#35 And So I Watch You From Afar: Megafauna

First, before I talk about the latest euphoric audio assault by Belfast’s finest noise merchant, I’d like to take a moment out of 2024’s Necessary Evil to just pay our respects to the beautiful, talented and influential megafauna that we’ve lost these past two million years or so.

These good megafaunas have had a tough time recently, with 80% of all mammals that weigh greater than a thousand kilograms dying off in the last fifty thousand years. Pour one out for our fatty bombatty brothers. Yeah, we still mostly have our elephants and our rhinos and our elephant seals. And our motherfucking bisons, boy!! Have you seen a bison?? I don’t think we’re ready to accept how huge those big boys are! I’m not counting the big fishes, like the blue whale, because they’re always hiding down there, I’ve never seen one in a zoo, and fish are boring. But I think we have to accept that we have sadly lost the best and brightest megafauna. We’ve lost all the dinosaurs, for fuck’s sake!? That’s nuts! And, if we’re being honest, we lost a lot of Earth’s stability when the dinosaurs went: ain’t no genocide in Gaza if Deir al Balah is partially populated by motherfucking titanosaurs!! Oh, what’s that, America? You want to aggressively and violently suppress the world until it accepts your neoliberal world order? Well, try telling that to the giganotosaurus, yeah? The ichthyosaur will fucking eat all your submarines, son! However, like I said before, fish are boring.

Anyway, heads bowed, please:

Ground Sloth

(35 million BC – 11000 BC)

Look at this big hairy boi!! Scientific studies have suggested that the ground sloth would have walked slowly while using a stick, would have had a fair to middling grasp of magic, and would have been able to teach passers by martial arts and the ways of the forest. Unfortunately, we have to imagine that they tasted so good, as they basically went extinct as soon as humans entered the scene. A big bag of meat like that? You’ve just got to eat that, even if it risks getting hair stuck between your teeth. This was also given as the reason behind Marlon Brando’s death.

Daeodon

(29 – 15.97 million BC)

Look at this cheeky dog-pig!! Us scientists have to assume that the daeodon was extremely smart, because look at that big ‘ol head! Despite hanging out around the Americas – which kind of disputes the intelligence hypothesis – the daeodon had very English teeth because – get this – they would bite each other’s faces while fighting for dominance! Was this whole species on PCP or something? They’re metal as fuck. Also, according to Wikipedia. “Sexual dimorphism of the jugal protections exist in Archaeotherium, and with a smaller Daeodon sample size, such dimorphism can’t be ruled out for Daeodon”, which I don’t understand at all but sounds kinky as fuck! Gone too soon.

Glyptodon

(3.2 million BC – 11000 BC)

Look at this armoured guinea pig! Yeah, the glyptodon went extinct when the humans turned up as well, obviously. Look at them: if you jump on that shell you’re sure to get coins and shit. I have less sympathy for the glyptodon, what were they expecting to happen?

Giant Baba

(1938 AD – 1999 AD)

Look at this hotdog coloured sweaty joke! Oh, but to the left of him is Giant Baba. The Giant Baba (giganticus barberella) only roamed the earth for a short period in the 20th century AD, the Giant Baba dyed out towards the end of that period after taking chops to the chest in 5,769 wrestling matches. The Hulk Hogan (jabronius workus shootus) is, unfortunately, still roaming the Earth. The Hogan is another species that human’s have tried to drive to extinction many times, but the Hogan simply replies that the booking doesn’t work for them.

Enhydriodon

(10 million BC – 10000 BC)

It’s…

It’s a giant otter…

A ‘bear-otter’ approximately the size of a motherfucking lion. And we killed it all. In fact, it’s been theorised that this giant, cuddly, bear was the first animal that humans drove to extinction. So, we as a race decide that we’re going to be a ‘drive to extinction’ kind of species, and we start with the giant otter?? The human race is fucked, man. I could be using one of these good bois as a body pillow right now! I don’t want to do this list any more, it’s made me angry.

I love ASIWYFA, and loved their first album since 2018’s ‘The Endless Shimmering‘. At least, what I thought was their first album since 2018’s ‘The Endless Shimmering‘, however it turns out the band itself only consider it their first album since 2022’s ‘Jettison‘, an ultra ambitious multimedia longform piece. Guys! I didn’t know that was canon! I would have included it on the list if I’d known! I feel like there’s been a massive breakdown in communication here, and it has not been on my part.

OK, so their first conventional record since 2018’s ‘The Endless Shimmering‘ is another home run: cinematic, dense, technically superb and yet freaking catchy in places. It’s a homage to the area of Belfast that all the band hail from, and the communities there that the band grew to appreciate even more during lockdown. And, as always, it’s simply outstanding what beautiful noise these four humans make with guitars and a drum.

Unfortunately, 2024 happened to be an unusually rich year for gorgeous records made with just guitars and drums, so next to some even more extraordinary records still to come on this list, ‘Megafauna’ ended up suffering ever so slightly in comparison. But it’s one of those albums that I can guarantee that not many people reading this have been exposed to, yet I can guarantee that everyone who listens to it will fall in love with it.

2018 #45

The Album Title As AI Image:

Is… that a tongue…? Whatever, we can all agree that this is by far the superior album cover. By, like, multitudes of hundreds. Look! There’s a little baby one in the background!