Music
You Miss Stabbing Westward, I Hear Ya…
Readers who enjoyed the music of the 1990’s may remember Stabbing Westward, an absolutely fantastic band that broke up way too soon.
The name Stabbing Westward may have died in 2002, but the soul of the music lives on. Confused? Most of you will be.
Only extremely dedicated Stabbing Westward fans are aware of the group The Dreaming, who has quietly existed since the same year of the breakup.
Singer Christopher Hall formed the new group, which played for years before they finally released the 2008 Etched In Blood. I wasn’t a huge fan, frankly, until they released the 2011 Puppet, which is jam-packed with radio-ready singles that would have hit a home run in the 90’s. It wasn’t and isn’t the 90’s, therefore the band seemingly is going forward without much impact. Fans of Stabbing Westward will literally cream themselves over Puppet, an album I pray you give a chance.
Anyways, the point of this article is that I popped on Puppet after a year or so on my shelf. I decided to check out the band’s socials to see if anything else was brewing. To my surprise, I learned that, as of this past weekend, the band completed mixing on their brand new album!
But this article isn’t about that news, per se, but about how unknown The Dreaming is – even after a ten year stand. Their Facebook has a measly 12k likes (as of this writing), and their Twitter page has a super sad face 1,900 followers. My dog could accumulate a better following by posting a “bark a day”.
Being that I own and run Bloody Disgusting, I wanted to use my voice to remind our older readers of Stabbing Westward, and also share the news that they’re bizarrely alive and well as The Dreaming (even if they’re 40-year-olds who still dress like they’re emo teens).
Here’s a single off the last album that’s pretty great.
It’s a new day, and you’ve got new John Carpenter to listen to. John Carpenter, Daniel Davies and Cody Carpenter have released the new track He Walks By Night this morning, the second single off their upcoming album Lost Themes IV: Noir, out May 3 on Sacred Bones Records.
Lost Themes IV: Noir is the latest installment in a series that sees Carpenter releasing new music for John Carpenter movies that don’t actually exist. The first Lost Themes was released in 2015, followed by Lost Themes II in 2016 and Lost Themes III: Alive After Death in 2021.
Sacred Bones previews, “It’s been a decade since John Carpenter recorded the material that would become Lost Themes, his debut album of non-film music and the opening salvo in one of Hollywood’s great second acts. Those vibrant, synth-driven songs, made in collaboration with his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies, kickstarted a musical renaissance for the pioneering composer and director. With Lost Themes IV: Noir, they’ve struck gold again, this time mining the rich history of the film noir genre for inspiration.
“Since the first Lost Themes, John has referred to these compositions as “soundtracks for the movies in your mind.” On the fourth installment in the series, those movies are noirs. Like the film genre they were influenced by, what makes these songs “noirish” is sometimes slippery and hard to define, and not merely reducible to a collection of tropes. The scores for the great American noir pictures were largely orchestral, while the Carpenters and Davies work off a sturdy synth-and-guitar backbone.
“The trio’s free-flowing chemistry means Lost Themes IV: Noir runs like a well-oiled machine—the 1951 Jaguar XK120 Roadster from Kiss Me Deadly, perhaps, or the 1958 Plymouth Fury from John’s own Christine. It’s a chemistry that’s helped power one of the most productive stretches of John’s creative life, and Noir proves that it’s nowhere near done yielding brilliant results.”
You can pre-save Lost Themes IV: Noir right now! And listen to the new track below…
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