Last Friday, Great Falls released The Bite That Grows Up, their second album on Neurot Recordings. The new album is noisy, brutal, and vicious, dealing largely with the challenges of parenting and feelings of guilt and failure. I've been a big fan of Great Falls since their previous album, Objects Without Pain, so I jumped at the chance to have a brief conversation with them about their art. My conversation with bassist Shane Mehling and guitarist/vocalist Demian Johnston is below. 

Friday is here, praise Dracula! It's a pretty solid new release day, with two albums I reviewed and really liked and a couple more good ones I didn't get to. We've got all flavors of metal for you below, or all the flavors that matter, anyway. Into the pit with you!

Slift is a band that, until last night, I was only moderately familiar with. I had given their albums a couple listens, but nothing in their recorded output particularly grabbed me. A couple days ago, BKOH guest contributor Josh Burke expressed astonishment that there were still a few tickets left for their show in St. Paul, as he'd seen them live before and they always put on an excellent show. So I decided to join him at last night's show, and I'm very glad I did. Josh is right about this one: Slift is a top-tier live band. 

It is Spooky Season, the most wonderful time of the year! I love horror movies as much as I love music and fitness, so October presents the perfect excuse to write about this other passion. Last week, I compiled 10 horror movies about health and fitness, and this week I've got 10 horror films where music plays a significant role. Not all of these movies are about metal music per se - there are hundreds of horror movies with metal on the soundtrack, but I went for movies where music has a significant bearing on the plot. Of course, even though some of these movies don't have heavy music on the soundtrack, they're all metal AF in their own ways. 

One of my personal fitness goals is to achieve the elusive pistol squat. I'm not there yet, although I have tried many different tips in my quest. Above you'll see a easy band trick to help the process along that's simple yet genius. I plan on giving it a shot on my next leg day. 

About a week ago, I was perusing Reddit at night when I came across a post by the band onlytime about their new EP. In the post description, the band mentioned that they're based in Minneapolis and dropped Isis and Blood Incantation as influences for the new music. That was more than enough to get me to check it out, and I was really impressed with the two epic tracks. I wanted to learn more, so I reached out for quick interview with the band. Read our conversation and listen to the embedded EP below. 

In many ways, I am an obsessive tracker and recorder, and as such I've been makings best of the year lists far longer than I've had this site (I will probably publish them here all at some point for historical context. In 2023, my number one heavy album of the year was from a band that I hadn't heard prior to that release. That album is called Objects Without Pain by Great Falls. I was blown away by that album's mix of post metal and noise rock and pained, confessional lyrics. A few years later and Great Falls are back with another dark explosion of chaotic, metallic-tinged noise rock: The Bite That Grows Up. 

It has been a big year for Rebecca Vernon. After the triumphant return of SubRosa earlier this year at Fire in the Mountains, she is back with the second album as The Keening, Devotion. Those familiar with either SubRosa or The Keening's first album know what to sonically expect here: a rich tapestry of sound that weaves together folk, gothic rock, and slow-building doom. That the sound of this record doesn't diverge much from Vernon's past work is definitely not a complaint - On Devotion, Vernon uses her considerable talents on seven beautiful and crushing tracks that wrenchingly explore the beauty and sadness of love and loss. 

Happy Friday, all! Tonight, I'll be attending a listening party for a new album from a Minneapolis local band and hopefully watching a scary movie or two. And listening to more music, of course! Below we've got some punk rock, noise rock, post metal, doom, and black metal - a real grab bag this week. And since it's October, I've got another horror movie recommendation for you as well. Into the pit!

It is Spooky Season, the most wonderful time of the year! I love horror movies as much as I love music and fitness, so October presents the perfect excuse to write about this other passion. Below I've compiled 10 movies that involve fitness in some significant way, many of them sourced from a post I made on Reddit asking for suggestions. I haven't seen many of these, but I'm going to make it my goal to watch as many of them as I can by the end of the month. I'll probably post a recap at the end of October with thoughts on any of these I manage to watch this month, along with any other horror films that make the viewing list.