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In Shadows Waiting
In Shadows Waiting
Stewart Bint | 2014 | Horror
7
7.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
When Simon Reynolds thinks he sees a shadow flit outside the window of the house he shares with his family, he doesn't think much of it. But when there are more ocurrences and other members of the family (including the dog) become unsettled by things not quite seen, it is clear that there is something not quite normal at work.

As the days go by the menace becomes clearer. What is going on and why?

This is very much a traditional ghost story told very effectively by Bint from Simon's point of view. The whole story is also told by Simon as a flashback so we are aware that there are tragic consequences.

The air of menace in the first half of the book is palpable. The ghost is only glimpsed and can be explained away in the cold light of day. As the plot progresses and the threat becomes more real I felt that this sense was lost - but perhaps this is inevitable. Things half-seen out of the window at dusk mean nervous glances out of the windows when reading, but more substantial manifestations don't invoke quite the same sense.

By that time however the reader will be very keen to see what happens to Simon and his family. The past is demanding a price from the present, but who is going to pay it?
  
Frustration by The Painted Ship
Frustration by The Painted Ship
1967 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"The Painted Ship are a psychedelic garage band from Vancouver. My favourite kind of garage is not so much straight ahead, riff driven garage, but warped and atmospheric garage – that’s what I love to listen to. “Like a complete loser, I’ve made a playlist on my iTunes called ‘Mood Garage.’ They’re the kind of songs that are perfect for when you’re in the car late at night. It was Rhys Webb from The Horrors who first played me this song a couple of years ago, I told him about my ‘Mood Garage’ playlist and this specific sound and he suggested ‘Frustration’ and it was totally right. “Garage is an amazing genre. The name comes from kids at home making music with only the means available, but then you’ve got all these weird records that came out of it and went in another direction. It’s like it becomes more than the sum of its parts, it has something unearthly about it that you can’t pin down. It’s sort of like a darker version of the ‘Setsunai’ bittersweet feeling. It still hits you in the same place, but it brings you down another path. “Artistically, garage music has impacted me because of how instinctive the genre is. When it comes to music that actually inspires me to want to make things, it’s always music that is a little more instinctive and spontaneous. I remember when I read Rip It Up and Start Again by Simon Reynolds, this whole history of Post-punk that made me want to start like, four different bands. When you read about people who are making music with simple means, it feels spontaneous and it makes you want to play. “When The Horrors first started there wasn’t any discussion or question of anything, we didn’t even know how to be in a band. So it was all instinctive, a raw transmission of emotion and expression. And that’s why I love garage – it’s through this raw expression that a whole movement of kids in parents’ homes and garages made something that sounded, in the best cases, like it wasn’t even from this world."

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