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. 

I'm starting with the weirdest first. Above is the first single from the Irish band Rùn, which combines sludge/stoner metal with Irish folk, jazz, noise, and a little bit of everything else. I discovered this band by accident when I looked into another album on the same label (Rocket Recordings) and wound up on their mailing list. The first two singles clicked with me immediately, so I bit the bullet and paid the ridiculous shipping to preorder this self-titled album (and that other one - hey, if I'm gonna pay a ridiculous amount for postage, might as well make it count). Fortunately, after listening to the full album, I'm already sure it was worth it. I'll be unpacking this dense, experimental record for a long time, and already expect it will end up on my personal top 10 list. 

The new Deftones album Private Music is simultaneously striking me as "more Deftones" and somewhat surprising in its variety. There are a few hints of what an elder statesman version of Chino Moreno might sound like - at times his vocals have made me think of David Bowie's techno period and at other times recalled Bryan Ferry's crooner albums. But don't get it wrong - there's still a lot of dreamy heaviness here. I'm going to need to spend more time exploring this one as well. 

Mastodon has been a big topic of conversation this week, so I had to throw the new album by Brann Dailor's side project Arcadea. I don't know if The Exodus of Gravity is going to keep me coming back for repeated listens, but these synth-driven tracks should be a hit with those folks who like Brann's vocals. The jury is still out for me on this one, honestly.