#cascading failures

The weaponization of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems stands as one of the most plausible and catastrophic risks facing modern civilization. As AI capabilities accelerate, so too does their potential to destabilize the complex, interdependent systems that sustain our societies—namely, power grids, communication networks, and global supply chains. In a scenario increasingly discussed…

Hissing have been developing a reputation for noisy, harsh, thrilling death metal within the underground and building quite the anticipation for their debut LP. And here it is, Permanent Destitution, a short, but dense and intriguingly dynamic album that has definitely made good on the implicit promises the band had made. An abyssal blizzard full of nihilistic black metal-tinged death metal arranged in a ceaselessly transforming fashion, Hissing's debut lives up to its underground hype and does well to set itself apart from the rest of the crop.

The opening track, "Backwards Descent", sets the album's tone immediately with thunderous tom-driven and blast-beat drumming, hazy cacophonies of dissonant guitar distortion, and rumbling growls that all swirl around in noisy anarchy. Yet the band still feel very much in control, incorporating an effective and sinister guitar riff near the beginning of the song. And the album really doesn't divert too far away from this established footing in chaotic, abysmal death metal; the second track, "Pablum Abundance", continues the pattern of downward-spiraling tremolo picking and all-over-the-place trajectories, working in its own unique musical ideas that still manage to give the song a sense of identity.

The album moves into the third song, "Eulogy in Squalor", which of course continues Hissing's ferocious assault, but brings in some notably tasty interplay between the rumbling distorted bass lines, down-tuned guitar grooves, and the black-metal-inspired dissonant riffing. I'm reminded a bit of Portal's maddened album from earlier in the year, as well as Leviathan's recent output, with Hissing exercising their dynamic talents to a pretty impressive degree on this cut. A howling wind carries the album into its fourth song, "It Without More", which features a more satanic-black-metal-inspired approach to the guitar parts and more prominent double-bass drumming, but of course, the band never stay in one place for too long, jumping around from section to chaotic section.

In its faster moments, "Cascading Failures" leans even heavier on the blast beats, seven-string grooves, and ride cymbal drumming, very much in the vein of Leviathan. But the song spends a good deal of its time marching through a slower, doom-inspired fog of distortion. The song "Perdurance" rounds the album off on its longest piece, which transitions from rumbling drum fill, to andante guitar riff, to frightful echoed wails of torment, ultimately closing the album's final minutes with a fittingly unsettling, repetitious, industrially noisy drone.

i just finished reading your lesbian gax series and i i i !!! dear lord you are an angel that has come to grace us with your writing, you are sososo good!!!! and i can't wait to read more about them if you ever feel like extending that universe. love those lesbians

There was a line there where you mentioned Oscar trying to distract himself/herself from Lando's fling. Would you write that as a full fledged fic/drabble? It'd be so good!

thank you so much wahh this is so kind of you to say!!