There’s a companion I haven’t properly introduced yet. It screams, growls, bleeds all over the place—and gives the silence in my head something louder to compete with.

One week under the Tuscan sun left my brain fried. Literally. Emotionally. Possibly structurally. So, naturally, I listened to the new Maladie album on the flight home. I was already fucked in the head. Might as well make productive use of it.

A delirious journey through saxophone-fuelled black metal chaos. Maladie’s Symptoms IV is equal parts seduction, violence, and pure exhilaration.

The one that dethroned Symptoms IV. Personal, raw, and painfully human—Symptoms III sits with you and names things you are taught not to name.