Starting a review is like picking one of many doors into the world of an album. Sometimes, the door to choose is obvious. For a songwriter known for profound or incisive lyrics, you simply choose the door labeled "lyrics." For an artist known as a next-level guitar player, you take the door labeled "guitar." But what door do you take when there are many that all seem equally exciting? Take, for example, the new album Wasteland by Portugal's Travo. I initially saw this advertised as a heavy psychedelic rock album. There's a lot that fits under that umbrella, but I still have a basic expectation of what that sounds like. But diving into Wasteland, I hear many elements that don't fit neatly into that box. I always find music that colors outside the lines quite compelling - there's no neat comparison here, so there's no obvious place to start with the review. The only way to figure it out is to pick a door and try to find a way back out.  

One of the real joys of writing about heavy music is its expansiveness. I've written about this before, but there are so many ways to make heavy music, and that freedom allows for a much broader range of sounds than most music genres. With this review of Ohio's Valley of The Sun, I have now reviewed 12 albums, and none particularly sound like any of the others. Click through to that page and you'll see black metal, noise rock, heavy industrial, synthwave, and now, with the addition of The Blacklight Sessions, some good old-fashioned stoner rock.  

A little more than a week ago, I was at a neighborhood festival full of vendor booths for food, clothing, collectables, and political candidates. While perusing, I came across a booth unlike any of the others: a guy sitting on his own with a small box of records and an iPhone connected to a pair of headphones. I stopped to check it out, and discovered it was musician Tommy Ratz promoting his band, Toilet Rats. A handwritten sign declared it synth music for fans of bands like The Cure, New Order, and bands along those lines. We chatted, and I told him that I would check out his album for possible coverage. While the band might not be metal, there's a lot about the album Black Cats that makes it easy to recommend to BKOH readers. 

Back in the late 90s, I was working in a record store in the suburbs of Minneapolis. This may sound like a foreign concept in 2026, but back then we had a good number of regulars would would come into the store just to hang out. Most of them were teenagers from the area who liked metal, hard rock, goth, or alternative music. They'd spend an hour or two just chilling in the store, listening to whatever we were playing and chatting with each other and the employees about music. Of course, when they had money they would buy CDs. Sometimes, they would be in the mood to buy something but didn't know what, and would ask for recommendations. When this would happen, I would go out to the floor, grab a copy of Songs of Love and Hate by Godflesh, unwrap it, and pop it into the CD player. 

Strictly speaking, I was not allowed to do this. If the kid looking for a recommendation wasn't into it, the store would be stuck with a copy of an album we could no longer sell as new. But that never happened. I pulled this trick with that Godflesh album at least two or three times, and every time the person decided they wanted the album about 30 seconds into the first track, "Wake." The grinding industrial noise, thrumming base, and circular, crushing guitar that kick off that album are one hell of an intro to a band. It still hits just as hard today. 

A little more than 30 years later, Godflesh is back with their penultimate album, Decay. Recorded during the same sessions that produced their previous album, Purge, Decay and the upcoming, as-yet-announced/untitled final Godflesh album will be the last for the band because mastermind Justin Broadrick has been medically ordered to retire the band. Does Decay hold the same power as the band's earlier work to convert listeners to instant fans? Read on. 

It's been said that bad times lead to good art. Indeed, it has been fascinating and reassuring to hear how different artists have responded to the soul-crushing years we are living in. We are awash in music that is reflecting in our current darkness, and Emma Ruth Rundle does not shy away from the horrors of the world on her new album, These Killing Times. But, fortunately, nor does she shy away from hope. 

On a whim, I recently participated in an online focus group about modern country music. While listening to these song snippets, I was astonished to hear that all the songs sounded the same. Not similar, the same. The same glossy production, the same vocal styles, the same beats per minute and instrumentation. They all sounded terrible to my ears, but that’s beside the point – what I took away from the experience was the absolute lack of diversity in sound. 

Heavy music, on the other hand, is all about diversity of sound. This is my third review this week, and all three albums sound entirely different. A big part of what enables this diversity, I would argue, is heavy music’s embrace of “ugly” sounds. Other genres shy away from tension and discordance, forces that heavy musicians can wield to incredible results. Take, for example, the band Amplifiers and their new album, The Inevitability of Disillusionment. 

We live in a world where there is much to be angry about. I'm not even going to attempt to list out the major issues affecting our society today - I would certainly miss hundreds, if not thousands, of major topics that are deserving of white hot, boiling rage. Because of the nature of the music I cover, I find myself listening to a lot of albums that tackle the grand scale of injustice in the world. On the other hand, the new album by New York's Wellness presents a more focused distillation of rage. Whereas something like Chat Pile's new album takes on the collective failures of 21st Century life, Wellness are more laser-focused on more specific, yet no less substantive, societal issues, which they take on in a concentrated 16-minute explosion of righteous indignation. 

Many, many years ago, I was a professional video game critic. I was on staff at a video game magazine and I was paid, among other things, to play video games and share my opinions of them. An untold number of years later, I'm once again playing the critic role (although no one is paying me for my opinions at the moment!), and I am reminded of the differences of consuming media as a fan and as a critic. There is indeed a difference - critics are expected to have a wider breadth of knowledge about the art form they write about, and once you start shifting into critic mode, it's difficult to turn it off for recreational consumption. One of the duties of the critic, of course, is to spend time with art that might not be a perfect match to their individual tastes. Sometimes that means spending time with art that you genuinely dislike. Sometimes, that means discovering something you enjoy that you might not have otherwise. Such is the case with me and Vorara, the debut album by Chicago's Become Death. 

Occasional guest posts aside, Both Kinds of Heavy is a one-man operation. As such, there are limits to both what I'm able to cover, and what I'm willing to cover. I'm always going to favor advance reviews, because I want to help people learn about exciting upcoming music. And if it's a smaller band that doesn't have a huge marketing push, even better. Sometimes, however, I'll chose to cover an already-released album, as long as it interests me and could use a little more awareness. Additional bonus points awarded to bands that are, like this site, a one-person operation. All apply to the new Breaths album, Descent, which released digitally on August 7. 

Sometimes, you want a record that makes you feel like you need a shower afterwards. Just me? No, if you're on this site you're likely interested in music that's fast, fuzzy, and grimy. Then I've got an album for you: Libertine by Brooklyn's Foreign Body. In just a half-hour, Libertine will transport you into a world that feels a lot like 1970s New York City, where trash litters the streets and the people you encounter are all up to something shady.