June 2025
Happy Pride Month!
Remember: cops aren’t your friends, support your neighbor, never give up.
These past months have been extremely busy for me (being a fist time home buyer is a hell of a process), so I’ve got a brief album review and some fun creators to highlight for the Month of the Queers.
MUSIC
The Spin by Messa
A fantastic album that combines heavy doom metal with dreamy piano and saxophone in an unexpected marriage of genres. The short Bandcamp bio for the group highlights their diversity of musical backgrounds, and this album was a great introduction to their unique style.
The album tackles themes of being trapped in cycles, once at the expectations of others, now self-imposed. “At Races” puts the subject in the role of an animal forced to perform for an audience. It cannot comprehend the purpose of its running, only that it must go through the motions.
“Biting like a horse
At races
Every stare
Weighs on my saddle bags
Kicking like a horse
At races
Every stare
Weighs on my severed head”
– At Races
“Fire on The Roof” and “Immolation”, both titles evoking fire, also both evoke feelings of suffering under strain, in which the singer repeatedly tells the listener to “run away”. From what? The fire? Herself and the pain within her? It is not uncommon for people to isolate, to not want to burden others with their problems or trauma.
Will I sacrifice today
While I try to forget
The dagger
You gave me tonight
…
It is like a beautiful weight on my heart
Please run away, please”
– Immolation
Track 5, “The Dress”, is a beautifully somber exploration of self-loathing. The singer uses the curious phrase “like a wasp in a beer glass”, evoking the usual use of a container to trap a pest to describe her state of mind. Is she the trapped pest, or is she the glass that contains everything she sees as “pest”? Even her fine clothes feel more like a trap than a luxury, her emotions personified as hungry monsters eating her very heart.
With my rejection
Golden beast
Of anger repressing
And I’m captive like
A ghost in my own flesh
Don’t even cope
With myself anymore”
– The Dress
The album builds to Track 6 and 7, with wicked saxophone and guitar solos back to back; a pleasantly surprising crescendo to the album. The final track, “Thicker Blood”, feels like closure, release; the final line, “I’m so ready to be my fate”, reads as acceptance of and jubilation at the self, and all it entails.
Bruised and collapsed
Help me, my mother
Dare me to bloom”
– Thicker Blood
This album and others are available on the band’s Bandcamp, along with CDs and vinyls, and a music video featured on the album page. This is definitely going to be a group I explore more in the future.
Favorite Tracks:
Track 2 – At Races
Track 3 – Immolation
Track 5 – The Dress
CREATORS
VickyBunBun (Cartoonist)
Bluesky
Makes zines featuring a funny alligator with a dick named Bloonky Gator what kills Nazis and such. The bright colors and childlike presentation contrast wonderfully with splatter-y gore and wild, weird imagery. Great stuff.
(Warning: graphic and NSFW content)
TheHellsFawn (Crafter)
Bluesky || Etsy
Hand-crafted goods advertised as “unadulterated weirdness in craft form”. Cross-stitched patches, adorable crochet cat toys, and newly added Pride themed brick jewelry (made with real cement!!!)
Sketchwave (Illustrator / Designer)
Bluesky || BigCartel
Lots of fun, colorful, retro-themed merch. Neon, vaporwave, video game related stuff, on stickers, buttons and charms! Check out their new Pride themed double sided VHS keychains!