The Fitness Fail streak has been broken. 

There may not be a lot of big name releases that are jumping out at me, but a pretty big week for new music nevertheless! I don't know if any of the records on this list are going to make it into my regular rotation, but they're all interesting enough to recommend you check out. 

My last post on fitness was about how I wasn't actually doing much on that front. I'm happy to say that those days are over for now, and I intend to write more about that later this week. I'm also trying to write more about fitness in general, as my original intention was for this site to be about two things, and thus far it's been pretty one-sided. Hence, a few thoughts on one of the most classic exercises of all time: the pushup. 

I am very excited to share the very first guest post on Both Kinds of Heavy! My friend Josh Burke (pictured above) recently experienced the ArcTanGent Festival ​for the first time, and was kind enough to share some in-depth thoughts on the experience. All words after the break were written by Josh, and he captured all photos in this post. Thanks for letting us host this festival recap, Josh!

It's been a long week and a bad week, but a pretty good new release day. Here's what's been powering through my day. 

Twelve years ago, I saw Nine Inch Nails for the first time when their Tension tour came to Minnesota. I wound up seated next to a guy who worked in the touring concert industry, and before the set he told my brother and me that the lighting design we were about to see would set the standard for stadium shows for years to come. The big hook of the show was a lighting rig that projected in the front, back, and middle of the stage, creating the appearance that the band was playing inside a cube of lasers. It was a pretty spectacular effect and used in a wide variety of ways over the course of that show. 

Twelve years later, NIN returned to St. Paul for the first time since that tour with the Peel It Back tour. Trent Reznor and company had set a pretty high bar, and I would have been pretty happy if they had just repeated the setup of the Tension tour. But Trent had a much more elaborate plan in mind. 

I was up north all week on vacation, which left me with less time than normal to check out new albums, much less to write about them. Nevertheless, I did find a couple new (not very) heavy albums to recommend.