hoorays about mankind making it to the year 2000.

I don't know Peter Gabriel. I don't know his work, especially his post-Genesis stuff. And I highly suspect that you'd already need to be a fan to be into this any more than surface-level. Because I've seen people glazing this album online as though it was another work of creative genius from the man. As someone who's exclusively stuck with classic heavy metal, indie rock, 90's trance, gangsta rap and the wild card that is Gorillaz for much of his life, I just don't get it. And based on this album alone, I'm not in a hurry to check out more of this work.

But for all of that, I can't bring myself to hate this album. Yes, it has the worst rap song I've ever heard. Yes, it's narrative concept is akin to self-masturbatory candy floss. And yes, it's got its name attached to one of the biggest boondoggles in British history, an upturned salad bowl on the banks of the Thames. But there's things to like! The Tower That Ate People is a song I keep coming back to, and I'm even prepared to say that The Nest That Sailed The Sky and the middle of The Time of the Turning/The Weaver's Reel are enjoyable! Hell, maybe you'd like Father, Son - I sure as hell don't, but maybe you will!

I think, at the end of the day, OVO's only real crime is being a product of the manufactured 'Y2K hype' of the era. Like the Dome, it's what you get when somebody, either a corporation or government, tries to cynically sell you an idea of what a new millennium means, but hasn't got the first idea of what that idea actually is. And because they haven't, and because they need to appease as many people as possible, nothing they can sell you on will sound sincere in the least. No stance is taken other than "make tomorrow today", nothing that would exclude or offend.

The one saving grace of OVO is that, unlike the Dome, it was ultimately harmless enough that it didn't stick in the collective memory. And in that respect, it's lucky. It gets to evade the mockery and bitterness that still cling to the Dome, the tabloid headlines and political spanking. Nobody remembers the show and nobody remembers the music. But everyone will turn to each other, nearly three decades after the fact, and still go "Hey, you remember the Dome? What a load of old shite that was!"

I still love the Y2K aesthetic. And I'm still gonna snort that shit like the finest Columbian cocaine wherever I see it. But this thing, I reckon, is best left to gather dust on the nostalgia shelf. 

Next time, because The Story of OVO offended me so much, I'm going to listen to some actually good rap (hopefully) with Outkast. 

A Review of Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006)

We're taking something of a turn with this review. Because I already sort of liked Gorillaz and had come around to them during the pandemic prior to my review of Demon Days. And I'd always thought fondly of The Killers in spite of not being as familiar with their first two albums.

Arctic Monkeys, though, I was always certain I didn't care for.

As a teenager, I didn't have patience for a lot of stuff. And one of those things I didn't care for was the sort of loud, drum-thrashing rock and roll of the time period. So the moment I heard Arctic Monkeys, I disliked them. Not hated them, that's too strong a word. I heard it a lot, and maybe there were one or two songs that I liked, but most of it just completely bounced off of me. It just wasn't a sound that I took to, and it's been that way for the longest time.

But I'm thirty-three at the time of writing this. And in the vast gulf of time between then and now, I managed to understand that something can be good even if I personally don't much care for the IP, the genre, the sound, whatever it is that turns me off. So the purpose of this review is less about proving my teenage self was an idiot and more about finding out if, now that I have that ability, I might actually like Arctic Monkeys now.

 

One advantage of being older is that you can actually think to look up the context and history of media you experienced when younger. When you're a teenager - and especially if you're a particularly shitty teenager like I was - you might not care for any depth and can only appreciate things on the surface level. But as an adult, I can admit I didn't know that much about the people behind the band and did a little research before diving into this. 

And quite frankly, if the fact that these guys got famous by sharing their singles via MySpace isn't a fascinating story, then I forgive you, because who the fuck thinks about MySpace nowadays? But the point is, it's an incredibly smart move. Taking advantage of the internet, which was quickly growing in versatility and popularity at the time, and spreading by online word-of-mouth tells you everything you need. These guys are clever and passionate about what they do. They don't ask for record deals, record deals come to them. They're not doing this because they want to be famous or rich, they do it for the craft.

Which, in a world that teeters violently on the edge of anarchy as the bloated elephant of capitalism paws uselessly at the steering wheel, is to be appreciated. There's no pretention about them - they're not going to waste time writing soppy, metaphor-riddled love ballads when they could be smashing out a loud dance-floor sensation or introducing you to more local slang. Even if you don't like the music, you have to appreciate that at the very least.

The whole idea of "working man's music", the kind of tunes and lyrics about what the average joe goes through, isn't new. But Arctic Monkeys, arguably, managed to breathe new life into it by doubling down on the core concept. They're unapolagetically loud, honest and Sheffield. Their songs are all about coming home drunk from a party, getting chewed out by a moody partner, reminiscing about lost youth, complaining about the townies that turn up to ruin your Friday night. Hell, their first album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, is damn near a concept album revolving around hazy memories of drunken nights at the club, on the pull or nursing headaches from the night before.

We've all been there, which is why we relate to music like this. As somebody who spent four years in Sheffield studying for a useless degree, I very much relate - a lot of my night-outs ended in similar fashion. But how does said first album hold up, twenty years on? And does adult me appreciate these songs a lot more than teenage me did? Let's take a look. 

---

The View From the Afternoon
The band introduces themselves by sarcastically commenting on how they might not live up to the hype, in the same way that an average night out on the town might not. A good stage-setter, but drags a bit too long for me.

I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor 
One of the band's signature tracks, a high-energy headbanger encouraging the listener to not be a wallflower. Naturally, since this is one of their biggest hits, it's one that I've heard a fair amount already and grown to like.

Fake Tales of San Fransisco
A story of people getting fed up at a shitty concert held by a poseur weekend band. Good tune and also quite funny.

Dancing Shoes
A classic story of going out on the town, seeing a girl you fancy the look of and then completely bottling out of making the first move. We've all been there. Unfortunately, I don't find the song itself that engaging.

You Probably Couldn't See Me For The Lights, But You Were Staring Straight At Me
One of my biggest pet peeves in anything is when people give things obnoxiously long titles for no apparent reason. Therefore, as you can imagine, I fucking hate the title of this song. It's a good track, no real comments to make, but did nobody ask the band to take some pruning shears to that thing?

Still Take You Home
No real notes on this one, either. A ditty about how even an average person looks great after you've had a can or two and their features are obscured by laser lights.

Riot Van
We've all been to parties that went south because the police showed up. This is one of those moments - a sobering, low-tempo and quieter track that encapsulates that cold-water-to-the-face "oh shit" moment when the bastards in blue rear their ugly heads. A good change of pace and put at a good point in the album, but definitely a filler track more than anything.

Red Lights Indicate Doors Are Secured
The album pivots here slightly, talking about the aftermath of a night out instead of the night itself - the banter, the drunken arguments, trying to figure out how to dodge paying for the taxi home. By the time the gang gets their brain cells lined up, it's too late - the doors are locked and they have no choice to ride out their mistake. If you've ever embarrassed yourself in the aftermath of a clubbing session, you'll totally get this one.

Mardy Bum
Another Arctic Monkeys signature songs, a more pop-ish affair (aside from the bridge) about the struggle to communicate with somebody who's naturally argumentative and moody, feeling like you're just going through the motions over and over. Ended up introducing a lot of people to Yorkshire dialect words, which is always fun.

Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But...
Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner and drummer Matt Helders, in an interview, talked about how condescending the people around them in their hometown were, asking how much the band was making on their early gigs. And now that they're famous, those selfsame people, who clearly had no faith in them or understanding of why they were doing what they did, are now dick-riding and claiming they always supported them. So this song is very much a sardonic "oh, now you support us" from Alex and Matt. Good stuff.

When The Sun Goes Down
The #2 single from the album, a reflection on the darker side of Sheffield nightlife. Sex workers used to ply their trade around the studio the Monkeys practised at, and Alex can only muse on what he sees from his window - his pity for the women who are doing it, his contempt for the scumbag pimps, his mocking disdain for the regular customers in their Ford Mondeos. Its easy to overlook these lyrics, though, because the song is a damn banger from beginning to end, with a natural rise and fall at each end and nothing but high energy in the middle.

From The Ritz To The Rubble
A nice filler track abnout getting turned away from the big, fancy club, only to have a more productive night out at a more down-market local. Just goes to show that you can have fun without going to the places that demand you empty your entire wallet just to get through the door. 

A Certain Romance
I find it rather odd that one of the more layered tracks of the album ends up being at the end. It's simultaneously a dig at the belligerent, drunken chavs who suck the soul out of partying and a swipe at the music industry for churning out artless guff designed only for ringtones. And yet, at the end, the singer admits that he can't be too mad, because some of his best friends fit the stereotype too in both categories. Makes me wonder who in the music industry he was pals with for that kind of commentary.

---

I walk away from this album reassured that Arctic Monkeys are, in fact, good. Perhaps still not my cup of tea - the repeated use of loudly-crashing drums grates on my nerves when I just want to listen to the guitar or vocals, and said vocals often get a bit too close to Oasis levels of slightly annoying for my tastes. But I can definitely see how they exploded, how people latched onto them. And I can definitely point to more than two songs on this album and say "yes, this is good" if people ask me about it.

Maybe in future, I'll look up their second album and see where it takes me. Maybe I'll like this more than the first one, in accordance with the law of sequel quality. Maybe it'll be more of the same. Who knows? That's a question for future me, and honestly, fuck future me; he's had something against me ever since he started getting alcohol cravings. 

Next time, I either talk about Outkast, of whom I only know one song, or an obscure concept album from the year 2000 that only appeals to me. Flip a coin.

A Review of Sam's Town (2006)

The Killers are one of those bands that, for me, comes up in conversation now and again. And that's weird, because I feel I should be talking about them a lot more than I do.

The reason being that. for much of the mid-late 2000's, they were huge. One of the biggest bands of all time. It seems bizarre that a Nevada-based band, fronted by a Mormon out of Utah, would end up having such an influence in Britain as they did, but there it is. I wonder, sometimes, if this is how America felt when the Beatles or One Direction crossed the pond the other way and made it big - this mix of appreciation for the musical talent on display and bewilderment as to how it took off as much as it did.

I think the Killers were one of those very few bands I latched onto as a teenager, nevermind the shitty meme songs or disparate singles I fixated on. Again, I was too wrapped up in my own shitty self to pay much attention to pop culture, but I definitely remember liking the Killers a lot - although that was tempered a bit by the exapseration of classic radio overexposure. I couldn't tell you if any of the lyrics spoke to me or if it was just the sound of them, but I definitely remember that they were the band that made me seriously think about what I considered 'good music', outside of niche interests like Gorillaz.

But for some insane reason, as good as their early work with Hot Fuss and Sam's Town, it was their third studio album, Day & Age, that I latched onto. I can't really explain it, but as much as I liked songs off of those first two, I hyperfixated on tunes like A Dustland Fairytale, Neon Tiger, Human and Spaceman. And while it's a good album, I knew for a fact that it wasn't up to the level of the first two albums. My mind was weird when I was young.

Then Battle Born came out, and it just wasn't as good, so I fell of the Killers really hard. But with that level of introspection, I thought I'd give one of the older albums a try - and, on recommendation from my sister Jade, picked the second one, Sam's Town.

 

Sam's Town is a deliberate attempt by the band to get away from their reputation as "Britain's Best American Band". The entire thing is steeped in themes and ideals unique to America - growing up in a small town and wanting to break out, the struggles that come with that conflict, the failed relationships and personal demons that occured in such a place. It's very personal to band frontman Brandon Flowers as a result, who openly admitted that it was an attempt to capture all the major events that got him to where he was at the time of it's recording. I wouldn't put it on the level of something like Pink Floyd's The Wall, but it's definitely something that comes from a personal place, and it can be hard to relate to those kind of themes if you didn't have a similar upbringing.

And while I don't relate, I'm very happy to say that the album makes up for it with an awesome sound. It's a step up for the band's high propduction levels, with a harder, more "rock" sound than even Hot Fuss had, deliberately shunning the synths and vocal effects for a more sincere acoustic performance. All in the name of capturing the "small town childhood" vibe. It's gritty, melancholy and raw, yet punctuated by a poetic lyricism, a combination of flowery yet unflinchingly honest that elevates it a step further.

So let's takle this one track at a time, as before.

--- 

Sam's Town
You gotta have balls the size of a semi truck to put your title track as the first in the album. That's not something a lot of albums do - you normally put it around the middle or near the end of the album to provide a crescendo to the themes and sound the album provides. This is the kind of power move you only do if you know for a fact that the track's gonna be a banger. 

And Brandon had better count his lucky stars, because this song is like a musical cannon blast to the face. A huge, bombastic, warts-and-all anthem to growing up in small town Americana and a perfect summation of the album's themes to come - wanting to break out, failing relationships, the struggle to find identity. Awesome shit.

Although that makes this next track... weird. 

Enterlude
This is just the voice of Brandon welcoming us into the album, set to a humble piano backing. I find it odd that this track isn't the first one on the album, considering that it's entire purpose. I guess Brandon didn't want us to get whiplash going from this to Sam's Town, but then that just results in whiplash the other direction, so I'm very confused by this track's placement here.

When You Were Young
This is one of the Killers' songs, and for good reason. Catchy, soulful and with an unforgettable hook, the song deals with the idea of finding personal salvation in somebody less-than-perfect, who doesn't quite match up to youthful ideals but proves to be exactly what you needed. They don't have to look like Jesus, but they just have to be there for you, and that's alright.

Bling (Confessions of a King)
Brandon claims that this song was about his dad overcoming his alcoholism and rejecting Catholicism to become a committed Mormon when Brandon himself was five. The song reflects this in the internal struggle of the singer, who at times seems to be two voices talking to themselves - one lamenting their poor circumstances, the other telling them that things aren't so bad and there's still a chance for them to get things together. Not my favourite, but it's definitely a powerful song in that context and I wouldn't blame anyone who did name it as their favourite.

For Reasons Unknown
Yet another signature Killers song. Utterly iconic guitar riff plus Brandon's vocals on the inherent pain of falling out of love for no discernable reason make for an unforgettable combo. Out of the (admittedly large) number of Killers tracks I care to go back to, this is absolutely one of the top three.

It does, however, feature the worst rhyne/lyric in the whole album:

There was an open chair
We sat down there, the open chair

Yeuch. Maybe a second draft would have caught this one, Flowers.

Read My Mind
A more low-key track (relatively speaking, the chorus is just as bombastic as anything else on the album), filled with a bittersweet melancholy. It reiterates the desire to break out of the limiting world of the small town that the title track presented, but throws a wrench into the works with the idea of having to leave something fundamental behind to make that dream work. It's all about the struggle to make peace with the idea that two people's dreams are incompatible, and wherever they can still make it work in spite of this. 

And I can't find a way to make this paragraph funny, so here's a picture of a dog in a hat. 

Uncle Johnny
I don't really vibe with this track very much - it's kind of forgettable, and rightly so when you see what songs it shares the album with. Also, it kind of lacks a lot of the poetry of the other songs, in my opinion - it's literally just about Brandon's uncle and his struggles with cocaine addiction, with nobody really knowing how to help him. In an album that's dripping with flowery (hah) imagery, its a bit of a let-down.

Bones
Time for an embarrassing confession. When I first listened to this song, I hated it.

And that was down to a huge, huge misunderstanding of the song's subject matter. Based entirely on the chorus alone, I thought it was about some creepy "nice guy" coming onto a girl who didn't like him. The chorus' use of lurid imagery of bones and skin and insisting it was "only natural" rubbed me completely the wrong way. So for over twenty years, I've hated this song. I hated whenever it came on the radio or on the CD player in the car and I would always push it as my least favourite Killers song based entirely on this premise.

Having re-listened to this song now, as an adult, with full understanding of where the band came from and in a better mindset to listen to the actual song... yeah, I was way off-base.

What I thought was a "nice guy" anthem is, in fact, an open defiance of conservative and superficial views on sexuality that frustrates his desire for intimacy and human contact. The singer isn't being gothic levels of creepy when he presses his lady love for sex, he's appealing to her to join him in an act that throws aside surface-level superficiality and gets down to the "bones" - what we're really about. It's simultaneously an appeal for sincere connection on both the physical and spiritual levels and a rebellion against the small-minded "wait until marriage" mindset that would tar this instinctive desire for contact as a sin.

So, yeah. Turns out, this song rules, actually. And now I hate my past self even more for being such a small-minded, media illiterate scrote who now needs a harder kick up the arse than ever.

Also, the music video has skeletons in it. And, as we all know, skeletons are hilarious. 

My List
Another track that I struggle to maintain much enthusiasm for, in all honesty. I don't even really know what it's about. I think it's about a man trying to keep a relationship from going downhill, but the song itself is pretty forgettable. Not much to say about this one at all.

This River Is Wild
The main attraction of the Killers, aside from their sound, is the poetry of the lyrics. Brandon uses a lot of vague metaphor and imagery to leave the songs open for interpretation, even if he is trying to carry a specific theme across. For me, this song reiterates the album's overarching theme of Brandon's small-town roots, now focusing on the push-pull of his conflicting his desires. He wants to step outside his small world and experience the wild river of life, but he fears the risk that comes with it, of being swept up by the currents of the wider world and falling into failure without the safety net of his community to catch him.

Powerful stuff. And the song's genuinely not bad, either, but it obviously doesn't hold a candle to stuff like Bones, For Reasons Unknown or When You Were Young.

Why Do I Keep Counting?
A final reiteration of the album's themes. When one goes into the world, they're still full of so many questions about what to do and how to face the challenges that will inevitably be thrown at them. Brandon muses on wherever he'll have enough time to do the things he hopes to do, wherever he can overcome his personal demons to find what he wants, and struggles with aformentioned questions, wondering if his father (or possibly God?) could have given him the answers to conquer his fear. 

Exterlude
Firstly, I don't think Exterlude's a word. Secondly, this is just Enterlude again but with more of the usual bombastic instrumentation and an extra verse tacked onto the start. I feel this would have worked better with some slight lyrical tweaks and - more important - if Enterluide had been the first track.

 ---

Going back to this album is... weird. I definitely remember listening to it before and liking it, but I don't remember taking it in very much. Granted, there's a fair chunk of songs here that aren't classics, but it's still a pretty great album - Bones, When You Were Young, For Reasons Unknown... they're all there and they're all iconic tracks. And now that I have a much better mind for understanding context and metaphor, it's all the better on the relisten. But I wonder now how it measures up to the first album, Hot Fuss, and if there's an argument to be made for which is better. Maybe the answer lies there, or maybe teenage me was fuill of it as usual.

Next time - Arctic Monkeys' "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not". A band I know that teenage me didn't gravitate to, so let's see if adult me can appreciate it better. 

A Review of Demon Days (2005)

I missed a lot of pop culture in my teenage years. And I have nobody but myself to blame for it.

Between the years of 2004-2009, I was living in a fog. The world was trundling on around me, churning out music and movies and tv shows, but I didn't pay any amount of attention. I was a shitty teenager actively refusing to get a grip on his own autism, stuck in a Catholic secondary school that prioritised spending money on shitty bike sheds instead of fixing up the gym. So I retreated into my head to avoid engaging with reality as much as possible. My days outside of the weekend were spent thinking about how much I hated the school, how much the lessons sucked, how much I wanted to punch anyone I met and which video game characters I wanted to bang the most.

I'm being as blunt as possible so that you get an idea of where I was when the 2000s came and went, and how much I missed as a result. Mostly in the music department. I was vaguely aware of trending bands like Green Day, Black Eyed Peas, Pussycat Dolls etc., but at the time I was listening to godawful meme songs like Bananaphone. My tastes in music hadn't solidified yet, being mostly limited to whatever sounded good to me in the moment... including Bananaphone.

It's taken a long time and a lot of forcing myself into new experiences for me to start clearing that fog out of my head and actually form solid opinions on things, including music. So now that I'm the ripe old age of 33, with a much firmer grasp on things, I figure now, more than ever, is a good time to go back and listen to as much of the music that came out in the 2000s-2010s that I actively ignored. And I'm gonna talk about it on here, so all of you can follow me on this journey.

There is one tiny flaw in this plan. I don't want to just limit myself to the music I heard, because that would still be somewhat insulating. I didn't even listen to that much to begin with, and there isn't much value in talking about the stuff you know you already like. I want to experience as much of it as I can. And I fear I'm going to struggle at some points, especially with genres I don't normally like or in eras that were considered a generally bad time for popular music. But damn it, I owe it to myself to make up for the mistakes of my shitty teenage self, so I have to commit to this.

Having said that, I'm now going to come across as a massive hypocrite by talking about a band I listen to almost constantly. 

 

On the off chance you don't know - Gorillaz are the pet project of Blur frontman Damon Albarn and comic artist Jamie Hewlett. The four cartoon band members - surly satanist Murdoc, eyeless himbo 2D, Brooklyn spiritualist Russel and Japanese supersoldier Noodle - are a deliberate mockery of the manufactured stars and starlets of the mainstream pop industry, and their antics are deliberately nonsensical chaff. Because the point is the huge pool of global talent that Albarn pulls in to create sounds that you simply can't do with your B*Witched's or your Backstreet Boys. Names like Bobby Womack, De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Peter Hook and Elton John grace their tracklists. And their sound is never consistent, either, roaming between the rooms of trip hop, electronica and world music like a drunken frat boy trying to remember where he left his kebab.

Of course, anyone with a passing knowledge of music, especially British acts, will know who Gorillaz are. You don't need me to introduce you to them. And you definitely don't need me to explain Demon Days, their second album, or why it was such a massive hit. The moment you hear Feel Good, Inc. blasting over a speaker, you know it's Gorillaz - it's one of those all-time classics, on an album that's dripping with so many good tunes you could moisturise yourself with them.

Where was I during this? As I said, in secondary school, being a shithead living in his own shitty head, wallpapering the living room with shit and watching shit on a shit TV. My brother and mother were definitely more into this than me and played this album a fair number of times. They were fans enough of the project to buy Plastic Beach when that dropped, although I don't recall them liking that as much. But me? I certainly heard the music, but I didn't make the attempt to absorb it.

Having listened to the album in full some months ago, I can honestly say that it's one of my biggest regrets.

It's a complicated album, this one. And that's by design. The entire project is reflective of the dark time period in which it was written and composed. We were well into the War on Terror, and the cynicism of the times was leaking into every facet of media, from TV shows to movies to music itself. Demon Days is no different; the song tackles themes of not only the personal demons that drag us down, but the demons that affect human society. I've heard this album described as being akin wandering through the post-apocalyptic world, wondering what the fuck happened and wherever it's going to get any better - can't remember where I read that, though, but it's an apt comparison.

And like all of Gorillaz's output, it wavers between sounds and concepts - but its not random. Every track is deliberately arranged to form the loose idea of a journey of sorts, exploring the troubles that affected us - and still affect us now - in a variety of moods and tones. It's one of those albums that works best as a whole, when you listen to it back to back and get the whole point of it, rather than listen to just the singles alone. Although I genuinely wouldn't blame you if you did that, because there's a lot to love on here.

I guess the best way to go about this would be to just list every track and give some scattered thoughts on each one. I don't really have the acumen of vocabulary to talk about music in proper, technical terms, so I can only really go on gut feeling on this one. This is probably the format of this little series going forward - I didn't have anything in mind when I started, but I didn't want to just copy the myopic ramblings of most so-called music critics, so this is the best I got.

--- 

Intro
Nothing to say here, just a sample of the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack with Roots Manuva screaming about chemicals in the food chain layered on the top of it. Not a song, therefore not worth considering.

Last Living Souls
The first real track on the album is Last Living Souls, and it's an immediate banger. Halfway between paranoia-inducing and melancholic, Albarn's echoing voice bemoans his - and the listener's - status as the only compassionate beings left in an increasingly cynical world. I still get honest to god chills listening to this.

Kids With Guns
Carrying on the melancholic feeling of the previous track, Albarn goes on to lament the desensitisation of  our children to violence and warfare in the media. Yet another great track, and that bass riff will get stuck in your head for days. Unfortunately, Splatoon means I can't take it seriously anymore, because I keep hearing the title as "Squids with Guns" and laughing.

O Green World
I genuinely don't know if I like this one or not. When it's playing, I shudder at the horror movie strings and the scratchy vocals pleading against environmental collapse. But when it's over, it vanishes from my memory like a prawn cocktail flavour Skip on the tongue. A hesitant recommend, but still a recommend.

Dirty Harry
A brutal yet catchy anti-Iraq war anthem, with Bootie Brown killing it on the rap section as a weary soldier frustrated by his inability to connect with his fellow man. Albarn once got in trouble in America for having an all-black kid's choir sing this - I'll leave it to you as to what that says about who.

Feel Good, Inc.
THE Gorillaz song. No further notes.

El Mañana
 I genuinely can't tell if this is meant to be about depression, lost love or what, but fuck. The saddest song on an entire album dedicated to being dark, and that's saying a lot. I struggle to get through this sometimes.

Every Planet We Reach Is Dead 
That guitar riff will stick in your head for days. Slightly marred by the presence of known piece of shit Ike Turner, though.

November Has Come
MF Doom fans will like this one (R.I.P. Doom), but I have trouble pinning down what this one's actually about. I do agree that November sucks as a month, though.

All Alone 
Roots Manuva and Martina Topley-Bird can't keep this track from being also mostly forgettable.

White Light
Okay, this one fucking sucks. Damon Albarn snarls like a bear with strep throat about alcohol for two minutes or until you hit the skip button. By itself, it's merely mediocre, but in an album with the likes of Dirty Harry, DARE and Feel Good, Inc. on it, that's almost insulting.

DARE
Thank God this song comes right after White Light so I can actually enjoy myself. Fun, catchy, poppy, and also Shaun Ryder's on it.

Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head
Dennis Hopper narrates a parable about callous greed clashing with blind, good-hearted naiveté and the literally volcanic fallout of it. A fun listen, but I'd be hard-pressed to seriously recommend this one.

Don't Get Lost In Heaven
I think this one's meant to be about how organised religion sucks? Not sure. It'd make a good Stand name, though.

Demon Days
The aural equivalent of a reassuring mug of orange juice after a hangover. The reassurance that the dark days are behind and we still have a future to fight for.

---

And that's it. That's the album. And it rules. For a few stumbles, its an album that's a classic for a good reason. And that reason being, well, fucking listen to it.

Listening to it now makes me sincerely hate my past self - more so than usual, I mean. Because it really highlights how I was living in my own head by actual choice, and how fucking stupid I was for it. I could have been actually absorbing all of it and enjoying it, and all this other culture going on as well, rather than viewing it as a distraction from the outside world keeping me inside my bubble of self-loathing. If I had a time machine, I'd go back, kidnap my past self and lock him in a room with this album on loop until he could tell me what it was all about. And I'd slap him with a wet fish every time he got it wrong.

And that, I guess, is also the end of this first instalment of whatever this is. Not sure if I'm going to continue it or not, but it might be worth continuing if my explorations into the music I missed also continue. Stay tuned for partial excitement, and feel free to suggest music from around the time period. No novelty acts, though - I could go my entire life without hearing the Cheeky Girls ever again and be the happiest man alive.

A New Solution

Artificial limbs. Crop modification. Computer-aided design. Alternative energy sources.

Garrick has done all this, and so much more.

Founded in the post-Seanet world of the past, we've never stopped trying to solve the issues that are always arising in our modern world. We've helped carry Australia from the radiation-blasted hellscape of the Zoofights days and into a new, better and prosperous world. From biotech and artificial intelligence to networking and new energy sources, we've delivered time and again on innovative solutions to the latest problems facing society and our planet.

As Australia's premier technology solutions firm, we pride ourselves not only on our quality, but on our forward-thinking attitude and our outside-the-box approach to problems. We look at the issues facing our planet today as symptoms, not the disease, and work backwards to find the ways we can cure the ills of our valued clients and customers. Wherever it's providing longer-lasting, better-tasting food for the hungry, the latest technology solutions for the workplace or more environmental-friendly sources of power for your city, we strike at the heart of the problems facing modern man, ensuring a better tomorrow for everyone and anyone.

And Garrick doesn't just settle for meeting expectations - we surpass them, every time. That's why we specialise in so many fields. Expectations have never been higher, and our portfolio shows off not only our versatility as a company, but our excellence in quality in those fields. It doesn't matter what your issue is, Garrick can provide a wide variety of solutions to suit your needs, and then some.

And now, our products and services are making their way to Argo for the first time! Within the next month, you can expect to see our logo on items you use every day. Your tram to work might boast that our zero-emission, carbon free electricity keeps it going. You might use our specialised artificial intelligence to make those simple tasks at the office so much easier. Your news broadcasts or livestreams might come to you over our super-fast wireless connection. And businesses can look forward to using our tried and tested solutions for conference calls, meeting logs and so much more.

As our beloved founder, Nathan Garrick would say, "every problem has a solution". We are that solution.

 ---

"Good stuff, huh?"

"Yep. Talks us up, but not pretentious. The board sure loved it."

"And it's working already, too! We got our first clients only last week!"

"Really? I didn't hear about that in the SLT. Who is it?"

"Hard to describe them. Call themselves... Mantra PLC? Some kind of spiritual thing. They wanted our help with some sort of biotech project they were working on. It's weird, though... I've looked on the stock market and can't find any reference to a company by that name..."

"Hey, as long as they pay, I don't care what they're doing. And if they start trouble, well... there's the Kobbers. There's the police. There's the Kobber Police. Worst comes to it, there's the Ravenskies or the Cosineaus. They breathe wrong, we come down on 'em like a fuckin' meteorite."

"...I guess you're right. Wanna hit up the pub after work?"

"As long as you're paying."

~TO BE CONTINUED~

Threads Unbroken, Stave II

Christopher hadn't really needed to come to London at all. But he'd wanted to. He'd been an Oxford lad for as long as he could remember, having been practically raised within the Royal Academy, and as grand as Oxford as a city could be, it never held a candle to the capital city. He'd been there once or twice on field trips, but it had all been to the big tourist spots - Oxford Circus, Hyde Park, Windsor Castle, the London Eye. There was so much of the place that he hadn't seen until now.

And the place where he lived... it wasn't that it was bad. Far from it - it was the most idyllic, picturesque boathouse on the edge of a river that one could possibly imagine. The sort of thing that might have been a set for some children's variety show on television. Sam had deliberately moved there to avoid the attention and press that came with being the "Threadbreaker", and while it was still furnished with all the modern conveniences it was still half an hour's walk and back to the nearest village for groceries. And not much else.

So when Miss Thorne announced she has business in London and had offered to take him along, he'd jumped at the chance. His dad had simply shrugged and said "eh, why not". The man had wanted the excuse to get out of the house, and this one seemed as good as any.

There's no need to go into detail about all they did during their weekend there. It was as about as interesting as any trip to a big city can be, and if you have been to one yourself then you'll already have an idea of what it can be like. And their particular trip went about as pleasantly as one can expect such a thing to go. The weather held out, the crowds weren't overwhelming and the Underground ran on time, so it was as smooth and inoffensive as an experience could be.

Portobello Road was where it all went wrong. 

Threads Unbroken, Stave I

 ~The Royal Alchemists' Guild, London~

Victoria Thorne did not want to be here. She hated being here.

The phrase "familiarity breeds contempt", as old and tired as it was, continued to ring true even in the modern day. Places and names and faces that you see too much of lose their mystique very quickly and soon any and all respect or wonder you had for them dies away. And if you were Victoria Thorne, who had lived far longer than any person in the world had any right to live, you could become so familiar with a place that, in the end, contempt was all you had.

She was far too familiar with the council chamber in which the Royal Guild of Alchemists convened. Not that it made a good showing for itself besides - three hundred years of time had deteriorated the room beyond the wit of any duster, cleaning solution or stonemason to rescue. The marble stonework of the high, arched roof had lost its lustre and was worn in many places. A line of scuff marks crossed the dulled, cracked floor to the central podium, smearing out the faces of many once-worthy historical alchemists of Britain. And the high desks that surrounded the central podium, once a dark mahogany, had long lost their lustre.

What annoyed Victoria the most, however, was not the room itself. Her contempt came from the fact that, every time she came here, she had to deal with the five faces looking down upon her from over the lip of the desks. Each one belonged to a member of the High Council of Alchemists, the ostensible leaders of the Royal Guild - aside from herself. Blue-blooded to a man, woman and intermediate, and practically raised in the halls of the five great universities - Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, Edinburgh and Cardiff.

They were also bunch of officious, bureaucratic idiots. As they were once again proving.

Black Hole Sum

Faust. Pandora's Box. Nebula Gas. Kamen Riders. House Arak. Miu. 

The names, in huge block capitals, swirled around him as he stood in the middle of a vast horizon of black sand. It stretched to infinite on either side of him, seeming to merge with the starless void that hung above in lieu of a sky. A white fog swirled around his heels, amongst which the words danced and twisted like swallows. Each one silently shouted themselves at him, their size alone conveying wild and accusatory tones without sound or voice.

He looked up. Mars hung in the sky, and he only knew it was Mars because he recognized the continents upon it. But it was dead - not the vibrant red of its youth and prime, but dark and ashen grey. Not even a single glimmer of the once-proud towers, no light from the once-bustling cities. Somewhere in the distance, a disembodied voice was singing - an old Martian lullaby, he knew, to which the words had long been lost to him.

There as an awful glooping noise.

He looked down. 

The fog parted, and faces came up at him from out of the sand. Each one of them was screaming in hate and agony amidst a miasma of purple smoke that belched forth from between the bubbling sand grains. He didn't recognise a single one of them, disgust and fear bubbling in his chest as he watched them twist and merge with each other like a kaleidoscope in a John Carpenter film, flesh flowing like modelling clay.

YOUR FAULT! they screamed, voices mingling with each other. YOUR FAULT! MURDERER! YOU DID THIS! ALL YOUR FAULT!

"What the fuck?!" he asked, before he could stop himself.

A shadow loomed over him. He made the mistake of turning around.

"They're your children," hissed the impassive, emotionless, bat-shaped visor that hung in the air above him. "Are you proud of them yet?"

And then it was joined by more. The leering, snake-shaped helmet of Blood Stalk. The gilded, imperious eyes of Evol. Build's helm, cracked and broken and worn. Kamen Rider Clear, now covered in so much scratches and dirt that the name was ironic. Slavering, fang-filled mouths appeared on each one, sliding into reality in the same way that, in a badly-generated AI video, details morph and change without rhyme or reason.

The faces beneath him screamed and roar louder. Only snatches of individual words could be heard now - MURDERER! KILLER! - as they rose up around him. He felt as though he was on the stand and the jury had finally lost it's shit with him, screaming for him to be hung.

"I... I couldn't!" he cried, ice in his stomach. "I had no choice! I-"

But the helmets closed in, looming, twisting. Horrible, cackling, mocking laughter spilled from their maws. And at the same time as he cowered from them, he felt twisted appendages and digits clawing at his shins as the things writhing in the quicksand beneath assaulted his ears in the screaming denouncement that echoed off of the nothingness around him.

ALL YOUR FAULT! ALL YOUR FAULT! ALL YOUR FAULT!

--------

Evolto Naja opened his eyes and realised he didn't know where he was.

This was nothing new to him. He'd developed a habit of doing this ever since he'd arrived on Earth and began to mingle with the culture. Accidentally jettisoned from his home planet by Pandora's Box, which was a whole story in and of itself, his awakening in the middle of Manhattan with a screaming headache and a dry throat was the first in a storied history of waking up in odd places. Even when he'd been roped into working for Faust, he'd still had his fair share of amnesiac mornings, although in that case that was mostly to try and forget what he saw writhing in the tanks.

It was only now, as he opened his eyes and saw himself surrounded by a huge expanse of grassland, that he began to wonder if it was becoming a problem.

He didn't know what time it was exactly, but the morning sun was already hot on his skin. His body ached as though he'd been running a marathon. His head felt like a swarm of bees was trying to escape from inside his skull. And as he pushed himself upright, groaning from the effort, his stomach churned in protest at being forced into a vertical position. None of these are insurmountable problems if you are at home in your own bed, or even in somebody else's bed. They're quite another matter when you're inthe middle of an unidentifiable grassland in God knows what corner of the world.

He blinked several times, trying to clear the fuzz from his vision and get a better look at his surroundings. But no matter how much he tried, it refused to be anything other than rolling grassland dotted with rocks and strange bushes he didn't know the name of. So he brought his secret weapon into play - a forked tongue flickering out from between his teeth before snapping back inside, and his jaw clenched as he pressed it up to the roof of his mouth.

Dusty. Dry. Primarily cheap beer, barbecue smoke, sweat and motor oil, all fighting for space. Hints of gum tree and eucalyptus. And a strong aftertaste of...

He turned his head, and saw a kangaroo grazing nearby.

Australia.

He gave a groan. Of all the places to wake up. Not that he wouldn't have minded going to Australia in any other circumstances, but... What even happened last night? How did he end up here?! Granted, that was a question he asked himself most mornings, but on this occasion it felt... more urgent. Like it was actually a conundrum this time, and not a comical happenstance. And he didn't know why that was, unless it had something to do with how he got here at all.

A nearby rock caught his eye. As if by instinct, he pushed himself to his feet and wobbled over to it. The action made every one of his senses howl, all of them refusing to come to work and demanding that he go back to the comforting blackness of sleep. He ignored them and sat himself down, adjusting and grimacing until he couldn't feel any sharp edges digging into his thighs. His brow furrowed as he tried to extricate some form of memory from the black soup that had swallowed up the previous night. 

Well... he'd been drunk. Obviously. But there was more to it than that, or else he wouldn't have this nagging doubt in the pit of his stomach, the lingering worry that he might have actually fucked up somehow. All he could dredge up, though, was the idea that he'd gotten in trouble - for what, he didn't know. Had he been drunk when he'd done it? That sounded like him.

His ears picked up the sound of the kangaroo bounding across the grass in his direction.

He vaguely remembered being... angry. Like, actually angry. And that was significant, because he spent so much time in a fog of weed, booze and dangerous experiments that it was rare for him to get angry. At worst, he got whiny, like a little kid. The last time he'd been angry, it had been when Gentoku - that warmongering bastard - had infected one of the Lupinrangers under his care with Nebula Gas, despite knowing she wasn't compatible with it. It had been the most genuinely angry he'd ever been.

But he remembered being blindly angry. He remembered shouting. Somebody had said something back, he didn't know what, but it had only made him angrier. And then... he was here. Because he'd gotten angry, and most likely had come here just to spite whoever or whatever it was that had made him angry.

Not that it made much difference. Because, in truth, Evolto Naja hadn't been very happy for a while. A long while. And it wasn't anything specific that had started it off. Nothing Dawn or a Ravensky or even any other Kobber had done. It hadn't even really started when Shouma, his cousin, had turned up. That hadn't helped though - not that he hated the kid, he was just a handful. Like a big, stupid dog on a sugar high. Except dogs didn't usually try to become heroes in spite of their simplistic, black-and-white view of the world around him.

The kangaroo had pulled up alongside him. He could see that it was glancing at him as it ambled forwards, sniffing in search of the tastiest  morsels.

No, Evolto'd been in a bad mood even before then. And as he sat there on the rock, the hot Australian sun beating down on him, the Martian was starting to put a name to the sense of worry and discontent in his stomach. It was...

And then he remembered the nightmare that he'd had, just before he woke up. The dead black sand. The dead grey Mars. The faces, screaming, accusing, condemning. The laughing masks of those he had, indirectly, created-

"Lovely mornin', cobber!

Evolto shook his head, and it was all gone. He turned his head to see only the kangaroo standing there.

He was less surprised than he should have been. And when he looked back on this moment later on, that would also trouble him. Because the fact that the kangaroo had spoken and had the pleasant and cheery lilt of a preschool teacher in her voice, should have at least made him do a double-take, if not shriek in horror. But he didn't do either of those things. Instead, he chose to glance back at the talking marsupial with the distracted look of somebody who was recovering from a night they didn't remember.

And maybe that wasn't the right reaction, he would later come to think. Maybe being desensitised to the strangeness of the universe was actually a bad thing.

"Is it?" he asked, still unsure as to wherever to take the word "cobber" as an insult or not.

"Somewhere in the world, it is!" The kangaroo did not seem to be bothered by his attitude, and instead dipped her head down to nibble at the short, coarse grass beneath. There was a moment of silence - inasmuch as the silence of the wild, with the deep rush of wind and rustling of grass always present in the ear, could be described as such.

Evolto wasn't sure what possessed him to say what he said next. Maybe he just needed to break the silence. Maybe everything that had been weighing on his mind like a blockage in a water pipe had finally reached maximum pressure and needed to be let out. Or perhaps he was hallucinating the entire thing due to crumbs of edibles still in his guts. But he said it, regardless.

"...do you think I'm beyond redemption?"

The kangaroo lifter her head from the grass and, still chewing, fixed him with the half-lidded stare that is the default expression of all kangaroos. Without much effort, it gave the impression of unimpressed boredom, that she was waiting for him to do something exciting and he wasn't currently living up to the hype. Evolto stared back, feeling deep down that he shouldn't take that kind of insult from something that kept her babies in a horrible skin bag on her stomach.

"I dunno," she said, at last. "D'you think you are?"

Evolto's eyes narrowed. "If I had any idea, I wouldn't be asking you."

"Fair dinkum, mate," said the kangaroo in that same upbeat manner. "But it's an odd question to be askin' me, right? I mean, I don't even know anythin' about you!"

Evolto blew out between his lips and leaned back slightly. Oh, boy. Might as well keep it brief - no kangaroo, talking or otherwise, would be able to comprehend his life story in detail.

"Well," he said, "I come from a noble family on a distant planet. In another dimension, too. I'm a genius and was very good at manipulating space gas. We used it to do things that shouldn't even be possible, but we did it anyway because reality is more of a suggestion to us than a hard rule."

"Uh-huh," interjected the kangaroo.

"There was a civil war, and my family took part in it. I stopped it, but that meant my entire race got trapped in a space-time pocket and I got thrown to that dimension's version of this planet. Then I ended up getting involved with a paramilitary terrorist organisation that wanted to exterminate all superhumans and instigate a global dictatorship." Evolto winced as those words came out of his mouth.

"Wow," said the kangaroo. He bristled to hear that one - it sounded vaguely condescending.

"I... turned a lot of people into monsters. I also might have killed a few people. Some of them were heroes who protected that world. We staged an invasion of another dimension - this one. Turns out, all the heroes we killed on our world were still alive here. But I stopped them from killing the big bad evil guy right off the bat. He'd taken the device that I used to stop the war and was holding it hostage to ensure I gave him what he wanted."

"Crickey." Okay, that was unnecessary, in Evolto's opinion. You're Australian, we get it, lady.

"But then he made somebody I cared about very sick, and that's when I'd had enough. He was going insane. I left him and joined up with the heroes, and I helped them win in the end, but... it was a very close thing. I ended up making a lot of people mad, and most of them... still don't trust me. Especially that Dawn Cosineau." Evolto snorted. "She can go fuck herself. Judgemental bitch."

There was an even longer, far more protracted silence. In the distance, a kookaburra let out its signature chattering cry and then abruptly fell silent.

"Well," said the kangaroo, at last, "sounds like you've had a pretty wild life, mate."

"Yep." Evolto smiled mirthlessly. "I'm a real wild card, me. Never know what I'm gonna do next."

"Proper larrikin." The kangaroo turned her head and nibbled at something vaguely bushy. "And what 'ave ya done to make up for it?"

The question was like a hammer blow to the skull. Evolto's expression betrayed nothing, but his mind screamed in panic as it reeled, knocked off balance by the words and their implication.

Because he'd never been asked that question. As far as he could remember, not a single person had directly asked him, to his face, what he'd done as penance for his acts under Faust. Not even the Kobbers. Oh, sure, Dawn held it against him, but she'd treated him more like a nuisance than anything, so it obviously wasn't that huge on her priority list. And there hadn't even been a grieving mother in a shawl, or a vengeance-seeking youth with a huge sword and stupid hair, to confront him about it, either of which was the usual cliché in such situations.

His mind continued to scream as it sought a handhold on the jagged rocks of memory to stop itself falling into an ocean of shit.

"...I helped them fight a bunch of villains," he tried, lamely. "And I got an organisation back home that's trying to undo the damage. Fighting old remnants of the bad guys, rebuilding, offering aid..."

He trailed off as he realised the kangaroo was staring intently at him. The unimpressed expression suddenly seemed more cutting than it had been.

"...I don't think that's gonna cut it, mate," she said, shortly.

Evolto bristled, anger rising in his chest. "The fuck do you mean?!"

"Look," said the kangaroo, "far be it from me to rock up to a bloke and tell 'im where to get off. But you ain't doing much good getting full off your head and joyridin' around the multiverse like a bored swaggie. Sounds to me like you're just ignoring all the crook stuff and hopin' it'll fix itself. And you know stuff like that doesn't heal that easy."

"And what if I can't heal it?" retorted the Martian? "What if, instead, I get condemned and judged by the people I pissed off? Or even by people I didn't even do anything to, just because the fact that I'm alive is offensive to them?"

"Now, that's a trickier problem," said the kangaroo, scratching herself. "You've got me there. But I reckon that what you're doing's worse, if not just as crook. You're acting like you didn't even do anything wrong, or that what you did back then doesn't bother you. And that doesn't look good from the outside, especially when your hands are as mucky as you say they are."

"So what?!" Evolto shocked himself with how quickly his voice rose. "Why should I care about what other people think of me at this point?! They can sit there and judge me all they want, but they haven't a goddamn clue what it was like! I'm not a cartoon villain over here! It's not that cut-and-dried!"

"Never said it was, mate!" said the kangaroo in the same infuriatingly level and upbeat manner. "Seems a bit odd, though, that you ask me about redemption, then go on about how you don't care about what others think. You need a word with yourself or something? Because last I checked, caring about what others think is a big part of redemption. Or d'you think you can go on lyin' about that?"

That was too much. Evolto stood up so quickly that something in the  nearby grass scurried away. His forked tongue flickered and his fangs stood out against his gums.

"Listen, you lean and tasty alternative to beef," he hissed, "I was in a fucked-up situation and I had to do fucked-up stuff to survive! Of course it bothers me! Why do you think I switched sides?! But I'm not gonna fucking sit on my ass and weep about how dark and troubled my past was! I've got a life to live, and I'm not going to live it by moping about it! And I'm certainly not going to spend the rest of it handing out apology cards to people who don't even want to hear it!"

The kangaroo stared at him, unfazed by his outburst, for an uncomfortably long time. Then she shrugged - an impressive feat when your shoulders are as broad as a kangaroo's.

"No need to split the dummy at me, mate," she said. "Go ahead and keep doing what you're doing, if that's what makes you happy. All I'm sayin' is, you can't run from your past. You ever watch The Lion King sober? And you can't find peace if you're not prepared to do right by the blokes and sheilas you've hurt. Runnin' away might seem easier, but it ain't helping anyone, least of all yourself."

The fact that she was so calm about it was only half of what was annoying the Martian. The other half was the sneaking suspicion was that she was correct. And he didn't fancy that idea for two very good reasons. Firstly, he'd be damned if a talking kangaroo, of all things, was going to talk anything resembling sense into him. And secondly, because if she was, then it meant he would actually have to do something about it, which... 

The image of the screaming faces came back to him.

...no. Just no.

"Whatever," he snarled. "You're not even really talking. You're just the crumbs of edibles in my stomach from two nights ago. I don't have to think about this ever again, if I don't want."

And he got up off the rock and, not even particularly knowing or caring which way he was going, set off across the Australian bush. The kangaroo watched him leave, ears twitching.

"Seems a decent bloke," she said to herself.

Then she went back to eating. So she didn't notice the drone swooping overhead, following Evolto as he stubbornly marched off in a direction that, unbeknownst to him, would lead him right to where he didn't want to be.

 Evolto Naja will continue to bother the Kobbers
in 2025

Kaydence's Vacation

WARNING: The following post is, like, really long. Maybe make a cup of coffee or geta snack while you read this.

 

-Day 3-

“‘Sup, choomies.”

Kaydence was no stranger to vlogging. She didn’t do it often - streaming was more of her thing - but she’d dabbled a few times. They’d been nothing fancy, merely a few trips to a holiday park or two, but it had been the current trend at the time and the technopath was nothing if not eager to jump on a trend if it meant more views and a bigger payout.

This, though… was the strangest vlog she’d ever done.

Mostly because it wasn’t some mathematically-curated holiday village. It was a large raft floating just off the shores of somewhere in the Kuwahawi island chain.

And it was already late morning. With Kuwahawi being as tropical as it was, not to mention it being mid-late springtime, it hadn’t taken long for the temperature to start climbing up. The air was as humid as the inside of a washing machine and the sun was glaring down on what felt like a full blast already. In the distance, dark, rumbling clouds threatened the chance of a storm - which was not ideal when one was on a piece of floating wood anchored miles from shore. Kaydence was extremely grateful she’d dressed light for this one - thin bikini top, short shorts, flip-flops… if she’d been wearing her usual outfits, she’d have baked by now.

“So, uh…” She flicked some of her bangs out of her eyes - although, with how sweaty she already was, it didn’t stop them sticking to her forehead - and grinned. “Long story short on this one. My coach asked me ‘hey, you wanna go on vacation’? And I was like ‘sure, where you wanna go?’ and then she said something about a tropical island and to meet her, like… three days after she’d left? And I honestly thought it was gonna be, like… some preem cabin overlookin’ the ocean? I didn’t think it was gonna be, well…”

She turned and swung the phone around slowly, giving the potential viewer a good, long look at her surroundings. Although there wasn’t much to look at aside from the great expanse of flat, still sea that glistened in the sunlight. A small boat - the one that had brought Kaydence here - was already a speck in the distance and growing smaller by the second, and the dark clouds had shifted, looking dangerously as though they would sideswipe the raft with whatever winds and rain they would bring.

There was, however, one very large consolation. And that came in the form of Julia Ravensky, who was tugging on the ropes that lowered the sails on the raft.

Oh, yes. This raft had sails. Among… other things. Kaydence took pains to pan the camera around, highlighting all the additions to what had presumably once been no more than a flat lump of wood. An enclosed fire pit and cooking station, a makeshift shelter, a washroom, a fishing chair platform - all of these encircled the raft, their distribution ensuring it didn’t

“As you can see,” said Kaydence as she panned the camera around, “my coach already got everythin’ ready. Shelter, fire pit, cooking stuff… the works. Yeah, she’s hardcore. And if y’all know who she is - and if you don’t, get the frag out from under that rock - then you’ll know I ain’t bullshitting. She’s done survival stuff since she was a chiddler, and she knows her shit back to front. Me? I’m, uh…”

“Could you not call me that, please, Kaydence? Chiddler. I know it’s just some slang term, I’m sure, but it sounds…off to me.” Julia poked her head in from the right side of the camera frame, adjusting a dully colored sweatband with one hand. “Mind if I hold this for a moment?”

“Uh, sure coach.” Kaydence handed the camera over. Julia was a bit more awkward in holding the camera to film herself, though that was more out of lack of practice. Kaydence could definitely see the changes from years past. When they’d met, she’d have actively avoided the camera, let alone made herself part of the Vlog.

“Now, as I’m sure some people would say, how is this a VACATION? Shouldn’t you be doing things in an easier way, instead of making your life harder? Well, yes, that can be a vacation. But if you just wanted to relax and indulge, well, you don’t have to change much. Especially in our lives. ESPECIALLY in our lives. We could probably have a dozen types of relaxing vacations just in our shared employer’s backyard. To me, a vacation is also about going out and doing something you don’t normally do. Moreso Kaydence than myself, but I’ve never done this sort of thing on an open salt water space. A lot of stuff sort of like it on land, and on some lakes, and I read some books, and have some more tucked aside to consult if need be…but to me, stretching your legs, learning some new things, keeping active, that’s a vacation. If you just want to lie somewhere and drink sweet things, well, that’s you. And yes, since I sort of sprang this on Kaydence, I went ahead and did the initial ground work. I like that sort of stuff. I suspect she wouldn’t. Hopefully what I can teach her she’ll never have to use in a bad crisis situation, but I don’t like predicting the possible future. Okay, handing it back Kaydence. I feel the wind, and I suspect you might get a trial by fire soon. Or water, rather.”

Julia vanished from the frame, the camera buffering around before Kaydence was holding it again, panning back to her own face. She suddenly looked a lot less sure of herself. And, if one peered closely, a little pale.

“...like she said. I never did any shit like this. Never roughed it in my life. Miaj panjo kaj paĉjo never even so much as took me on a camping trip. Not that there was much chance of that on Spero, the zen garden of rich assholes. So, uh… this is my first time doing anything like this. And I think coach knew that, which is why she asked me to wait until day three to come on over. It’s… gonna be rough for me, not gonna lie.

“But… it’s a challenge. And you should all know what I’m like with those.”

She made another valiant effort to brush her sweat-slickened hair out of her eyes, seemed to realise the futility of it and gave up with a sigh.

“Anyway, I gotta go. Coach wants to help me get my sea legs. Wherever the fuck those are.”

Of course, she kept it on recording. Just so she could record the time lapse montage of all the times she nearly fell over. And when the rainstorm hit and Kaydence got to test the shelter.

It wasn’t bad. It didn’t completely stop the wind, and some water did drip inside, but Julia mostly didn’t stay in the shelter with her, going out into the mild storm (SURE DIDN’T SEEM MILD TO HER) and making adjustments. Ardent WAS on board, but he was essentially napping in a box. Julia had said that, worst came to worst, he’d basically wrap Kaydence up like a cocoon so she could sleep undisturbed from moisture, cold, and motion.

Julia HAD also brought chocolate. There was roughing it and then there was outright suffering, after all.