I wasn't planning on writing a post today, considering the post-Thanksgiving Turkey coma. But, I find myself with some time on my hands, and it's a pretty solid release day. What tipped me over the edge was the discovery of a couple solid Bandcamp finds, so away we go!

Up first is Live in Brussels by Brutus. With three studio albums and two live albums, Brutus' live album output feels off, and their first one, Live in Ghent, opens with more immediacy. That said, Brutus may very well be the best live band on the planet right now, so they get a pass. 

I stumbled across this album this morning while browsing Reddit and saw there were some free codes up for grabs. I'm a sucker for free post-metal (more on that below), so I grabbed one and was very happy that I did. As True As The Sky is a one-man instrumental project, and The Shadows That Consume Us is the first release under that name. I'm guessing this isn't creator Derik Nieman's first recorded music - this is very polished stuff. It's closer to the post-rock of bands like Mogwai than the heavier instrumentals of standard-bearers of post-metal like Russian Circles, but definitely has some heft in places. There's a weird vocal sample (?) in the second track I found distracting rather than additive, but otherwise I enjoyed this quite a bit. 

Here's another band I came across this week because of my inability to pass up free Bandcamp codes. Like As True As The Sky, T R Y S T E are a blackgaze band out of Dublin, Ireland who were also passing out codes on Reddit this week. Definitely the heavier of the two Reddit discoveries of the week, TRYSTE (I'm only doing their preferred spacing thing once, sorry) has both clean vocals and some harsh screaming, but leans towards the clean on much of this release. These guys would fit very nicely onto a tour with Alcest. 

Finally, I'm going to do something I've never done before and write about a couple of releases I haven't actually heard yet. Magnetic Eye Records has been doing their Redux series for several years now, paying tribute to beloved artists with various artists tribute compilations. These projects usually contain two separate releases, one covering a classic album in full and one covering other favorite tracks. Today's subject is Nine Inch Nails, who are honored with The Best of Nine Inch Nails (Redux) and The Downward Spiral (Redux). Even though I haven't had a chance to hear all of these albums yet, I'm confident enough in the artists included and the track record of Magnetic Eye that I'm sure these will be worth listening to - which I'm sure I'll do before the day is over. 

I've previously shared Thou's nasty cover of "Suck," and as I write this, I'm listening to Grayceon's version of "Right Where It Belongs," which is a very natural pairing. I'm exciting to get to Author & Punisher's version of "Reptile," which promises to be... grimy. 

Happy listening, all.