Durf's Weekly Workout # 15: April 30th, 2021

This was one of those weeks where I have absolutely no idea how I got to five workouts, let alone how I found time to write about the five albums I listened to while getting those workouts in.  Small miracles, man, small miracles.  Anyway, because of that, I'm skimping on this intro a little, by which I mean it's now over already, and we're on to the lifts and music!

Durf's Weekly Workout # 14: April 23rd, 2021

A couple of weeks ago, I was minding my own business, doing nothing in particular, when I stumbled across this.  I was intrigued, and then confused, because it all seemed so familiar, and yet so different.  I feel like there's already a pretty definitive blog dedicated to workouts and metal, I just can't quite remember where.  Maybe I should ask Decibel about it; they clearly found this other, superior blog post and then tweaked the idea to fit their needs...

Durf's Weekly Workout # 13: April 16th, 2021

With spring here in Idaho in full bloom, the weather is starting to warm up and the yard work is starting to begin.  Outside of the difficulties in wrangling a toddler while trying to pull weeds, or finding energy to get some work done on a random Wednesday after a ten hour day, I really enjoy working in the yard.  It's incredibly rewarding to see the results of a day (or hour's, sometimes) work, and I can feel myself totally slipping into the Wranglers of a washed, mid-thirties dad who takes way too much pride in his yard because he's convinced himself it's a hobby since it's the only thing he has time to do on the weekends.  But I digress.

Naturally, 90% of my yardwork is done with headphones in, listening to either Tigers games or music.  This year, I'm going to add yardwork to commuting and working out as "Time When I Can Listen to New Music," but I'm not as confident in that sticking as much as it has with the other two.  For whatever reason, when I step out to mow the lawn or trim the hedges, there is a certain je nais se qua that I'm looking for in an album, and I have turned off the lawnmower to switch albums mid-mow, despite being certain that what I was listening to was what I wanted to hear.  It's weird, man.  And it's definitely albums, not bands; Khemmis' Hunted is probably my all-time favorite yardwork album, but none of their other albums have it.  Sunbather and Ordinary Corrupt Human Love have it; Roads to Judah and New Bermuda don't.  Metallica's first four albums have it in spades.  Kanye's The College Dropout is an amazing yardwork album; My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a much better album but doesn't hold up as well to the grind of the grass.  You get the idea.  Anyway, as I start mowing the lawn again, and looking for new music, maybe I'll find some new classic yardwork tunes to add to my rotation and then talk about them here.  Or maybe I won't, and I'll just listen to Ride the Lightning again and keep it to myself.  Try not to let the suspense bother you.  On to the workouts!

Paysage d'Hiver - Geister

Black metal in its purest form, which I associate with the Norwegian, second wave mold, is an area that I've never spent a ton of time deep-diving. I've listened enough to appreciate the contributions its had in metal's evolution, but aside from A Blaze in the Northern Sky, the rawness of this sub-genre's sound has never connected with me on the primal level you often hear it being touted for. That all changed for me when solo project Paysage d'Hiver emerged from obscurity last year with his release of Im Wald. Though one would understandably think an album with a two hour runtime would be a bit of slog, Im Wald managed to cultivate an aura that elevated it from "just" a black metal album into an all-encompassing journey. It made clear to me that Paysage d'Hiver's 20+ years worth of demos was something I had to dig into. I have yet to take that plunge, but the project's second full-length endeavor, Geister, is here to remind me of how that procrastination is, for lack of a better word, dumb.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 12: April 9th, 2021

It's April, which means baseball is back!  This is two-thirds a big deal for us at Brutalitopia, where a full 66.6% of us are huge baseball fans; Tom loves his Mets, I'm a diehard Tigers fan, and Mick is fully content to spend summer waiting for Bears season to start.  I'm always excited to watch as much baseball as possible, something that I'm sure I will not have to change or adjust at all this year despite my overwhelming sense of having absolutely no time for anything whatsoever.  Maybe I can convince work to pay me to stay home and watch baseball instead of, like, building things onsite.  A boy can dream.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 11: April 2, 2021

You know, when March started and I found myself with a second kid and a scheduled vasectomy and a work schedule approaching 55 or more hours a week, I said to myself "You can do this."  And, shockingly, by and large I've managed to, in fact, do this.  I'm pretty proud of myself, except now is the part where I say that of all the things I thought would drop from these posts over the last month, the last one I expected was this little blurb up top.  I figured I'd always have something to say, always want to shoot my mouth off about something, but that hasn't been the case.  These entry paragraphs have, in fact, been the absolute hardest part of this whole endeavor, and I woke up at 2am three times this week because I had to be at work early and still wanted to lift.  It's crazy how that happens.  And so, in the vein of cutting myself some slack, I hereby declare the intro paragraph over, and the music paragraphs beginning.  Onward!