On this week's Halloween-themed episode of the podcast, we're simulating an experience that'll be familiar to all DJs: fielding requests at a Halloween party. What tracks from within and without the boundaries of Our Thing might we be happy to play? Which would be anathema to us? Which might we consider if you greased our palms or plied us with liquor? We're also discussing the passing of Winterkälte's Eric De Vries.

Keeping the momentum going from last week we're sticking with a decidedly industrial pair of records to discuss from Worms Of The Earth and C-Drone Defect. We've also got reactions to the just announced line-ups of next year's Cruel World and Dark Forces festivals.

The tar-black, mechanically thrashing blast of negativity and angst which is Red Lorry Yellow Lorry's debut LP is the subject of this week's commentary podcast. Talk About The Weather Distilled extant strains of post-punk and goth rock into one of the tightest and noisiest records of its generation, and we're looking at how it fits into the Lorries' own progression as well as the broader musical histories they drew upon and influenced in turn.

We have a slightly industrial metal themed two albums episode of the podcast for you this week, dear listener, as we chat a record needing no introduction in Killing Joke's Pandemonium and the rare modern industrial metal record which gets us excited about the genre again, Black Magnet's debut LP Hallucination Scene. We're also talking about a surprisingly great Sisters of Mercy live show and what can be gleaned from the latest Sick New World lineup.

The return of the Pick Five format has us telling on ourselves, revealing some of our own apathies, and possibly taking some contentious positions as we talk about records which we haven't got around to yet. We're also talking about Ministry reformation news, and a video essay about goth and race making the rounds.

After dalliances with the meaning of goth and post-punk royalty, we're back to what brought us to the dance on this episode: obscure industrial releases scant few people are aware of. We're talking about Jean-Luc De Meyer's science fiction odysseys with 32Crash, and the strange path German collective Ars Moriendi took in linking classic industrial to powernoise. All that, plus some Cure (sorry, more post-punk royalty) and Pixel Grip talk.

This month's commentary podcast dives into the often overlooked mid-period work of synthpunk pioneers Portion Control. Having an outsized influence on countless EBM and industrial acts, the band's more melodic movements into "post-industrial" with plenty of dalliances with synthpop and post-punk are perfectly captured on ..Step Forward.

Having just seen Peter Hook & The Light, we're spending this episode discussing not just Hooky's presentation of the Joy Division and New Order catalogs, but also how our thoughts and feelings about those two bands have changed over the past thirty years. By equal measures we'll be getting into the nitty gritty of JD/NO lore and ephemera, but also wrestling with what has and hasn't changed about ourselves since we first came in contact with music which has never lost its gravitational pull upon us. We're also talking about some possible Tear Garden news.

We like to mark every 25th episode of the podcast with some sort of special theme or format, and so on this episode we're taking up the hefty topic of to what degree goth is a subculture tied to music. Grab your snakebite and Aquanet and expect gatekeeping, gateletting, takes spicy and mild, and no small amount of cattiness. We're also talking about the passing of Roli Mossiman, the news of North American And One dates, and a Devours gig.

It's a mixed format episode this week, with Alex giving a rundown of his trip to Edmonton for the Purple City Festival this past weekend, including the I Die: You Die showcase stage. Then, we're switching gears to talk about the era of high technoid via Access To Arasaka's 2009 LP Oppidan. All that, plus some horseshit about mainstream media's annual fixation with "goth" fashion around Hallowe'en.