Today's recommendations only includes four new releases, but one of those new releases is damn near three hours long. Which one? There's a big clue above. Read on for a very eclectic group of recommendations. 

Immediate caveat: I am garbage at pull-ups. I've mentioned that before, so when I say that I doubled my reps today, my pull-up performance has improved from "bad" to "slightly less bad." That said, I did genuinely make a big improvement with one simple form tip, which I am happy to pass along to you. 

When times are rough - and times are indeed rough for me - music is more important than ever. Even when I'm at my lowest point, finding new music still excites me. Fortunately, there are a lot of interesting releases this week, as well as a few from rent weeks I'm only getting to now. Below we've got some heavy electronica, crushing doom, snarky punk, and fuzzy rock. Read on for more. 

​Just over one week ago, my best friend, Nathaniel Ferris Moore, passed away unexpectedly. We had been friends for over 30 years, meeting for the first time in driver’s ed class when we were both 15. My first interaction with him was to put on an effected southern drawl and call him a dumbass because he paid another student a quarter or two for a couple of Starburst. I couldn’t believe he would spend so much on such a small amount of lousy candy. He must have thought I was funny, because rather than take offense, we started hanging out at school, then after school. Over the years, we lived together, traveled together, moved apart, and moved back together. We had so many good times together, so many occasions when we made each other laugh until we cried. Other times, we just cried (okay, usually me). And like all adult friends, we had periods when we didn’t see each other as much as we would like. Even when we didn’t see each other for months, we were always in touch. We always had something to talk about. That something was music.

My best friend unexpectedly passed away this week. I'm still in shock and still processing, but he loved metal of all kinds, and putting this together is helping me keep sane. My writeups may be a little thinner than normal, but there's a lot of stuff this week that he would have loved. Onward. 

It's been far too long since I wrote any fitness-related posts, so let's correct that, shall we? Yesterday, Jeff Cavaliere published his latest video, "How Fit Are You REALLY? (7 "Simple" Tests), which I've embedded above. These tests are focused on mobility and functionality, rather than cardiovascular health, raw strength, or other important categories, and he stresses that these are not a complete look at fitness. Still, they're seven relatively quick ways you can test your fitness so you can identify weak points and train to improve them.

I put myself through these tests and did indeed find some weak points. 

Happy April. My last couple New Music Friday posts have been a little on the sparse side. This week's entry definitely is not. That's because I found a few things I missed from week's past, and today's new release list is pretty stacked. There are a couple big albums I planned to listen to that I couldn't even get to today. To the picks!

A short update this week because reasons. It could be even shorter - I could just say "Keep listening to the new Neurosis album" and leave it at that. I'm not doing that, although you should totally keep listening to the new Neurosis album. 

Every Friday, I find my trusty new release lists and start checking out albums that strike me as interesting. That's the way the day started. I made it through one EP (which was fine) and one solid album, and then I was hit by a surprise album drop that ground everything else to a halt - and I do mean everything.

After 10 year away, my all-time favorite band dropped a new album and announced a single live performance. That's right, Neurosis is back.