Here we are at another Friday, with yet another big pile of new metal staring us in the face and not nearly enough time to make much of a start in selecting recommendations before the sun gets high in the sky (or is replaced by the moon where you might live).

I’m reminded of the statement attributed to Laozi about how the journey of a thousand miles begins, a proverb that usually doesn’t motivate me at times like this, when a thousand-yard stare is all I can usually muster. But today I tried harder to take the proverb to heart, and actually made two steps. Unless like puts a bog in my path, more steps will follow tomorrow and Sunday.

WOE (U.S.)

My first selection is a new song from Legacies of Frailty, a new album by Woe and the first one since 2017’s Hope Attrition. Since then, it’s hard to deny that the human world around us has slid backward, more rapidly and in more disgusting ways than even the pessimists among us had contemplated, and the natural world has suffered for it as well.

These developments certainly weighed on the mind of Chris Grigg, who for the first time since 2007 made this Woe album by himself (albeit with additional drumming on three tracks by Lev Weinstein). The result is a concept album, described by Grigg in these words: Continue reading »