Phases of the Shade

     If the dead could speak? the hooded woman says, interrupting our rambling conversation about George Romero's Day of the Dead and the speech capabilities of shambling corpses, the kind you have with friends working the graveyard shift at the deadest Texaco station in town, with a question that seems like more of an excuse than an inquiry accompanied by a thirty-two-ounce fountain drink set upon the counter. Mountain Dew, possibly diet. If the dead could speak, she begins, pausing only to take a big sip from the drink she has yet to purchase, they'd most likely opine that conversations are vastly overrated, which is to say, she stops again, briefly, to take another sip, they'd tell everyone to just shut the fuck up already. Additionally, she posits that the dead would suggest offering carbonated beverages free of charge since the reanimated tend not to preoccupy themselves with pecuniary concerns. Awkward laughter ensues while sardonic rejoinders are hastily prepared until the hood slips away to reveal something decidedly less than amusing, at which point someone declares, with snowballing exuberance, that fountain pop is on the house if she'd just, for the love of god, pull the goddamn hood back up. She takes another sip of Mountain Dew, possibly diet, and wonders aloud if this deal includes free refills because a lot of the pop is going to waste anyway, and who says no to that?


Kavinsky - Nightcall
Bloc Party - Hunting for Witches
Arcade Fire - Black Wave/ Bad Vibrations
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - Do You Wanna Touch Me? (Oh Yeah)
Sufjan Stevens - The Are Night Zombies! They Are...
Florence + The Machine - Breaking Down
Foo Fighters - Stranger Things Have Happened
Radiohead - Climbing Up the Walls
White Zombie - El Phantasmo and the Chicken-Run Blast-O-Rama (Wine, Women and Song Mix)
M83 - Splendor

You can also download the collection in a zip file if that's your thing.

Fun fact, Constant Refrigerators: the title of this post, along with its predecessor are nods to Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, as is the content -in a way, at least- because I love that book like Harrison Forbes loves pulling out.