Less Than Jake, Bouncing Souls – UK Winter Circus 2026 (review)

Less Than Jake are one of the ‘bucket list’ bands I promised myself I would go and see if I ever had the chance. It took long enough, but the stars finally aligned and I snagged tickets for the opening night of their 2026 UK trek at Bristol Prospect Building, one of the newest venues in a city awash with venues. It’s getting increasingly common, especially with US bands, to tour as part of stacked line-ups. In the age of spiralling costs, it’s probably the only sure-fire way to get some bums on seats. The UK Winter Circus is a perfect example, and beneath LTJ in the headline slot we have The Bouncing Souls, The Aquabats, and Bar Stool Preachers, four bands that despite representing different sub-genres complement each other perfectly.

Brighton punks-with-a-conscience Bar Stool Preachers kicked things off, and did so superbly albeit with a heavily truncated set (the downside of playing first on a 4-band bill with a strict curfew). Since 2016 they have steadily built up an impressive catalogue, and though in the modern age it’s difficult to gauge how popular they are their last album (Above the Static) made a small dent in the charts and the track Choose My Friends has surpassed 1.5 million streams. That must have earned them at least a quid. With all the infectious energy and enthusiasm of Massive Wagons or peak Wildhearts, and you can’t help but develop a soft spot for the Bar Stool Preachers. They do things the right way, seem like a solid bunch of guys, and have some good tunes in the bank with the biggest cheer of the night (to that point) reserved for their namesake anthem.

The Aquabats have always been an enigma to me. They’ve popped up on a few bills I have seen over the years, and though I appreciate their self-deprecating shtick I just don’t get the superhero alter ego thing. I will forever be mentally scarred by the image of a drunk mostly naked Aquadet squirming around on a toilet floor. Apparently, he hadn’t accounted for his superhero costume not having a zip in the front. He had to take the whole shebang off to go pee pee, and then fell over and couldn’t get up. I bet he was glad of the goggles. I’d love to tell you more about their set, but the truth is I swerved most of it in favour of the bar. But I will say they were much better than I previously gave them credit for, even accounting for the wholly unreasonable amount of inflatable sharks (they might have been dolphins).

I am a massive Bouncing Souls fan, and have been since I first heard Gone in around 2004. I have navigated a lot since then, and BS have been with me every step of the way so they are as big a draw for me as LTJ. They are one of those bands who I just connect with, and I can’t even explain why. As with most cult bands, you find that BS fans are real fans. There may not be many of them, but they sing every line in every song and I haven’t seen a pit go off like that since, well, ever. They played a mammoth 17-song set, unusual for a support band, heavily weighted toward their older material and kicking off with Manthem from 2001’s How I Spent my Summer Vacation album. The Gold Song, Kate is Great, Lean on Sheena, and That Something Special followed before Greg Attonito even paused for breath. The set was missing a few of my personal faves (Apartment 5F, Serenity, So Jersey, Ghosts on the Boardwalk, Coin Toss Girl) but you can’t have everything. Rumour has it a new album is imminent, their first new music since 2023, and it was (probably) represented here with a new song, the name of which eluded me. After hitting a peak with Hopeless Romantic and True Believers, two stone cold classics, the last song was Gone, of course it was. And then they were. BS, we love you. Headline tour, please. And we will sing along forever. Oi!

All this, three bands, three hours, and thirty-odd songs, was to prepare us for the ska skate pop punk royalty that is Less Than Jake. I must admit I swooned a little bit upon seeing Roger Lima in the flesh. What a ledge. The high-octane set kicked off with a couple of cuts from 1998’s Hello Rockview (Nervous in the Alley and History of a Boring Town) before being brought (mostly) up to date with High Cost of Low Living, a standout track from their most recent full album Silver Linings. The classics kept on coming; All my Friends are Metalheads, Johnny Quest Thinks we’re Sellouts, Walking Pipebomb, as the night moved toward a crescendo. The set mined so many old standards that they seemed almost apologetic when they played a new(er) song. The one they chose, though, Sunny Side Up from the Uncharted EP, is an absolute banger. Special mention should go to to Buddy Goldfinger. When he put his trombone down, which was often, he would just frolic and pogo about fulfilling a kind of Bez from the Happy Mondays role, minus the maracas. Wales got a shout out, which was unusual considering the gig was in England, but it made more sense when Chris DeMakes told the story of how, on their first visit to the UK, they strode out in Cardiff and said “Hello, England!”

Some of the stage banter was hilarious. Lima and DeMakes should start a comedy podcast together (“It’s good to see so many people here! In America we couldn’t sell out a phone booth”). The set was closed out with The Brightest Bulb has Burned Out, Look What Happened, and Gainsville Rock City. The band, collectively and as individuals were bang on point. What a fantastic gig this was.

The tour continues.

2025 in Review

Greetings! And Happy New Year. Dang, 2025 was gone in the blink of an eye. It’s so weird how the older I get, the quicker the time seems to go. With that in mind, let’s get down to business with a quick recap. In the name of promotion, in the past I’ve tried to limit any magazine or blog interviews I do to around release dates. I have since come to realise that this probably isn’t the best strategy. Best case scenario, your name is everywhere, all the time, for a couple of weeks or so, and then it’s nowhere for a year. Or until you release another book. Your audience either gets tired of you or they forget all about you. So my new strategy is to try to toe the line by doing a couple of interviews a year when the opportunities arise, and spreading them out. Here’s one I did with Andrew Cooper about my novella Silent Mine.

2025 was a good year for short stories. Cutter was included in Big Smoke Pulp (Volume 1), the sci-fi chiller The Incomplete Sneeze was included in a time travel-themed collection on Smoking pen Press, and the drabble Girl’s Night appeared in Flash Phantoms. Later in the year, Horrific Scribblings published The Screaming Man, describing it as ‘quiet horror sci-fi’, a very fitting description, and Collection in Person was included in Clubhouse 3 on Crystal Cook’s 13 Days publishing.

Also, my stab (sorry) at erotic horror, The Cunning Linguist was reprinted in the Blood Lust anthology on Black Hare Press, and I sold Revenge of the Toothfish as a reprint to an antho called Murderfish, the title being a massive clue as to the theme. I probably take more satisfaction in selling reprints than original stories, because it means getting paid for the same thing twice.

You might remember a fella called Dylan Decker, star of the aforementioned Silent Mine. DL Winchester, head honcho at Undertaker Books, let slip that they were putting together a Western horror anthology and asked if Dylan Decker would like to be involved. Of course he would. Decker doesn’t turn down many assignments. The result was Midnight at Deadwood Station, and it is probably the Decker story I am most proud of to date. All writers know that feeling when you don’t have to dig around for the words, they just appear in your head and you write them down. That’s when we do our best work. The story came out about 8,000 words, which is pretty long for a short story, but it works, and Horror on the Range is out now. Fittingly, it was also my hundredth published short story, not including reprints. There will be a blog post about that particular landmark coming shortly.

In the longer form, Dylan Decker saddled up for another adventure, this time at Blood Lake where, right after an encounter with an angry grizzly, he gets yanked into a duel with a flying cryptid. There was quite a complex back-story surrounding Blood Lake, which I wrote about in depth here. Decker’s near-legendary encounter with the group of murderous Germans, A Christmas Cannibal, was also re-released as a stand-alone, and you might be happy to know that book three (or four, if you count A Christmas Cannibal) is already in the publisher’s hands.

2025 also saw the re-issue of a revamped and remixed version of Tethered, my novella inspired by internet rituals, the Cecil Hotel, and the death of Elisa Lam, by 13 days Publishing. I did a deep dive into the history behind it here.

On the non-fiction front, I wrote about creating multiple revenue streams, making the switch to full-time writing, celebrating the little wins, pantsing, how to write about unfamiliar topics, and when to grant copy approval and when not to for Writer’s Digest, and cuckoos for Fortean Times. FYI, all my WD articles are archived here. Weirdly, the most popular post on this here blog with 1019 views perhaps indicates that I may not be the only person haunted by the number 27.

Lots planned for 2026, so onwards and upwards.

You can check out last year’s review here.

RetView #86 – X The Unknown (1956)

Title: X The Unknown (1956)

Year of Release: 1956

Director: Leslie Norman, Joseph Losey

Length: 81 mins

Starring: Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, Leo McKern, William Lucas, Peter Hammond, Kenneth Cope

X The Unknown is one of the few non-anthology movies in existence to boast more than one director. The official line is that original director, Joseph Losey, who had moved from the US to the UK after being placed on the Hollywood Blacklist (an actual post-WWII list of individuals in the entertainment industry with alleged communist links), ‘fell ill’ and had to be replaced by Leslie (father of Barry) Norman who had been a Major in the British Army. That wasn’t the only early controversy to befall this Hammer production, which had been intended to serve as a sequel to The Quatermass Xperiment (1955). That plan fell through when writer Nigel Kneale refused permission to use the character of Prof Bernard Quatermass, which rendered a sequel to the seminal British sci-fi horror flick meaningless. To all intents and purposes, Dr Adam Royston (Jagger) became the ‘new’ Quatermass. At least for a little while. There was yet more controversy after the film’s release when a distribution deal between Hammer and RKO fell through due to the latter company’s demise, before it resurfaced as RKO Pictures Inc, forcing Hammer to strike an alternative deal with Warner Bros.

Given all this off-screen chaos, it’s a testament to the professionalism of those involved that they managed to come up with anything at all, let alone a film with such a tight, streamlined plot and focused narrative. There is very little superfluous material here. The film begins with a group of British soldiers using a Geiger counter on an exercise in a remote part of Scotland. One of them (Cope) finds an unexpected source of radiation, and then gets himself blown up. Oops. Even worse, for mankind, anyway, the explosion reveals a seemingly bottomless crack in the earth. After a series of strange deaths where the victims appeared to be melted, Dr Royston inexplicably (though mightily impressively) concludes that a form of life that existed in distant prehistory when the Earth’s surface was largely molten had been trapped by the crust of the Earth as it cooled, only to return to the surface periodically in order to seek food from radioactive sources. This ‘form of life,’ unseen on screen until the closing stages, turns out to be a dead ringer for the blob from The Blob (1958) which was actually released several years later. Whether or not it was inspired by X The Unknown, is unclear. In any case, can Dr. Royston and his band of merry men find a way to save the world from being melted by the blobby thing (alternatively dubbed ‘throbbing mud’ in some reviews)?

Despite the absurd storyline (which 1950s storyline isn’t absurd?) this is an entertaining film. The acting is superb, though the special effects let it down slightly. I suspect this was in part due to a shortfall created by half the $60,000 budget going towards paying Academy Award winner Jagger’s salary, who had just been given the gong for Best Supporting Actor in the war film Twelve O’Clock High (1949). There is also a notable lack of a female lead, or a female anything. But hey, this was the fifties. Communists were bad and women were in the kitchen. I love the ending which, though ostensibly ambiguous, is actually a stroke of genius, but what really stands out for me is the dialogue. Here’s a sample:

Q: What was that?
A: I don’t know, but it shouldn’t have happened.

A brilliant, concise, straight-to-the-point, no frills, typically British response.

At the time of writing X the Unknown has a 6.1/10 rating on IMDb, based on 3 000 audience votes, and a 5.8/10 rating, at critic aggregate Rotten Tomatoes. AllMovie gives it 3/5 stars, and Craig Butler writes: “While it is not a classic of the genre, it’s a very well-made and quite entertaining little flick” A contemporary review on the website Mike’s Take on the Movies, says: “I liked this film the first time I saw it when it turned up on VHS tape thanks to the Hammer line released by Anchor Bay years ago and I still enjoy it after repeated viewings. It’s far from flashy but it’s direct and the thrills are solid for a mid fifties sci-fi flick with some startling F/X from Leaky. Then there’s Dean Jagger. A consummate pro on screen.” LINK

In a highly recommended in-depth review, the blog Scifist 2.0: A Scifi Movie History in Reviews says: “In comparison to the Quatermass films, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and their other legendary horror movies, X the Unknown remains a footnote in Hammer’s filmoghraphy. However, it is significant as the film in which some of the core personnel of Hammer’s horror franchise started to coalesce. Many key names are still missing, but X the Unknown for the first time brings together a large number of the artists who would go on to create the Hammer Horror cycle.”

Trivia Corner:

According to sources, Jimmy Sangster’s original script described the blobby throbby mystery monster thing as being “made up of millions of writhing worm-like segments” capable of slipping through small cracks and forming up again on the other side. This ability is briefly described in the film, but never shown on screen. Even if the movie had had a significantly larger budget, those effects would have been virtually impossible to achieve with the technology of the day.

Night Birds by Christopher Golden (a review)

I love horror stories set on boats or in secluded cabins deep in the woods. Or, absolute best case scenario, a cabin on a boat. I don’t know why. Must be the sense of isolation. Here, I got exactly what I wanted, even if the boat in question is moored and now functions as a kind of research facility. In his work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Charlie Book has been living aboard and studying the Christabel, a 19th century freighter that lies half-sunken off the coast of Galveston, which now houses a mangrove forest complete with snakes, crabs, and other wildlife. After overcoming tragedy, everything seems to be going well in Book’s life. Right up to the point his ex Ruby shows up with another woman and a baby in tow begging for shelter from an approaching storm, both literal and figurative. Book is naturally wary at first, especially when tall tales of witches, covens, and magic abound. But soon old feelings resurface and he sees an unlikely shot at redemption, if he can only make it through the night alive. But when he realises what he is up against, that might be more difficult than he first imagined.

Apart from the unique setting, I thought one of the strengths of this atmospheric horror thriller is its relentless pace and the revelations (along with the action) come thick and fast. Though the story is certainly fantastical, it somehow manages to retain an element of realism and the characters are fleshed out and relatable, though not to the point that they become overbearing. That said, several of the secondary characters did have very similar traits and it was easy to lose track of them, especially when the story raced toward its climax. My main complaint however, and I realise this might be considered peak pedantry, is the MC’s name. Reading a book about a man called Book just didn’t sit right, especially when he talks about books.

Admittedly, I think this is the first Christopher Golden novel I have read so I am not overly familiar with his style, summarised by one source as being “characterised by a blend of immersive horror, compelling character development, and brisk pacing, often exploring themes of folklore, mythology, and human nature.”

But it probably won’t be the last.

Night Birds is available in paperback and eBook formats on Titan Books from 18 September 2025. You canalso catch Christopher Golden on tour with Tim Lebbon throughout the UK.

Book review – A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang

I have long been fascinated by Chinese culture. It’s all those layers and hidden meanings, then the hidden meanings behind the hidden meanings. You think you grasp something, then look at it a little deeper, and realise what you were ‘grasping’ was only the tip of the iceberg. You weren’t wrong. You just weren’t seeing the whole picture. This concept permeates virtually everything, but is particularly prevalent in fiction. Words are building blocks, after all. The problem is, Chinese doesn’t translate very well to English. The surface meaning usually carries over and can be translated in a literal sense, but many of the nuances and deeper connotations are lost. Ostensibly Chinese is quite a direct, pragmatic language, but the written word works on multiple levels.

Take A Palace Near the Wind, for example, the first in the Natural Engines series, by Canadian/Chinese writer Ai Jiang. The plot follows Liu Lufeng, a Feng princess destined to become the next bride of a king with which her people have made a binding agreement. With bark faces, branches for arms, and sap running through their veins, the Feng people are more tree than human, and part of the very land on which they exist. However, they are under threat of human expansion, the negotiation of bride-wealth being the only way to delay the destruction of their home. Lufeng decides that it ends with her, and come her wedding day, plans to kill the king and set her people free. But while preparing for the ceremony, she learns that things are not quite as they seem.

Ostensibly, this is a tale of high fantasy. But I have also seen it described as folk horror, science fiction, and even eco-fiction, which is a new one on me. True, there is a message here, and poignantly, it is even dedicated to ‘Mother Nature and all her unwilling sacrifices.’ That is also possibly a little nod to another of the book’s themes, because alongside the threads of duty, hope, discovery, and coming-of-age, are darker themes, such as rebellion, fear, and sacrifice. It culminates in the realisation that the way we percieve things is often skewed or distorted, and sometimes coloured by our own expectations or prejudices. The world-building is enchanting, and the word selection exemplary. But as other-worldly as it is, you are made to feel right there with Lufeng, and even though she’s (at least) half tree, you can’t help rooting for her (sorry).

Like a lot of outstanding fiction, A Palace Near the Wind lends itself to many genres but ties itself to none. This in itself instills a vague sense of displacement or lack of belonging within the reader, something mirrored throughout the book. You can’t help but wonder whether this is a conscious or subconscious effect of the author’s background. The duality of belonging to two places at once, of being the same yet different, reconciling the doubts and insecurities that can arise when one considers their role in the world, balancing the desire to fit in yet stand apart, and knowing when to compromise and when to fight.

I first became aware of Ai Jiang’s work several years ago when we both had stories in the same anthology. Back then she was a student in Edinburgh, and though just starting out, you just knew she was going to be something special. The short story Give me English (currently being novelised, I believe) was my gateway. You can check that out here. I was curious to see how she would adapt to long-form fiction. Her work is usually sharp and precise, but very intense and filled with tiny little daggers. She barely wastes a syllable, honing each word until it hits just right. I wanted to see if she could or would carry this style through, or whether a novel, albeit a short one, would provide more room to explore and elaborate. This is probably one of those timeless books that you could read again in a couple of years time and take something different from it. I’ll let you know if that turns out to be true.

A final word needs to go to the packaging and artwork. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but it’s impossible not to when the cover is this beautiful. Rarely do you see such meticulously appropriate artwork accompanying anything, let alone a book.

A Palace Near the Wind is out now on Titan Books.

RetView #84 – Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972)

Title: Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things

Year of Release: 1972

Director: Bob Clark

Length: 87 mins

Starring: Alan Ormsby, Anya Ormsby, Valerie Mamches, Jeff Gillen, Paul Cronin, Jane Daly, Bruce Solomon

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (also known as Revenge of the Living Dead, Things from the Dead, Cemetery of the Dead, The Siege of the Living Dead, and Zreaks) is an iconic piece of work co-written and directed by Bob Clark, who would go on to direct Deathdream (1974) and the classic frat comedy Porky’s. Riffing off Night of the Living Dead (1968), the script was written in 10 days and the movie shot in 14 on a budget of just $50,000, with most of the people working on it being college friends making it a true labour of love. Most of the cast were not even trained actors, with only a select few going to to have modest careers in TV or cinema. Also, this must be one of the very few zombie movies starring a married couple, Alan and Anya Ormsby who’s characters, hilariously, are also named Alan and Anya. Nod, nod, wink, wink. The quips and one-liners come thick and fast (“What a bunch of stiffs!”). At least, they do until the shit hits the fan.

The story follows a theatre troupe (“I do have talent when I have a good part!”) who travel by boat to an island off the coast of Miami that is mainly used as a cemetery for criminals, for a night of campy fun. When they arrive, their director Alan (Ormsby), a twisted, sadistic individual, tells the motley crew of actors, whom he refers as his ‘children’, stories about the island’s grisly history in a concerted effort to unsettle them. He also digs up the corpse of a man named Orville, which is certain to make any party go with a bang. The names written on the styrofoam tombstones, by the way, are the names of various crew members.

“They’re having trouble all over the world with graverobbbers, ghouls, and people breaking into cemeteries.”

“But we’re the graverobbers. Who’s going to bother us?”

“Nobody but demons.”

And zombies, as we are soon to discover.

Eventually, Alan leads the group to a cottage where they are supposed to spend the night, and then proceeds to get robed up and prepare the group for an ancient ritual to summon the dead. Probably not the smartest move when you’re on an island off the coast of Miami that is mainly used as a cemetery for criminals, but okay then. When some of the group aren’t so keen (understandably) he threatens them with the sack, which I am pretty sure would be a breach of some ethical code or other these days, but this was the seventies. Alan’s bullying and cheap jokes soon stop when the gang realise the ritual they performed had worked, and the entire island is now swarming with freshly reanimated zombies. It kind of makes you wonder what they expected to happen. Even for a low-budget seventies horror comedy film, “They seem pretty slow. Why don’t we make a run for it?” has to be one of the dumbest lines ever uttered.

In a desperate attempt to get themselves out of the mess they had created, the group attempts to perform another ritual to return the zombies to their graves. And it works! For a bit. However, they neglect to return Orville to his grave, prompting the zombies to re-emerge and ambush the group as they leave the house. Alan and Anya retreat back inside, and in a last ditch effort to save himself, despicable Alan throws Anya to the zombies and locks himself in the bedroom where he left Orville’s corpse, not realising Orville is now a zombie, too.

In these #RetView posts I try to keep spoilers to a minimum and not to discuss plot holes or endings. I’m not here to be a killjoy, and my hope is that readers will seek these films out themselves. On this occasion, though, I feel I have to mention it. The zombies get on the boat, see. The boat the group had taken to the island. As the zombies board it, you can see the inviting lights of Miami twinkling in the background, the implication being that the zombies will soon enter the mainstream, so to speak. But… who is going to sail the boat? Sailing a boat is a tricky business, or so I imagine. These zombies are shambling husks that can barely walk. I doubt very much any of them retain enough brain function, let alone dexterity, to captain a boat across a choppy section of water. I know I’m probably pedantic but as the credits rolled all I could think was, “Shit! The zombies got on the boat!” which was, I suppose, the desired effect. But this was quickly followed by, “Oh, it’s okay. they won’t get far. We’re good.”

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things is currently rocking a 42% rating on review site Rotten Tomatoes and in reviewing the later DVD release, Bloody Disgusting said: “[This] is well worth your time if you haven’t gotten around to it yet [and] really should be held among the top zombie movies of all time.” Meanwhile, the website 100 Misspent Hours was less generous, saying, “The biggest problem with Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things is that it’s an 85-minute zombie movie in which the zombies don’t turn up until minute 64.”

Bob Clark was said to have been considering a remake, but plans were curtailed when his Infiniti I30 was hit by a drunk driver in April 2007. Unless, of course, Alan Ormsby decides to raise him from the dead. Since then, other rumours of a remake have circulated, but none have so far come to fruition. It is available as a free download from the Internet Archive.

Trivia Corner

Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, a track on Finnish heavy/doom metal band Wolfshead’s 2017 album Leaden, is based on the movie.

Manic Street Preachers – Critical Thinking (review)

The Manic Street Preachers are one of those bands whose music may resonate more at some times than others, but have remained one of the few constants in my life. They started strong back in the early nineties with Generation Terrorists, and were an integral part of the swaggering Cool Cymru scene that truly put Wales on the pop culture map. Since that glorious heyday, the quality of material they’ve put out has varied wildly and apart from the odd banger, they haven’t bothered the charts much. Apart from a brief period in the late nineties, they have generally been on the periphery of the mainstream, in that adjacent space they carved out for themselves so deliberately where they are free to offer off-centre political comment and their unique brand of Pound Shop philosophy, but largely unencumbered by commercial pressures. Through it all they have managed to maintain a sizeable cult following, so like a lot of so-called heritage acts still releasing new material (most of them don’t) now try to cater for the fanbase by being the versions of themselves they think most people want them to be. Sometimes it’s comforting, sometimes it’s passable, and sometimes its borderline embarrassing and they come across like a parody of themselves. Coming immediately after reissues of earlier albums Know Your Enemy and Lifeblood, in interviews the band have alluded to this album being a hybrid of those two endeavours. Perhaps as a consequence of being forced to retrace their steps so often, introspection is never far away in the life of the Manics, circa 2025.

Critical Thinking is filled with every Manic-ism you can think of, and more besides. The soaring choruses, the sloganeering, the lyrics concerning obscure painters and war photographers perpetually wavering between defiant and morose, the odd plinky plonky piano. Seasoned bands are generally less experimental these days, and just give the fans what they want. Times ten. Or in this case, times twelve as that’s how many tracks it contains. In doing so, they climb a few rungs on the fame and riches ladder because their popularity goes up a few notches. “Albums are a reflection of where your mind is at – certainly in the Manics’ world,” Nicky Wire told NME just prior to the release of this album, before defining ‘critical thinking’ as the power to reject by not always going with the flow. This ingrained non-compliance has been a near-constant theme in the Manics’ work for decades now, to such an extent that it has become a trait in itself. Each of their albums feature a quote, chosen by the band, which aims to add context to the overall project. This time it’s ‘I am a collection of dismantled almosts’, by US poet Anne Sexton who often addressed mental health in her writing before committing suicide at the age of just 45. In clarification, Wire says “If everyone had the same amazing fucking benefits I had when I was growing up – the music that was around, the parents that I wish everyone could have – it wasn’t anything other than working class but it was just so culturally-enriched. It’s all about critical thinking – trying to re-evaluate who you are and why you like those things.”

That might not be in line with everyone’s interpretation of the phrase ‘critical thinking’ but ‘everyone’ doesn’t matter. This, the band’s fifteenth studio album, comes four years after their last, the Ultra Vivid Lament became their first UK number one since This is My Truth, Tell me Yours topped the charts way back in 1998. The most memorable thing about that particular release was that it wasn’t very memorable. Here, we are dropped right in the middle of some kind of Clash/Dead Kennedy’s mash-up with Nicky Wire’s sweary, deadpan, spoken word delivery layered over the top. This might be what would happen if New Order covered Blur’s Park Life. It’s an intense, and slightly weird start, which, thankfully, acts as a hors d’oeuvre. It isn’t long before the album’s jewel, recent single Decline and Fall, spills forth, the sweeping tones and anthemic chorus bringing to mind peak Manics. That early highlight is quickly followed by another, Brushstrokes of Reunion, written by James Dean Bradfield about an oil painting by his now-deceased mother, and the emotive power it still maintains over him. Moving stuff. These two tracks alone exemplify everything that is great about this little group of survivors from Blackwood.

Next up is Hiding in Plain Sight, a perfect example of one of those jaunty little numbers with paradoxically depressing and mournful lyrics the Manics do so well. This track works as a fitting couplet with People Ruin Paintings, which will invariably sound suspiciously like something else you’ve heard but can’t quite put your finger on. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I think it’s called ‘paying homage’ and Oasis have made a career out of it. The track Dear Stephen was ostensibly inspired by a postcard sent to Wire as a teen from Morrissey at the request of his mother after he was too ill to attend a Smiths gig, and a sleeper hit here (were it not for the subject matter) might be Being Baptised. Elsewhere, Out of Time Revival sounds like classic late-period Police with maybe a hint of Talking Heads, while album closer OneManMilitia is defined by a breezy, country-tinged guitar solo.

You’ll find influences laid bare throughout the album, something the Manics have never shied away from. They have always been a product of their environment. But Critical Thinking is a remarkably consistent effort, especially after repeated listens. The quality doesn’t drop much throughout, even if it gets slightly repetitive towards the end and you find yourself yearning for a You Love Us or a Stay Beautiful to shake things up a bit. Nope. You should be so lucky. Instead, it’s all a bit polished and safe. No doubt, it will please the diehards. Hell, it even pleased me for a while and I’m not even a diehard. As ever, there is some exceptional lyricism on display veering between insightful and profound. One of my favourite lines comes from Late Day Peaks; “There’s no shame in a smaller world, become an expert in what you observe.”

One thing about album-making the Manics (and most other artists) have adapted to over the years is brevity. Albums in general now tend to be tighter, more focused, and shorter. Unless you’re Taylor Swift, of course. Mercifully, bloated 72-minute albums full of spaced-out, mid-tempo plodders, are a thing of the past. The record-buying (or, more accurately, music-consuming) public just don’t have time for it. With Critical Thinking it sounds like the Manics have finally got the balance right, and they just might deliver gold.

Critical Thinking is out now on Columbia Records

Fish @ Bristol Beacon, 26/02/25

Early Marillion made music that had the power to transport you somewhere else, and the albums Misplaced Childhood (1985) and Clutching at Straws (1987) still stand as two of the best of all time, the music itself perfectly complemented by Mark Wilkinson’s Jester art which was an integral part of the overall project in much the same way Eddie is a part of Iron Maiden’s legacy. However, after the live album The Thieving Magpie (1988) frontman Fish parted company with the rest of the band acrimoniously. Both entities continued to put out new music, some of it pretty good, but neither would ever come close to hitting the creative and commercial heights they scaled when they combined their powers. This is being billed as Fish’s farewell tour, dubbed The Road to the Isles, before he decamps to the Outer Hebrides to live out his retirement. “The UK nights are going to be awesome indeed with every venue holding something unique and promising so much for everyone both on and off stage,” he recently after a run of European dates. “To be retiring on this wave is a wonderful feeling and I cannot adequately express how much this all means to me after over 40 years in the music business performing on stages across the world.”

In other pre-tour interviews, Fish vowed to switch up the set-list on a regular basis to keep things fresh. After all, he has a catalogue of eleven solo albums to cover, not including compilations, live albums, or the four he recorded with Marillion. Therefore, it was no great surprise when the show kicked off with Vigil, the very first track from his very first solo album, which segued neatly into Credo, the ‘big single’ from his second album, Internal Exile. From there, things got a bit more unpredictable. I thought his final studio album, 2020’s Weltschmerz (German for ‘world weariness’), would be well represented, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. In face, I don’t think he performed a single track from it, which was just plain weird. Instead, after an animated Big Wedge, Shadowplay, Cliche, A Feast of Consequences, and a stunning Just Good Friends, came the first big surprise of the night – the Marillion standard Incubus from the Fugazi album, which Fish wrote the lyrics for as he did most of the old Marillion material. It was a strange choice. I thought if he was going to play anything from this period it would be Script for a Jester’s Tear, or maybe one of the singles. The bulk of the remaining set was taken up by a near-30 minute rendition of the Plague of Ghosts suit of songs from 1999’s Raingods and Zippos album. That “make it happen” refrain always reminds me of Oasis, but that’s hardly Fish’s fault. If anything, we can blame the Gallagher brothers for that.

The main encore kicked off with A Gentleman’s Excuse Me, another cut from his debut solo album. Given this is his retirement tour, the lines “Can you get it inside your head I’m tired of dancing?” seem to carry a little extra weight. This was followed by the Misplaced Childhood-era heavyweight triumvirate of Kayleigh, Lavender, and Heart of Lothian, the guitarist doing a damn fine Steve Rothery impersonisation throughout. It has to be said, these songs, despite being more than 40-years old, have not only stood the test of time but never been topped by either Fish or Marillion. The band Fish has assembled for this tour, mostly made up of old acquaintances, didn’t miss a note, even if Fish did from time to time (a consequence of being a 66-year old touring musician). He might have trouble hitting the high bars, but he more than makes up for it in showmanship and sheer stage presence. The songs were interwoven with stories and bursts of humour which proved beyond doubt how good a raconteur he is. Things got pretty emotional at times, the set running past the 10pm curfew and totalling well over two hours. And the end really did feel like a goodbye.

Bristol Beacon (previously known as Colston Hall, but let’s not talk about that) is a superb venue. Designed as a theatre and first opened in 1867, in its current guise it has a capacity of 1,800 spread over three tiers making it perfect for intimate, emotive nights like this. I watched from the stalls. I love it up in the stalls. You get a great view, it’s pretty chilled because all the proper fans go on the floor, and the acoustics are phenomenal. The venue itself is steeped in rock history, having previously played host to the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Queen, David Bowie, Iron Maiden, Bob Marley, and the Who. Legend has it that during a gig in November 1964 a bunch of upstarts called The Beatles were flour-bombed by some students.

That is so Bristol.

Enjoy your retirement, and thanks for all the Fish.

RetView #83 – The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

Title: The Incredible Shrinking Man

Year of Release: 1957

Director: Jack Arnold

Length: 81 mins

Starring: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton, Raymond Bailey

Like The Blob (1958) and The Giant Claw (1957), The Incredible Shrinking Man is yet another movie that attempted to cash in on cold war paranoia. It was based on a Richard Matheson book, who expanded it into a screenplay with the help of Richard Alan Simmons. Unusually, the novel and the screenplay were produced concurrently, and the film was already into its second month of production when the novel was published by Gold Medal Books in May 1956.

The movie is told through the viewpoint of the narrator, Robert ‘Scott’ Carey (Williams) who, whilst chilling out on a boat one day with his wife Louise (Randy Stuart, who’s actual name was Elizabeth), is enveloped in a strange mist. Months later, he realizes that his clothes no longer fit and suspects he must be slowly shrinking in size. Understandably concerned, he visits a local quack, who at first is dismissive insisting, not unreasonably, that people are actually taller in the mornings and shrink as the day goes on, as compression on the vertebrae makes you slowly decrease in height. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Scott’s problems are far more acute than that. The doctors are baffled and he becomes a medical curiosity, gaining fame as the ‘incredible shrinking man.’ But all the attention only emphasises his worries and speeds up his mental deterioration. Eventually, he is reduced to living in a doll’s house where he comes under attack from Butch, the family cat. By this point, you can’t help but feel sorry for the little guy. I mean, he’s already been through a lot. But as a result of his battle with Butch he finds himself regaining consciousness in the basement while everyone thinks he perished at the claws of Butch. As if that wasn’t enough, next he has to fight a massive spider, which comes to represent “every unknown fear in the world,” his own hunger, and his own fear. When the basement is flooded, Louise goes to investigate but Scott is so small she can no longer see or hear him. Eventually, she leaves the house and, after killing the spider with a pin (thereby slaying his own fears, as the analysis would have it) Scott becomes so small he is finally able to escape the confines of the basement by simply climbing through one of the holes in a perforated window screen. In a strangely upbeat ending (another was filmed where Scott returns to his original height, but this is the one that made the final cut), Scott seems to accept his fate and looks at the future with a newfound sense of optimism because, although medical science can’t save him and this new world will be full of new challenges to navigate, he knows that no matter how small he becomes, “There is no zero” and he will still exist.

Many innovative techniques and special effects were used during filming. For example, shots featuring Louise were taken against a black velvet backdrop and then composited with shots of Scott on an enlarged living room set. Their movements were then synchronized so they appeared to interact with each other. An oversized dollhouse was constructed for Scott, and food was used to ecourage Butch the cat to ‘attack.’ Jack Arnold, who had previously directed such classics as It Came from outer Space (1953) and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) initially wanted Irish actor Dan O’ Herlihy to play Scott. But O’Herlihy turned down the role, prompting Universal to sign Williams instead. Production went over budget and filming had to be extended as certain special effects shots required reshooting and Williams was constantly being injured on set die to the overly-physical action sequences.

Upon its release, the Monthly Film Bulletin praised the film, and declared it, “A Horrifying story that grips the imagination throughout. Straightforward, macabre, and as startlingly original as a vintage short story.” Meanwhile, a contemporary evaluation by Ian Nathan of Empire magazine calls it a classic of 1950s science fiction films, noting how everyday objects found at home are “transformed into a terrifying vertiginous world fraught with peril. A confrontation with a ‘giant’ spider, impressively realised, as are all the effects, for its day, has become one of the iconic image of the entire era.”

The Incredible Shrinking Man spurned it’s own sub-genre, as movies like the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) and the Amazing Colossal Man (1957) soon followed, and Matheson scripted a sequel called the Fantastic Little Girl, which had Louise returning to the house where, naturally, she begins to shrink. However, the script was deemed inferior and the movie was never made. The script was, however, published in its entirety in the book Unrealized Dreams in 2005. A quasi-sequel (or a parody, depending on your point of view), The incredible Shrinking Woman, directed by Joel Schumacher of Lost Boys and Flatliners fame, eventually appeared in 1981. A new adaptation of the original was announced in 2013, with Matheson writing the screenplay with his son. However, Matheson the elder died on June 23^rd of that year and things have been eerily quiet ever since.

Trivia Corner

While trying a way to film a scene involving giant raindrops landing, Arnold recalled when he was a child finding condoms in his father’s drawer. Not knowing what they were he filled them with water and dropped them. The director then ordered about 100 condoms to be filled with water and placed on a treadmill so they would drop in sequence.

2024 in Review

January 2024 saw the publication of my short story The Cunning Linguist in the long-delayed anthology Welcome to the Splatterclub, vol III on Blood Bound Books. You can probably guess what that one’s about. I have a long associated with BBB, and they’ve always been great to work with. That was followed by short fiction in Flash in a Flash, the Black Beacon Book of Ghosts edited by Cameron Trost, and Big Smoke Pulp, Vol I, which by my count became my 97^th published short story (not including reprints). A second edition of Handmade Horror Stories, which includes my story Misshapes & Rejects, also came out.

On 27 March I released X6, my sixth volume of short fiction. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that X6 includes some of the darkest things I have ever written, including Holiday of a Lifetime, which I think has drawn the most reader complaints so far. My bad. Here’s the ToC. And here’s another look at the awesome cover by Greg Chapman.

I have been so involved in fiction over the past couple of years, I drifted out of journalism, apart from the day job. I enjoy writing about writing, and I have a lot of experience to mine, so I pitched a few articles to an American magazine called Writer’s Digest. WD is a bit of an institution, and definitely one to cross off the bucket list. I hadn’t been that excited since I wrote for Loaded. By the end of the year WD had published features about making the switch from writing for consumer magazines to the trade press, horror fiction markets, healthy habits for cultivating success, and finding your writing niche. There are also a few more in the pipeline.

Another writing magazine I have built up a good relationship with is Authors Publish. A couple of years ago they ran a piece I wrote about how I got my first book published, then late last year they contacted me out of the blue and asked if they could reprint the piece in a long-form book. Would I like to be paid twice for the same thing with no extra work on my part? Go on, then.

With the revised version of the second Ben Shivers mystery, The Butcher (working title), safely off to the publisher, at the beginning of the year I started shopping Silent Mine around, a horror western novella about a disillusioned cowboy on the trail of a missing husband. The last anyone heard, the husband went seeking his fortune at a place called Silent Mine, and he didn’t come back. Silent Mine is the first of a series featuring a character called Dylan Decker who does his level best to put the ‘wild’ in the West. A new publisher called Undertaker Books soon picked it up and did an amazing job with every aspect of it, from the editing to the promotion and cover art. They also asked for a first option on any more Dylan Decker books, which was music to my ears because I had another one under my belt. Meeting at Blood Lake (provisional title) will be out some time in 2025.

To bridge the gap, and to round out the year, I wrote a Christmas-themed short story, A Christmas Cannibal, again featuring Dylan Decker, which you can grab for free from THIS LINK. If you are a fan of horror fiction, you might want to sign up for the Undertaker Books newsletter.

Meanwhile, here on my faithful blog, judging by the site stats the most popular posts of 2024 were my eyewitness account of Bruce Springsteen’s Cardiff gig and, bizarrely, my review of Ryan Adam’s Nebraska cover album. My RetView series, which examines classic horror movies through a contemporary lens, is also still going strong. Recent entries include the ‘most controversial film ever made’ Cannibal Holocaust, the sublime Incredible Shrinking Man, and the simply superb King of Zombies. However, by far the most popular was The Mutations, another surprise.

If you want a summary of 2023, you can find that here. I have lots already planned for 2025, so watch this space and stay happy.

Remember, the harder you work, the more you achieve.