Holy fuck you guys.  It’s back to school tomorrow and if you are anything like me, you woke up in a puddle of your vomit wondering where the summer went and what the hell happened to the warm weather.  It’s been pissing down rain here for the past couple days and it’s cold as hell.  As I write this, I’m currently wearing my favourite hoodie where the arms are actually bat wings..  DONT JUDGE ME!  Anywho, today marks a very special occaision, because, not only is it back to school and the end of summer days spent passed out in a kiddie pool in your front yard blaring Blasphemy for the neighborhood to hear, but this also marks a very special turning point in TRASH / THRASH TUESDAYS.  Today, I will bring you the first combination TRASH but also THRASH review.  And how might you ask?  How did I loose upon the world this hideous hybrid of opinions, a dicephalic behemoth to run stomping through your midst..  well the answer is simple.  You can like a band, or a song or a movie, or whatever else you happen to be into, but also have the ability to poke some fun at it.

Okay real talk.  I love Ancient VVisdom.  I appreciate Satanic occult based music in almost any form and there’s just something about a big hulking dude with a goat tattooed on his neck (this makes me cringe every time I see neck tattoos..  they look like they fucking kill) and leather pants that really gets the old lady boner stimulated if you know what I mean.  However, like all things dark and spoopy, there’s a fine line between being the aforementioned Lord of the Underworld, and being a late night Goosebumps episode rerun, and I think that is the beauty of this culture.  I am a taxidermist, I take photos of animals in various stages of decay and have a library of rare occults tomes, however, I just launched myself off the couch with my arms outstretched in my bat hoodie while bellowing “I ARE BAT!”.  My neighbors are near suicide at this point, so won’t you please keep them in your prayers during this difficult time.  Anywho.  Ancient VVisdom.  One of those bands that divides the audience between creepy obsessive following (and I’m talking weird shit man..  I got lost in a reddit hole a while ago and some broad was in there talking about how she cuts herself to their music…  glorifying self harm is pretty whack) and gouge your eardrums out hatred (in a similar reddit thread, there was a lot of whack hate as well..  and it essentially boiled down to because one poster didn’t like how their guitar player played?  k, brb).  While I wont be carving Ancient VVisdom lyrics into my titties anytime soon, I also won’t be spewing weird homoerotic hatred about their guitar player on the internet either..  I am here, however, to fill you in on the skinny about this video for Devil’s Work.  I debated doing interpretive dance, but the mental outreach people have already been here twice this week and it’s only Tuesday.  Seriously, I’ve had three case workers quit on me.  COME BACK.  ILU.

clock that sick ass neck tatt

The song I chose for you, actually chose itself.  The song being “Devil’s Work”, inspired I’m assuming by the line from Devil’s Rejects spoken by Otis Driftwood and wrongly attributed to Charles Manson.  The song is catchy as fuck and sing along which is pretty rad because howling squealing Devil music a la tr00 and kvlt black metal gets old really quickly for me.  It’s way more edgy to sing pop music about our dark lord and saviour.  Just look at Ghost, another band that heavily divides its audience and is also campy as fuck.

This song has some cheesy lyrics in it, sure, but boy do I ever love a grilled cheese sammich.

Between the fake Satanic black mass imagery, copies of the Satanic bible, creepy thousand yard stares (you’re never too young to have your first vietnam flashback), swirly LSD trip visuals and the lyrics overlaid, the whole thing is a real thrill ride from start to finish and left me confused and alone, just like that time I killed a hobo just to see if I could get away with it.

I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a larf, and I have a sneaking suspicion that this is supposed to be dead serious or at least as serious as a Rob Zombie movie?  However, metal is the joke that the audience never got, and I firmly believe that.  Perhaps me not getting the joke is the intention of the piece but I might be overthinking it.

The Ancient VVisdom track “Blood Offering” is my strong personal favourite from their album Sacrificial, but it does not have the cringey video that Devil’s Work does. Again there’s just something about big hulking dudes singing about witchcraft in the moonlight that really turns my crank.

That said, I have such an interesting relationship with Satanism and Satanists.  I am extremely interested in writings that have a Satanic bent to them, but I do not personally follow this path.  There is something a little cringey to me about theistic Satanists.  If you’re into Satan as a kind of inflammatory agent to irritate your local Christians, then yes by all means, throw your horns up and purchase a shirt that says “SMOKE METH AND HAIL SATAN”, but let’s be serious here – beyond aggravating your parents and local religious peddlers, you sound NERTZ.  Like cuckoo bananas.  I’ve met a few folks who run around and talk about their personal path to Satanism and they all come off like people you wouldn’t even want to hand a gas station bathroom key to, lest their insanity rub off on you.  Like, the workplace breakroom where I’m trying to eat a donut and not kill myself isn’t the place to talk to me about Lucifer or Jesus okay.  It’s weird.  Stop it.  I just watched two people die and put in a catheter into some old dude’s micropenis.  If there is a Hell, I’m in it already.

Really though, I don’t know what more to say about Ancient VVisdom.  Their singer is pretty bonerific and their music is really awesome chill out music for when the day has been too weird to come home and put on screechy black metal.  I will say though, that I read a couple reviews before writing this piece and one favorably compared their music to AFI, and that is not a good thing, that’s just rude to Ancient VVisdom.  Davey Havok is..  well he’s about as frightening as a tiny bunny.  Also if you’re over the age of 17 and still listen to AFI, please remember that we aren’t laughing with you, we are definitely LAUGHING AT YOU.  SHAME.  BACK TO THE FRINGES and take your copy of Answer That and Stay Fashionable with you.

I will also say here that if your foray into the occult stops at a horned red skinned man and reading shit written in the 1970s – keep going, because you haven’t dug deep enough yet.  If you want to be dark, be dark, be unapologetically dark, but holy sweet flying fuck, come up for air and join us oh seven of nine.  Come back.  We miss you.

So my dear readers, that is that..  The first combo Trash and Thrash piece.  It didn’t even hurt so badly now did it?  Don’t be scared, the oldblackgoat has got you.  Shhhh, daddy’s here.  So remember kids, while you are wearing your Halloween robes, attending black masses, reading from the Satanic and pissing off mom by waving a goat skull around, I will be over here drinking PBR probably passed out in a kiddie pool listening to Ancient VVisdom.

can’t wait to review this

Anyways kids.  Until next week, I’m pretty pumped to read the Haunted Vagina and rub spoopy stuff all over my body in preparation.  So naturally – stay SPOOPY.  OH STAY SO SPOOPY.  Just don’t spoop in your pants.  Not speaking from personal experience but the staff at the Halloween section of Target don’t like that.