After a week away at the festival of a lifetime, I'm back with more new music recommendations. It's not a particularly stacked week, but I've got some gems for you that are new today, as well as a few things I missed last week. 

At Fire in the Mountains, I slept poorly and was constantly dirty and hot. It was always a gamble if you’d be able to wash your hands after using the porta potty. More than once, I wished that the crowd surfing would stop so I could look forward at the stage rather than backwards towards oncoming levitating bodies. Our tent was decimated by intense winds that left it only passably usable for the last three nights of the event.

I’m getting the negative stuff out of the way so that it doesn’t seem like the festival is paying me to write a glowing review.

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My experience at Fire in the Mountains (henceforth frequently abbreviated as FITM) was beyond simply enjoying an impeccably produced music festival. It was that, yes. The lineup was expertly curated, and across the board the bands were excellent. If that were all there was to say, I’d be perfectly happy with my experience. But there’s so much more to FITM, and these other elements are what made it so impactful.

After about a year of playing around with this blog, visiting Fire in the Mountains inspired me to trying taking this site to the next level. I'm proud to present the new BothKindsOfHeavy.com. No more free Weebly site here. Some of the content didn't port over as expected, so my first order of business is to try figuring that out. But in the meantime, I'll continue my regular features such as New Music Friday and hope to start adding content more frequently. Thank you in advance for reading!

It's hard to believe that I'll be flying out to Fire in the Mountains in a little more than a week. Of course, I'm spending a lot of time with bands on the bill. I had a lot of fun delving into Enslaved's catalog, and while I don't have the time to highlight another band with such an extensive library, I figured I could knock out a shorter discography or two. Which brings me to another one of the festival's big draws: the reunited ​SubRosa. 

Many years ago, I briefly met Ronnie James Dio. 

I've told this story many times in person, but I realized that I had never written it down. In truth, it's a pretty small encounter, but it's never failed to bring a smile to the face of whatever metal-loving fan I've told it to, and hopefully it will do the same for you. 

As the highest-billed band on the Fire in the Mountains lineup that I'm not super familiar with, I've decided to do a deep dive on Enslaved as the festival draws nearer. I listened to the band's entire studio album discography in order and wrote a few quick thoughts on each album as I listened to them. I skipped the live albums, collections, and other releases that fell outside the boundaries of their proper studio releases. My goal with this project it to prepare for their set at the festival, and perhaps establish a new feature for this site - I may do similar deep dives on other bands in the future. 

Read my thoughts on each album below.