Happy Friday! Here's what caught my attention from this week's new release drop. 

I love the way it goes THUUUMMMMMM and then transitions to EEEEEEHHHHH with a bit of MMMMM in the background
- A 10/10 comment on the YouTube video above. Perfect, no notes. 

I'm pretty new to Ragana. They're coming to town in a couple weeks for a queer metal festival that I'm considering going to, so I've been checking them out and they've really been clicking with me. The new single that dropped this week took me off guard - it's much gentler than their other stuff, until it isn't. This only makes me more excited to catch them live.

Flagman is another pretty recent discovery for me, and they are... weird. There's a lot of Primus in their DNA, as well as a lot of Mr. Bungle. Their new EP, Before the Blast, adds a fair bit of Psalm 69-era Ministry as well, and perhaps a little bit of Tool. Anyway, they're interesting. They were just in Minneapolis a couple weeks back, but I was out of town. I'll definitely try to catch them next time they roll through. 

I'm closing things off today with Feral Darkness, the new album from Tombs. Sounds like these guys have been around for a while, but they're new to me (it's a theme this week) as of today. Frontman Mike Hill lists bands like Neurosis, Swans, Joy Division, and Bauhaus as influences, which is another way of saying "Inject this straight into Jeremy's veins." This one is going to send me down a Tombs rabbit hole, I suspect.

EDIT:
I didn't catch until hours after I published this post that the new Smote album dropped today. Like the one man band's earlier release this year, Clyppan, today's album Songs from the Free House is trippy, hypnotic, doomy, folky, and heavy - all at once. There's a lot to unpack in just the first song alone. As I wrote about before, I ordered Smote's last album and another release from Rocket Recordings earlier in the year, and this one was announced shortly after. Had I known at the time this was coming, I would have wait and preordered this album as well. I wouldn't have regretted that decision, either. Ah well.

Have a good weekend! #NoKings