Heavy on the Freak Sauce, Sam

The brutality continues

drug metal

Thanks to everyone who voted for us in the stonerrock.com top albums of 2008. We stormed in at a mighty number 395 (beating Arghoslent's Hornets of the Pogrom by seven spots).

Just say no to drugs kids.

shows

There might be a few (one or two) more local shows and there's a very vague possibility of a show elsewhere in canada but this is probably it for 2009 for us.

Expect Death Agonies interludes most nights.

The west coast US tour with Pig Heart Transplant is off.

May

24th MDF, w/ six thousand retards with semi-literate back prints annoying me
25th Baltimore, w/ Catheter, Vile Intent, a million other bands
26th Richmond, Sushi Nara w/ Magrudergrind, Rotten Sound, Maruta
27th Philadelphia w/ Magrudergrind
28th Brooklyn, The Charleston w/ Magrudergrind, Unearthly Trance
29th Boston, Democracy Centre w/ Magrudergrind
30th Montreal w/ Magrudergrind

June

5th Toronto, Siesta Nouveaux w/ Winters in Osaka, Piss Horn, Mudlark, Scumbelly and Eating Glass
26th Toronto, The Rearview Mirror w/ The Rita

July

13th Toronto, Siesta Nouveaux w/ Hatred Surge and Mammoth Grinder

Check local internet bullshit zones for more up to date details.

new releases

Death Agonies/ Pig Heart Transplant - Tunnel C20
Flatline Construct - Queen West Withdrawl C20

available from any Blockade show this summer or mail order from the artists directly.

Any left over copies after tour in may will probably go to Self Abuse and other places.

"man understands divinity like a dog understands electricity"

Abraxas by Justin Bartlett.

I can't remember where i first saw Justin's artwork, quite possibly some of the illustrations he did for Oaken Throne or Sunn 0))). I was immediately struck by the seeming contradiction of his work appearring to be utterly mired in genre tradition and simultaeneously being somehow apart from where his contemporaries were coming from.

This is the second Abraxas shirt design we've used. This one will be availble at any shows we play over the summer. No mailorder, Bezerker Wear still has the Blockade: Serpent/ Messiah design for sale

Gnosticism, antinomianism, cosmogony, Christian heresies and a plethora of subjects relating to the notion of the divine have been at the forefront of my mind for a long time. In a sense i feel like i've been undergoing a strange theophany (as part of an ongoing lifting of the veils) since 2005 and the figure of Abraxas as Archon has recurred heavily in this time.

As participation in underground culture continues to evolve to being both everything and nothing to me Abraxas becomes a useful shorthand for a far more complicated set of symbols that are continuously expanding and eternally unknowable.