It is officially summer.

Therefore, I share with you the greatest summertime song of all time.

For footsore wanderers and weary champions alike

Zwei Schwerter | artist: Gilgareth — A dungeon synth album that is afraid neither of progressive house beats nor arpeggiators. I will ignore the deployment of the word "doth" in setting the theme. Good music for a campaign – and part of an ever evolving set of tales and places evoked

I'll have what he's having.

Catalyst | artist: Imrryr — Sawing synths and skittering drum machine patterns with toms and complex and overaturistic melodies (yes, I think Imrryr just helped me coin a new word) carry themes that occasionally will remind you of John Harrison's score to Day of the Dead. Going back to the

In the studio

Missed publishing the last two days as we've been in the studio finishing up the mix and mastering of the third Towerhouser album. In this part of the ongoing Dungeon / Fantasy Synth series, we get more than a bit beat-driven. Downright funky, if you ask me. Plan is

But you're not my baby

Mean Bone | artist: Buzzard — "Good evening, sir. How about some fuzzy doom from Massachusetts?" "Why yes, that sounds splendid. I'll have one of those." A half-hour later. "Your Buzzard, sir." I dig in to find a fuzz-faced melange of bassy riffing with

Fun time

The Majestic End | artist: Ghoëst — I just listened to the album Faith by the Cure because I needed to listen to a pick-me-up feel-good fun-time record after hearing the new Ghoëst. | 2.75 out of 5 stars

Owlbear, with advantage

Feather and Claw | artist: Owlbear — Owlbear gets right to it. This is bedroom poster metal (in the best possible way to think about such a description) and it fully holds its own against any of the scotch-taped poster bands of a previous era. Proving that the galloping beat is the

True hardcore is hard to find.

NEVER ENOUGH | artist: Turnstile — I can remember a contemporaneous review in MRR saying that Lungfish had gone soft — saying that "Creation Story" from 1993's Rainbows from Atoms was nothing more than a bad U2 song. It is, of course, something of a tradition going back to

Nothing comes to the faithless firsthand.

I want to talk very briefly about one of my favorite albums of all time, sort of in prep for what we'll be publishing tomorrow. The album is Rainbows from Atoms and the band is Lungfish. It was released in the summer of 1993 on Dischord Records. And

High Weird (and you can take it jogging).

I’ve always liked Philip K. Discs. Beyond being purveyors of fine high weirdness, they’ve also got a knack for extending their weirdness beyond sonics into the physical domain in unexpected ways. Case in point — go pick up one of their limited edition customized portable cassette players. It’ll

Rock and Roll Man.

Charge of the Love Brigade | artist: Escape-ism — Sometimes the bad is so good it makes you feel like life is not fair. This is that real good bad. The good good bad. Outlaw rebel bad. And this outlaw rebel swaggers around knowing that he’s got a bigger rock-a-rolodex then

The Moth and The Newt

Interview with Eveale | Music on Ampwall and Bandcamp Tremelo guitar in the right speaker. Chug in the left. Blastbeats up the middle. Solid bass. Lots of blackened howls, but also something somewhat progressive. A hint of an allusion to more recent Mayhem and then we're on to something

Review

I need to sleep.

Pavements (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) | artist: Pavement — As is widely known, "Fillmore Jive" was the last song recorded in the 1990s. Not long after its completion, the entire Pavement professional musical ensemble perished in a freak flash flood. | How do you even begin rating something like this? 4

Review

Master the master.

In the Company of Champions | artist: Magus Lord — First of all, I beg M. to get someone else to master the side projects. That out of my system, what to make of this? It starts up with an overloaded gothic thing that in all of its sonics and repetition and

Video

Weirding the weird.

"We've been living on a psychedelic substrate for 40 years with the set and setting of surveillance and control and no wonder we are having a bad trip." Just go listen to some Rushkoff.

Review

Oh, it's fine.

Instant Holograms On Metal Film | artist: Stereolab — I always preferred reading music reviews about Stereolab's music to actually listening to the music itself. I saw them once in the early or maybe the mid 90s when they came through Washington, DC. I didn't know they would

Review

Cleveland Vice

Steel, Rust and Disgust | artist: Midnight — The flame-throwing beast that is Midnight reminds us of two things on this covers-heavy set: a) you do not rock as hard as Midnight b) you do not rock as hard as Cleveland. This album of (mostly) covers — and covers mostly of the Cleveland-centric

Review

I am not scowling. But I am Scowling.

Are We All Angels | artist: Scowl | Yes, there will be comparisons to Hole and to Bleach’s fuzzier twists and turns. Yes, there will be “hardcore” boys trying to wring the knots out of their underpants. Yes, there will be complaints about selling out maddeningly typed into Reddit via $1,

Review

Black inside black over black (Now in Technicolor)

Spectrum by Am I in Trouble? — This is the best progressive metal album (Death, Blackened, Trad or otherwise) by an American band since Wilderun’s 2019 masterpiece Veil of Imagination. And I say that realizing that this is exactly the kind of record that ties into knots the tongues of

Review

Watch your step.

The Mechanics of Mysticism | artist: Ether Diver — An ambitious bit of occasionally abstract electronica mashed up with bouncing rhythms, The Mechanics of Mysticism proposes to be the preliminary results of an effort "to catalog the techniques, tools and technology of direct experience of the divine". Like I said,

Review

Hunters beware.

Temporada de Homínidos EP | artist: Animals Revenge — Tight songwriting, driving d-beat, and lots of shouting made this an enormously exciting release. It is the soundtrack to getting chased by a bear. Crunchy guitars, over-driven bass, killer trash drums... and did I mention lots of shouting? Maybe there is a more

Review

The territory crumbles.

The Teeth of Time | artist: Drouth — There is a wrenching tremolo pull that uproots an electric guitar chord at about the 5:10 mark of the track that opens this five song set by Drouth which sort of sums up the project. It is akin to a jaw being suddenly

Review

Hi, High Sorcery.

Wings Beneath Krynn's Moonlight | artist: Mythráen — I imagine there will be plenty of listeners who speak to the fantastical lyricism and moody rhythms of Mythráen's latest release. While, on the surface, the compositions fall into the general occupations of Dark Dungeon and Fantasy Synth music writ

Review

No burden to listen to this one.

Burden | artist: Obsidian Urn — The big sludgey riffs hang around like overtaxed storm clouds casting slowly shifting shadows on whatever is below. The drums swing back and forth. There is space — as in a spatial physical place — imbued in these recordings. One feels as if in the midst of it