Suffering Jukebox

This morning's episode features an interview with Tom Katsaras from the Naarm/Kaurna based group Twine. Deer In The Headlights is Twine's latest release, a three song single/EP that was self-released  on Friday November 7th. Twine will be performing on Sunday November 23rd at Black Bear Lodge in Brisbane, supporting Garage Sale on their Any Day Now release tour. 

Nick's Pick of the Week is Ragana & Drowse's Ash Souvenir, which was released last Friday, November 14th. You can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here; https://ragana.bandcamp.com/album/ash-souvenir and my review can be read below.

Ragana & Drowse: Ash Souvenir (The Flenser)

Released Friday 14h November 2025

Olympia, Washington’s Ragana and Portland, Oregon’s Drowse team up to create Ash Souvenir, a record that is both painfully beautiful and shockingly intense. Hot on the heels of another brilliant collaboration, Chat Pile & Hayden Petigo’s In The Earth Again, The Flenser unleash the —slightly less surprising— combo of two of avant-metal’s finest, proving that (once again) they are at the forefront of all that is interesting and trailblazing in the world of “heavy” music.

Ash Souvenir is short, a mere 31 minutes in length and containing only four songs, but it burns bright, packing more into its brief runtime than many bands can achieve in an hour. Opening with In Eternal Woods Pts. 1-3, a 14-minute epic that begins with ethereal guitar and cut-up spoken word, traverses through fields of traditional, second-wave black metal and ends with finger-plucked acoustic guitar, In Eternal Woods Pts. 1-3 is a perfect microcosm of the whole of Ash Souvenir. It contains all of what makes the album great, a melting pot of styles and influences that combine to create something individual and unique.

Elements of shoegaze intrude on the album’s second track, After Image, which is perhaps the album’s most straightforward moment. Kyle Bates’ vocals propel the songs forward with screamed contributions from Noel and Maria, creating a juxtaposition of beauty and catharsis that culminates in a swell of distortion and feedback before giving way to dungeon-synth stylings of In Eternal Woods Pt. 4.

Beginning with an ethereal arpeggiated guitar riff, Ash Souvenir closes out the record. Ash Souvenir builds slowly underneath a breathy refrain of “There’s nothing to lose” that eventually builds to a scream. Despite the intensity of its delivery, the song (and the album) ends on a note of calm resignation that leaves the listener feeling purged and purified.

With Ash Souvenir, Ragana and Drowse have created something magnificent and strange, an album both alluring and powerful that draws the listener in and hypnotises them for its duration. An essence of witchcraft pervades the album’s four tracks with esoteric elegance and an otherness that promises to yield more secrets with each repeat listen; a puzzling but puissant mix of genres that never fails to captivate or enthral.

Nick Stephan