I'm alive! A long weekend led to a short week, but as most people know, having fewer work days in a week doesn't typically lead to a reduction in the amount of work that needs to be done. In other words, I've been really busy with my day job, which resulted in a quiet week here on the blog. But I'm back, armed with some great new tunes. New music ahoy!

​I'll be leaving for a long weekend tomorrow, so I won't get to a weekly music recap in tomorrow. But I still want to share a few miscellaneous thoughts as the week draws to an end.

• The video above from Jeff Nippard has some great exercises to consider adding into your routine. 
• Miracle Blood, one of the first bands I covered for my concert recap series, has a new live EP coming out on November 6th. It will be fun! The first live track dropped on YouTube a couple months back. 
• The first wave of lineup announcements for Prepare the Ground and Roadburn 2026 have dropped. Prepare the Ground scored a rare North American set from Oranssi Pazuzu and the only Svalbard North American set ever. Roadburn has an even bigger score - an Oathbreaker reunion. I'd given up any hope on ever seeing them live. I still probably won't! But a guy can dream.
• It's October, so you are required by law to listen to The Evil One by Roky Erickson, the most perfect Halloween album of all time.

By Josh Burke

This was my third time in Austin for Ripplefest Texas, a celebration of desert rock and stoner metal. It bills itself as a “family reunion” and of all the festivals I’ve been to, it really does feel the most like home in a lot of ways. I have made many friends at this festival and it’s great to see a lot of the same faces year after year. It’s also a small festival - while the capacity for the main venue is 2,000 people, I would guess the actual attendance is closer to 500. I don’t know how the financials work with this size of a crowd, but I love the intimacy. You can pretty much guarantee that you’ll be standing next to the bands playing the festival and I love getting the chance to meet and have real conversations with some of my favorite artists.

I've seen exactly two concerts with my older brother, both of which were in the last year. Along with my youngest brother, we saw the BEAT Tour last November (who dropped an excellent live album last Friday!), and last night the three us saw Bruce Dickinson together. My youngest brother and I have seen a bunch of shows together, but our tastes never really aligned with our older brother's taste until he started discovering some hard rock/heavy metal that spoke to him in the last few years. We had a great time together at BEAT last fall, so I couldn't really say no when he suggested that we go see the Iron Maiden singer's solo tour.

Sometimes, when you buy a concert ticket months in advance, your excitement for the show builds and builds. Other times, as it creeps closer, it starts to feel more like a looming obligation rather than an exciting event. And, full disclosure, this is how I was feeling about the Bruce Dickinson show as it approached. 

Sweet Zombie Jesus, it's Friday! I was hoping that the solid stream of quality singles and EPs this week meant there would be some big album drops today. That didn't necessarily happen, but I was still able to find several interesting releases today. New music ahoy!

Last night I put on my $10 Mares of Thrace hoodie and joined some friends at Minneapolis venue Zhora Darling for a show I've been looking forward to for months, Conan and Mares of Thrace. But, let's be honest: I was there for Mares of Thrace. As I wrote in the linked post, I checked out the Canadian sludge duo earlier this year for the first time and was immediately hooked. But does their live experience live up to their recorded works? Read on to find out!

Some weeks, I struggle to find new music to write about for my Friday post. This week has been an unusual one, in that there have been a steady stream of great new music all week. Hopefully, I'm not screwing myself by leaving nothing to write about on Friday, but I had to call out these great tunes. Hopefully this means Friday will be equally stacked!

It's been another hellish week in America as the bullet train rockets towards the last stop, Full Fascism. First Amendment? Fuck you, you're only allowed to talk about how much you love our Dear Leader. For now though, music is still legal. Enjoy these picks while you still can!

I'm pretty well back into my fitness groove - tomorrow will mark the end of four weeks of lifting five days a week, and I've added in several cardio sessions the last couple of days. When I get into my fitness grooves, it makes me want to keep adding more and more into my routine, and the new Athlean-X video has some good tips for exercises that can help fill out the rear end. Now, I'm not at full Hank Hill pancake ass level, but ya know, I could use some more filling out there. The video above has a lot of tips for targeting the Glute Medius, a part of the booty that's a little harder to train than the Glute Maximus. I plan on adding some of these moves into my routine ASAP, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who could benefit from these tips. 

I could have tried to come up with a clever headline, but why be anything other than direct? This post is about music making me happy.