Durf's Weekly Workout # 16: May 7, 2021

When I first decided to do this post every week, the idea was simple: I wanted to listen to more music than I had in years past, and I wanted to write more.  Durf's Weekly Workout is literally just the easiest way for me to do both, incorporating music and writing into my already daily routine of working out.  So now that it's been almost four months, I figured it was time for a check-in from me/update for you on how that's all working out.

As of April 30th, I had listened to 164 albums, EPs, splits, and singles; by the time you read this, there's a very solid chance that I've surpassed my 2020 total of 176 albums listened to.  So it's hard to complain about anything there.  I was curious when I began this quest as to whether or not increasing my musical intake would just lead to my listening to more trash, but quite the opposite has happened.  Sure, there's been a few duds, but the amount of solid or great music that I've listened to this year is almost overwhelming.  My fears of not finding anything new by listening to more music appear to be as dumb as they sound; there is SO MUCH great music being produced right now, and so it makes perfect sense that listening to more music in general would reveal more of that great stuff to me.  I've also become a lot more open to a few genres (hello, grindcore!) that I've normally shied away from, which is definitely a cool feeling.

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...

Crypt Sermon - The Ruins of Fading Light

2019 has been a strong year for doom, the fore bearers Candlemass, Saint Vitus have re-emerged and newer bands like Smoulder and Magic Circle continue to make their presence felt in the underground. But what about 2015 critical darling Crypt Sermon? Their epic ode to traditional doom, a stellar debut and this writer's top album of said year was sure to be followed soon. But life intervenes. Their bass position was temporarily held by Matt Knox of Horrendous and their drummer Enrique Sagarnaga and guitarist Steve Jansson have been busy playing shows with Daeva. So here we are four years later and finally the band has decided to put out their sophomore effort, The Ruins of Fading Light. Again vocalist Brooks Wilson is responsible for the breathtaking artwork as well as excellent pipes throughout the disc. Enter new bassist Frank Chin who was also recruited from Daeva and we have Crypt Sermon circa 2019. Will you want to go back to the Garden or head straight for the Ruins? More after the jump.

Eye of Solitude / Marche Funébre - Split

I used to not be too big on splits.  I think that 's because I thought I wasn't getting enough music; usually a track or two from each band adds up to around 20 minutes, and I tend to want more, because I am a greedy American.  Lately though, I've been coming around, helped by some longer splits; there was the fantastic CHRCH/Fister split from last year, in addition to this year's Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard/Slomatics release Totems.  Giving splits - or at least doomy splits - a chance was beginning to pay off!  So obviously when the new split from Eye of Solitude and Marche Funébre hit the ol' Töp inbox, I was going to check it out.

Tanakh - Unwilling

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I am a bit of a morning person.  I like to get up early, have a cup of coffee or six, and make breakfast before heading off to work, and sometimes that leaves me time to look for new music.  I know I've mentioned before that "look for new music" usually starts with checking out No Clean Singing, which is what I did the other morning.  There were quite a few great things that jumped out at me, but as you've no doubt surmised, the one that really caught my attention was an embed of the debut EP Unwilling by Sioux Falls, South Dakota band Tanakh.  Tanakh features Nick Murphy on vocals and Michael Iverson on all the instruments, which would be impressive even if the music on Unwilling were half as good as it actually is.  Being that it's actually pretty great, it's pretty mind-bendingly impressive.

New GIF: "Khemmis - GIFted"

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- Mick

New GIF - "Crypt Sermon - Out of the GIF"

 

Be sure to check out more of our gifs on our gifs page!

- Mick