So ‘homage to friends and influences’ is what’s going on here, but that’s long to fit in a headline, so ‘covers EP’ will have to do. In any case, Borracho‘s upcoming Eternos celebrates some of those lost in the last years, from Robert “Strings” Dahlqvist of The Hellacopters, who died in 2017, to Bruce Falkinburg, who died in 2022. Rev. Jim Forrester‘s murder still resonates as a shock to the Baltimorean underground he called home, and Dave Sherman‘s passing left a void that Maryland doom may never be able to fill. Add Will Mecum of Karma to Burn to the list, and you get someone that Borracho likely knew and who also had a massive influence on heavy rock, laying out a blueprint that instrumental bands the world over continue to follow. Can’t really argue with the selection here.
Those were tough losses. I didn’t know Dahlqvist, but I do know that The Hellacopters were an influence on Borracho, especially early on, so you know, you don’t have to necessarily know somebody to feel a thing when they die, not the least if their work touched your life in some way. Below, you’ll find the premiere of “A Heart Without a Home” as the first single from Eternos, followed by copious context from the PR wire. The release is out Feb. 19.
As always, I hope you enjoy:
Borracho Announces Eternos — A Tribute EP Celebrating Fallen Brothers of the Underground
Veteran heavy rock trio Borracho is proud to announce the upcoming release of Eternos, a deeply personal EP of cover songs honoring five beloved friends and musical influences who have passed on, out February 19, 2026. The first single, “A Heart Without a Home,” is out now, with preorders and early access available at borracho.bandcamp.com.
Borracho take a heartfelt approach on Eternos, transforming five hand picked tracks into a collective tribute rooted in reverence, memory, and shared passion.
“These guys weren’t just friends, they were individuals we looked up to and inspired us.” writes the band in the Eternos liner notes. “We decided that the best way to pay homage to them is to let the music do the talking. So let’s all raise a glass and celebrate their contribution to the cosmos. And while these giants have left this plane their music is eternal.”
The five carefully curated tracks on Eternos are each dedicated to the memory of a departed artist whose work shaped the band’s musical journey:
Fang (Spirit Caravan) — in memory of Dave Sherman Keep On Shoveling (Foghound) — in memory of Rev. Jim Forrester Twenty Nine (Karma to Burn) — in memory of Will Mecum Damyata (The Hidden Hand) — in memory of Bruce Falkinburg A Heart Without a Home (The Hellacopters) — in memory of Robert “Strings” Dahlqvist
The first single, “A Heart Without a Home,” is a low and slow interpretation of The Hellacopters deep cut — a fitting first taste of the record. It’s out now on all streaming platforms, and is included in all Eternos preorders on Bandcamp.
Eternos will be available worldwide across all streaming platforms, digital download, and in CD format. Preorders are now open via Borracho’s Bandcamp page (borracho.bandcamp.com).
Don’t miss Borracho on the road supporting the new record on the east and west coasts, including appearances at the Mojave Experience and Knights of Doom festivals.
Feb 3 – Pie Shop, Washington DC w/ Ritual Arcana & Foehammer Feb 21 – Lucky 13 Saloon, Brooklyn NY w/ Sun Voyager, Guhts & The Crooked Skulls (EP Release show) March 11 – Metro Gallery, Baltimore MD w/ The Obsessed & Foghound March 18 – The Escondite, Los Angeles CA w/ Doomboyz & Sonic Blossoms March 19 – Tower Bar, San Diego CA, w/ Nebula Drag & Space Wax March 20 – Mojave Gold, Yucca Valley CA for Mojave Experience April 20 – Pie Shop, Washington DC w/ Leather Lung & Weed Coughin’ (TBC) June 21 – Cafe 611, Frederick MD for Knights of Doom
BORRACHO: Steve Fisher – Guitar, Vocals Mario Trubiano – Drums, Percussion Tim Martin – Bass, Backing Vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 6th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Washington D.C. heavy rockers Borracho released their sixth album, Ouroboros (review here), through Ripple Music last August, and it looks like they’ll spend a decent portion of 2026 supporting it. They were previously announced for Mojave Experience Fest in March, and they’ve announced dates around that with stops in San Diego and Los Angeles leading them to the festival. They’ve got East Coast shows this and next month as well, keeping company with Clamfight, Sun Voyager, Guhts, The Obsessed and others.
Not the most extensive tour ever, but it doesn’t need to be and it won’t be the last time Borracho get out this year. If you caught the initial wave of announcements for Ripplefest Texas 2026 (posted here), you’ll note Borracho were in there, and likely they’ll do other shows en route one way or the other. The trio also recently signed with Broken Music for European booking, heralding a European tour for Oct. 2026 that, just by virtue of the month in question, will likely include a few festival stops. I don’t know what else they might have in store, but a return to Europe alone is plenty to plan for throughout the course of this year.
Those dates, obviously, are still TBA, but here are the next couple months’ worth of shows Borracho are playing. Looking hard at that Lucky 13 gig, I am.
From social media:
Happy new year! We’re gonna be out playing some shows for y’all over the next few months, from the east to the west. Mark your calendars, and get ticket links in our bio. Friday night Mojave Experience show is already sold out!
Jan 24 – Philly at Century Bar w/Clamfight, Boozewa & God Called in Sick Feb 3 – DC at Pie Shop w/ Ritual Arcana Feb 21 – Brooklyn at Lucky 13 w/ Sun Voyager, Guhts & The Crooked Skulls March 11 – Baltimore at Metro w/ The Obsessed & Foghound March 18 – LA at The Escondite w/ Doomboyz & Sonic Blossoms March 19 – San Diego at The Tower Club w/ Nebula Drag March 20 – Yucca Valley at Mojave Gold for Mojave Experience Fest
BORRACHO: Steve Fisher – Guitar, Vocals Mario Trubiano – Drums, Percussion Tim Martin – Bass, Backing Vocals
Posted in Reviews on November 19th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I was gonna do this whole week, happy Monday, happy Tuesday, happy Wednesday, but I happen to feel like an asshole typing the words “happy Wednesday,” so I’m going to refrain. Hope your week isn’t awful, in any case.
Or if it is, I hope music can help make it better. This Quarterly Review has been a breeze thus far and looking at the lineup for today I expect the trend to continue. Thanks for hanging in with it. We pass the halfway mark today and will wrap up on Friday, with 50 releases covered throughout the week.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Amorphis, Borderland
Yeah, okay, you can go ahead and cancel the rest of the review. Yup, I know. I’d love to sit here and talk about how Finland’s Amorphis, some 35 years and upwards of 16 full-lengths later, are still refining their processes, conjuring melodic intricacy, and celebrating death metal in kind. I’d love to talk about the progressive strains in Borderland, or about how as recognizable as Amorphis are, they’re still able to find new ways to balance the keys and guitar, or to switch up the vocals, or even just to chug proggier on “Light and Shadow” and “Fog to Fod,” whatever it might be. I’d love to talk about all of that, but you see, the thing is… “Bones.” Specifically, the riff thereof, swept into with crushing majesty and rolled forth with knows-what-it-has certainty of the type one would expect from a long-established pro-shop genre-innovating band like Amorphis. I could go on about all the other stuff, but that riff is gonna be all you need to know ahead of time. I’ll hope to have it in my head for the next year or so.
One could spend the rest of this space recounting Joe Hasselvander‘s pedigree, from Death Row to Pentagram to Raven to The Hounds of Haseelvander, with stints in countless others including Blue Cheer besides, but that doesn’t tell you much about the doom of Fire on the Mountain. Hasselvander‘s third solo outing under his name and first in 25 years follows a traditional pattern of Doom Capitol blue-collar riffing that, it has to be acknowledged, Hasselvander had a part in establishing, while the man himself plays all instruments and handles vocals, at time with a bit of a lounge-singer edge with spoken lines, but when he reaches for the higher note in third cut “Holy Water,” a big moment in the song, it’s there for him. “Prodigal Sun” is one of several images taken from the bible and would seem to be autobiographical, and he ends with a fitting apex of nod and shred in “Darkest Before the Dawn.” He’s said he has plans for more, and indeed, Fire on the Mountain sounds more like a beginning than an end.
A current of crackling, tube-heating distortion begins in “Spine,” which introduces Kariti‘s third album, Still Life, and indeed even amid the The Keening-esque piano of “Nothing” and the title-track a short time later, that hard-toned drone becomes a backbone for the material. It’s not always there — arrangements are fluid around the central guitar/keys/voice — but for an artist working in a style so intentionally mindful of aesthetic, the My Bloody Valentine-esque noise swell of “Suicide by a Thousand Cuts,” the emergence of the static in “Naiznanku” and the rumble behind the closing prayer “Baptism” bring dark avant garde experimentalism to traditionalist melodies. This is what Kariti has been developing since 2020’s Covered Mirrors (review here), working with guitarist Marco Matta on a deepening collaboration. While retaining folkish intimacy thanks to the quiet stretches around this distorted crunch (looking at you, “Purge”), Kariti has never sounded farther-reaching.
They don’t make ’em like Burning Sister anymore, and listening to Ghosts, I’m less sure they ever did. Because as much as the Colorado now-twosome of bassist/vocalist/synthesist Steve Miller and drummer Alison Salutz continue to foster a druggy ’90s-type slackerism amid all the crash in opener “Brokedick Icarus” and the drawling march of “No Space or Time,” they’ve also never quite sounded as much themselves. There’s psychedelic shimmer in the noise swirling in the later reaches of “Stellar Ghost,” and “Lethe//Oblivion” (premiered here) is made all the more a ceremony with the thread of synth and/or amplifier hum. Meanwhile, “Swerve (Dead Stars)” would work as a new wave arrangement, I can feel it, and the longest-song-by-a-second “Dead Love” (7:20) closes with a thrilling roll and languid procession, reinforcing the downerism that’s been essential to Burning Sister since their outset. Whatever comes in the future, being a duo suits these songs.
A quick turnaround third full-length from London’s The Lunar Effect will be nothing to complain about for those who (like me) got on board with the London heavy rock outfit via last year’s Sounds of Green and Blue (review here). Also on Svart, the follow-up brims with cohesion in its songwriting and purpose in its twists, with the opener “Feed the Hand” establishing the command that proves unwavering through “Watchful Eye,” the brash speed-shuffler “Five and Two” and the lonely sway of “My Blue Veins” before “Stay With Me” modernizes Graveyardian soul en route to the grunge-riffed centerpiece “Settle Down.” The dynamic continues to expand with the piano-led “I Disappear” speaking to a burgeoning reach in songwriting, while “A New Moon Rises” regrounds and “Scotoma” smoothly finds a niche in desert rock that probably hundreds of bands wish they could make their own, and “Nailed to the Sky” rounds out by going big on tone and emotionality alike. So far, these guys are a better band than people know. They inject a little drama to these proceedings, and it sounds like there’s more to come.
While the closing title-track has a thread of prog metal that reminds of mid-period Devin Townsend, Auckland, New Zealand’s King Cruel back their 2023 Creeper three-song EP with a marked sense of atmosphere, the melodies of careening lead track “Haunting Time” calling to mind Boston’s Worshipper in their metallic underpinnings, shred and thoughtful melody. Sky Eater is my first exposure to the band, whose style balances mood and impact smoothly, and whose hooks are inviting without being cloying, as in “Diamond Darya,” which digs in and rides its central riff with a stoner rocker’s dedication and a poise that comes from knowing why they’re doing it. The aforementioned capper is the catchiest of the bunch, but King Cruel, goal-wise, have more in their sights than catchiness, and given the sprawl they lay out here, one can’t help but wonder if a debut album won’t be next.
I won’t claim to know how it was made, between what’s improvised, layered in, overdubbed, conjured from ethereal planes beyond the limits of understanding, and so on, but Angad Berar‘s eight-track/50-minute Sundae is indeed a sweet dish of psychedelic immersion. The Berlin-based solo artist made it in collaboration with guitarist/synthesist/bassist Kartik Pillai, while drummer Siddharth Kaushik sits in on the 10-minute penultimate cut and vocalist Chrisrah guests on the only song that isn’t a numbered jam, the moody mellow liquefier “Driving With You” before “Jam #3” and the horn sounds of “Jam #4” re-immerse the listener in slow-churning fluidity. “Jam #6,” with the live drums and extended runtime, is pointedly hypnotic in its first half, but has some Endless Boogie-type rock angularity later that makes it fun, while the closing “Jam #7” offers a seven-minute drone meditation before handing the listener back over to reality. Serenity abounds if you know where to find it.
Trevor’s Head, Fall Toward the Sun // Majesty and Harmony
Admirably celebrating their 15th anniversary in 2025 with touring and new music, UK melodic heavy rockers Trevor’s Head bring the Abbey Road-recorded “Fall Toward the Sun” and “Majesty and Harmony” together, not quite to encapsulate their sound or everything they’ve accomplished in their time, but to typify the ethic of marking the occasion by doing the thing itself; that is, they’re writing music because it’s what they love to do. “Fall Toward the Sun” and “Majesty and Harmony” both have an edge of aired-out ’90s-type noise rock — nothing new for Trevor’s Head in terms of style — but where they hit you with it up front in the first song, the latter holds its payoff in reserve for when they depart the titular harmonies and get to the surge of crunch in the midsection. Running seven minutes total, you wouldn’t accuse Trevor’s Head of overindulging, but instead, they give their fans and followers something new to dig into that in ethic and realization can only serve as a reminder of their appeal in the first place.
Burl, crunch, lumber, crush, groove and sprawl — the Rob Wrong (Witch Mountain)-recorded debut full-length from Portland, Oregon, riffchucking five-piece Ravine knows from whence it hails. There are some flashes of cosmic intention, but sludgier, earthbound nods pervade the five-track/47-minute outing, which holds its ambition not in a performative stylistic overreach — that is to say, Ravine are who they are musically; there’s no pretense here as they hit you with it straight forward — but in the course each of these tracks takes. Their heaviest onslaught might be in the willfully, almost gleefully grueling “Ennui,” of course the centerpiece, but even there Ravine aren’t content just to doom, or rock, or sludge out, etc., instead working to create a sense of momentum within the songs as each follows its own path, marking out its own place while adding to the whole. They’re not done growing, and I don’t think the balance of their approach is settled, but given what they already lay out, that’s a strength in their favor. This is the kind of debut that makes friends.
Sweden’s Malgomaj aren’t through the opening title-track (a bookending two-parter) of Valfiskens Buk before they’ve put forth primo hard boogie and inventive Sabbathry, classic in influence, modern in production/execution, and continuing to brim with movement as “Rembrants Skugga” and the softshow-ready “Hej Hej Malgomaj” back it. I suppose the elephant in the room here is Graveyard, but “Värddjur” has more Motörheaded foundations, and the instrumental “Itera Mot Solnedgången” hints toward Westernism before the seven-minute “Cyklopisk Betong” flattens with its early riff only to redirect to ’60s-ish garage jangle, so one wouldn’t accuse Malgomaj on this apparent debut of being singleminded, but neither are they lacking cohesion or flow between songs. “Stöttingfjället Rämnar” answers the heft of the track prior and “Det Är Nåt Fel På Solen” sets a languid march before “Valfiskens Buk Del 2” reprises the opener to make the album sound all the more complete, whether you speak the language or not.
Posted in Reviews on October 7th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
It hasn’t exactly been graceful so far, this Quarterly Review, but it’s gotten to where it’s needed to go across a tumultuous first two days, and I’ll take that as a positive sign of things to come. We’re in the thick of it now, with day three, and it’s a good day to dig in, so I won’t delay further except to say I hope you find something in here that you enjoy.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Vinnum Sabbathi, Intersatelital
Mexico City instrumentalists Vinnum Sabbathi have been plenty busy in the five years since their 2020 split with Comacozer (review here), whether it was collaborating with Rezn, touring multiple times in Europe, putting out a live record, etc., but the three-song Intersatelital EP is a welcome standalone studio return for the band just the same. Issued to coincide with their Summer ’25 Euro run, the 19-minute outing basks in 20th Century-era space exploration, with Spanish-language samples recounting the launch of early communications satellites for a kind of positive-future manifestation as the intro “Centro de Control Especial” flows into “Sistema de Satelites Morelos” and the 11-minute finale “Rodolfo Neri Vela,” which is both heavy enough to pay off the entire procession of the release and intense enough to convey escape velocity. The short version: Vinnum Sabbathi deliver again.
Past the medically-noisy intro “Flatline,” Crop‘s S.S.R.I. — the Lexington, Kentucky, sludgers’ second LP, named for the class of antidepressants — builds a massive wall of harsh-shout-topped sludge metal with “Formaldehyde,” big tones and big riffs resulting in big impact. Nothing to complain about, and I’m not complaining, but neither is that all they have to offer. A midsection break with vocals that if you come back in a decade will probably be clean hints at complexity in the composition, and sure enough, even the lumbering largesse of “Godamn” or the closer “Break” give hints of melody somewhere (the latter also some double-kick), and by the time they get to “10-56,” they’ve established their context enough that the dynamic will be apparent for those willing to hear it. That makes “Alone” less of a surprise with a more progressive reachout in its second half, followed by the echoing guitar interlude “Breath,” after which “Break” buries itself and everything else in lurching distortion and takes just a quick breather before the last and most vicious onslaught. They sound like they’re on a path of growth, but to be sure they’re also flattening everything on that same path.
Bloodsports are no more beholden to the post-grunge melancholy of “Rosary” than the outright crush of “Rot” just before or the willfully choppy succession of “Trio 1” and “Trio 2” that open its respective sides or the penultimate strum and cello of “A River Runs Through,” and their first album, Anything Can Be a Hammer envisions an intimate volatility. “Come, Dog” and the daringly straight-ahead “Calvin” find the Brooklynite four-piece (maybe sometimes a trio?) casting their lot with individual perspective almost as a side-effect of the personal expression the nine component tracks seem to convey, but also rock, and while at full-bore, the six-minute closing title-track is a forceful push revealing a prog-hardcore metal (Converge, Oathbreaker) influence somewhere in the band that provides a roiling payoff. It gets chaotic and they let it, so bonus points for all that noise. A lot will depend on whether or not they tour, but there’s a take developing in Bloodsports‘ sound that isn’t like much else out there. If they can hit it hard and tour, the potential is there to be realized.
Swedish heavy progressive psychedelic rockers Eyes of the Oak follow 2024’s sophomore LP, Neolithic Flint Dagger (review here), with the three-tracker Tripping Through Neon Skies, which pairs two originals in “Temple of Hallucinations” (5:08) and “Hitchhiking From the Mescaline Moon” (11:49), the latter drifting into a cosmically declarative crescendo that calls to mind Samsara Blues Experiment in its sweep, with a duly spaced-out take on AC/DC‘s “Hell’s Bells” that admirably balances loyalty to the original (why else would you cover it?) with the band’s will to make it their own in melody and reach. “Hitchhiking From the Mescaline Moon” is more of a voyage, of course, but “Temple of Hallucinations” casts itself out in vivid colors with a proggy hook and swells of vocal melody that add a light, not-unwelcome touch of the grandiose. It’s a big sound, and a big universe, and with these songs, Eyes of the Oak continue to carve out their place in it.
So here’s my story. Not knowing much about Virginia’s Pygmy Lush beyond their being well recommended and sharing members with Pageninetynine, I showed up to their set at this year’s Roadburn Festival, and found their punk-rooted, sometimes-loud Americana engaging enough that I knew I wanted to check out their first album in 14 years, Totem. Year goes on, blah blah, summer, blah blah everything is terrible, and I finally get around to the album and Totem blindsides with a post-hardcore swing and angularity, somewhat thinky-thinky-smart-dude in pieces like “Algorithmic Mercy (Prayers Printed Directly Into a Shredder),” and unhinged in the general impression in that way that sounds like it’s about to trip over itself the whole time but never actually does. Kind of a surprise, but it’s done well and I ain’t mad about it. I’m sure there’s a narrative to the whole thing that’s been rephrased however many times over by critics more erudite than I could or would ever be, or maybe the band is just dynamic (gasp!). They quiet down for “Nonsensical Whisper” at the end, too, so it’s not all shove, even if that does define the record in large part.
The second album from Berlin’s Sheev, Ate’s Alchemist, purports a theme of dark emotions and their ethereal origins, and I’m not entirely sure how that translates into the odd-timed chuggery that bookends “Elephant Trunk,” but the progressive metal/rockers make a showcase of scope across the eight cuts/49 minutes of the album, veering into and out of various microgenres, whether it’s the doomly overtone of “Cul de Sac” or the imagine-thrash-but-soaring of “Martef” after the intro “The Alchemist.” Clearly a band who’ve worked on their sound, who believe in what they do, and who have paid attention in class when it comes to fostering a unified feel across disparate sounds. There’s nowhere the album goes that finds Sheev out of place, and while the level of engagement for a given listener will depend on their ability to meet the band where they’re at, the arguments for doing so are myriad. There are about eight of them, actually. Funny how that’s the same number of songs included, right? Stick around for the mathy wash at the end of “Sabress.”
I mean, you might think you’re ready for what’s coming on Lähdön Aika‘s fourth full-length, Mustalle Maalle, but you’re probably wrong about that. Just because they’ve been a band for over 20 years doesn’t mean the atmospheric post-sludge extremists can’t still bash your skull with the throatripper-topped jabs of “Et enää mitään” or the speedy crusher “Paina pääsi alas” later on, the rawness of the vocals only one example of the levels on which the Finnish outfit make their sound an assault. As they make their way toward the 10-minute capper “Ihmishaketta,” “Teuraaksi Kastettu” delves into a post-metal that makes Amenra sound like Oasis and the lumber of “Viilto” becomes a downward march only after it’s already lowered the whole quarry onto your person. Physical oppression through music, is what I’m talking about. A grim world awaits you if you think you can handle it, but again, these guys are experienced. They know what they’re doing as they bask in the wanton slaughter of “Ikeestä.” It’s not an accident. There’s method to it. That makes the album feel even more dangerous.
Some of the early vibes on “Beam” or “Stonewall Angel” on Fuzz Thrower‘s self-titled debut — on CD thanks to Off the Record Label imprint, PowerWax Records — remind of Sungrazer‘s mellow heavy psych circa 15 years ago, and certainly the drifty interlude “Waves” backs that up, but Netherlands-based multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Tjeerd de Jong (also of Phantom Druid) grunges out in the march of “Nowhere,” gets more Sabbath-doomed for “Drooler” and the penultimate “Pictures of the Moon,” hints toward goth metal in “Ocean in the Sky,” and rounds out the nodder riffing of “Soon We Roam” with a sampled poetry reading, so no, things are not so easily accounted for in a single comparison point. So much the better. Across the album’s 29 minutes, de Jong presents a strong sense of trying out ideas — the way the vocals rest on top of “The End is Open,” for example — that might bring progression to subsequent releases, but there’s already depth to spare in the songwriting of this first outing. If/when he buys a keyboard, watch out.
It’s a secondary element, but don’t discount the synth work of drummer Daniel Figueroa on Moths‘ Septem EP, and if you’d like an example of why, check out “Pride.” The seven-track/26-minute offering takes each of its titles from the alleged seven deadly sins, with a full prog-metal brunt behind vocalist Mariel Viruet‘s noteworthy, growl-inclusive range as a singer. Guitarists Omar González (rhythm) and Jonathan Miranda (lead), bassist Weslie Negrón and Figueroa vary tempo and aggression to suit a given mood, and the keys are a bigger part of that than they might at first seem. Don’t tell the guitarists. The affect is definitely metal in pieces like “Gluttony” and “Greed,” while “Lust” lets the bass lead the groove, and “Wrath” — as good a place to end as any — pushes deeper into poised extremity with a blasting finish, the overarching density calling for nothing so much as repeat listens.
Pairing aggro, low-throat growl sludge with jammier takes, psychedelia, proggy riffing and a resolution in Iommic swing, the 28-minute “Subherbia” from Greenhead‘s debut album of the same name encapsulates on its own the kind of range one might expect (hope) for from a newcomer band, but the Washington D.C. trio don’t end there. Side B brings “Indigo,” “All Seeing Eye,” “Nature’s Pyramid” and “Purple God,” riding the blurred line between modern stoner largesse and classic doom riffing cohesively, letting “Nature’s Pyramid” punk up its chorus a bit as a precursor to the gang shouts of “Purple God.” I don’t know what genre you call it and I don’t care. I’m just happy to hear a new band mashing styles together to see what sticks and coming out it with a first LP that practically smacks you in the face with its ambition. What comes of it or doesn’t, whatever. I’ll take Subherbia as-is, thanks, and hope I’m lucky enough to see them do it live at some point.
[Click play above to stream Borracho’s Ouroboros in full. Album is out tomorrow on Ripple Music.]
As anybody who’s been alive long enough to form words can tell you, some things change and some things do not. And Borracho, the heavy groove-purveyor trio from Washington D.C. founded in 2007 and offering their first album for Ripple Music in the seven-song/41-minute Ouroboros, know what they’re doing. The returning trio of guitarist/vocalist Steve Fisher, bassist Tim Martin (also backing vocals) and drummer Mario Trubiano have been the steady, consistent lineup of Borracho since their second album, 2013’s Oculus (review here) (note as well the similarities in cover art), and the chemistry across pieces like “Lord of Suffering” and “Machine is the Master” is at an expected high. At the helm as ever is Frank “The Punisher” Marchand, who has produced and mixed every Borracho record (KentStump mastered), and while there aren’t a ton of surprises throughout, there are nuances to the sound that help give the record its personality.
To wit, Fisher‘s guitar feels more compressed in terms of tone, and its fuzz is more densely packed; there’s more crunch in it but it’s a lighter crunch; not like how you’re thinking Fu Manchu sound, but how they actually sound. “Vegas, Baby” opens with an immediately exclamatory feel, and the roll that quickly takes hold at the start of the album is definitive. Notable is the melody of the solo in the back half, given added reach through layering and fluidly executed in a way that ties well with the underlying riff, speaking to it rather than just shredding, and feeding the build, which as far out as it goes of course turns back to the verse cleanly when it’s done. Welcome to Borracho‘s wheelhouse. It’s full of high-grade, no-pretense, hook-prone heavy rock and roll made by three guys who’ve been at it for more than 15 years and whose love for each other bleeds through the music as much as anything else the songs might be expressing.
And while we’re here, let me be up front and say that I’m not backdoor-calling Borracho boring by highlighting the consistency of their work or the fact that they’re among the most reliable American underground heavy rock bands to come along during their time. Ouroboros reinforces this, whether it’s in the pointedly C.O.C.-type shouty choruses to release the instrumental tension build in “Lord of Suffering” or “Freakshow” or the hard-times-need-riff-rides finale “Broken Man.” At the same time, Borracho don’t neglect to showcase growth or progression in sound, or at least a willingness to screw with the formula a bit, and this too is something that’s both expected and appreciated. As hypnotic as their roller riffing is and has always been, “Vale of Tears” follows suit from “Loaded” off of 2023’s Blurring the Lines of Reality (review here) in taking advantage of that for a short instrumental course that’s more than an interlude but not as far reaching as the ‘regular’ tracks that surround, which are between five and a half and seven and a half minutes.
No, it’s not revolutionary, but that’s never been Borracho‘s aim. Even when they were a four-piece getting early-Bandcamp-hyped for 2011’s Splitting Sky (review here), they’ve always been more about craft than indulgence. Ouroboros finds them not only demonstrating how solid a foundation this provides for their work — their trademark ‘repetitive heavy grooves’ manage immersion that most acts either need four-meter pedal boards to elicit, if they can at all; that depth in combination with what’s essentially a straightforward sound and the dynamic between Fisher, Martin and Trubiano is the heart of what makes Borracho special — but harnessing some reach as well, whether that’s in the well-punctuated, leant-movement-by-tambourine-because-why-shouldn’t-armageddon-boogie “Machine is the Master” or the more brooding, second cut “Succubus,” the swirling fade-in of which tells you immediately that the palette has shifted.
But the story of Ouroboros isn’t going to be me telling you how it backs up what’s been the appeal of Borracho for the last decade — and if the band are new to you, that’s cool; it’ll work well as a place to start — and then completely undercuts that in its longest track. However much they may have made it stand out, Borracho are still Borracho on “Succubus.” Shaker behind the initial riff adds to the foreboding, and backward cymbals mark the entry of the thud en route to the easier flow of the verse, playing between the start-stop progression established and more open, melodic verse lines. For the most part, Fisher retains the gruff delivery that’s become such an identifiable element in the band’s take — “Succubus,” named for a female demon, feels on-theme with some of where 2021’s Pound of Flesh (review here) was at — but in the quieter section, the later spoken part and the swell of keyboard that fills out the reaches of the mix as they move toward the six-minute mark before bringing back the chorus is a moment to encapsulate how far Borracho have actually come, and just how much they’ve broadened the definition of who they are for themselves as well as for their listeners.
“Succubus” is masterful in how it works its way to the residual-hum ending, swirling out as it swirled in like the nightmare it would seem intended to be before the toms at the start of “Lord of Suffering” re-ground the proceedings. For those who’ve followed Borracho over the course of the last decade-plus-plus, the trio’s apparent comfort in their approach is harder-earned than they make it sound, and maturity suits their tempered pacing and weighted nod. Each of their records has been a step on the way to making a song like “Machine is the Master” land as hard as it does while still having something to say and not sounding like an asshole while saying it, and it may be that Ouroboros is another check-in from the band as they continue to walk their broader path, but that doesn’t make it any less of a landmark for them. It has dire admonitions, and lyrical moodiness is nothing new, but there’s as much in these songs that’s a celebration as a warning, and that too is signature Borracho.
“Freedom is free of the need to be free.” – Funkadelic
Even by the rather significant standard of funkadelia, this is a weird one. Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow was released in July 1970, which put it at four months’ remove from Funkadelic‘s self-titled debut (discussed here). Unsurprisingly, a lot of the same players show up. Guitarist Eddie Hazel steps into a more significant role vocally, handling leads on four songs to the prior album’s one, and in addition to George Clinton as the presiding visionary producer and preaching that the kingdom of heaven is within like a satanic shaman in the 10-minute pan-this-way-no-wait-now-that-way leadoff title-track, the likes of Calvin Simon, Ray Davis, Grady Thomas and Fuzzy Haskins are back on vocals, and guitarist Lucius “Tawl” Ross (who plays and also sings on “Funky Dollar Bill”), bassist Billy Nelson, drummer Tiki Fulwood and keymaster Bernie Worrell return as the backing band. Three uncredited women appear on the album: Martha Reeves, Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent, the latter two known as Dawn.
So, less than half a year after putting out one record, Funkadelic belt out a follow-up, and while the first album had its share of strange and quirky moments — it does begin the band’s career by asking you to suck its soul, just as an example — Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow departs the narrative impulse that set the band’s forward-looking psychedelic heavy funk rock as an inheritance from the blues, aligned it directly to African American culture and music, and engaged with the social issues of its day. Lore has it that the sophomore LP was ‘composed’ as much as it was and recorded completely on acid, but whether or not that’s true — surely no one still alive who was there would be able to remember — and regardless of the chemical compounds involved in its making, Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow manifests its yearning for release in the Clinton-delivered mantra throughout the title-track’s ultra-freakout, which at 10 minutes takes up a third of the total 30-minute runtime.
The extended opener, a fluid, exploratory, probably-largely-improvised jam with an avant-ripper of a solo from Hazel as a backdrop to much of it, loops, vague echoes, even some groove once the second half gets going before the keys eat it. That’s somewhat different from the inevitably more straightforward “Friday Night, August 14th,” which readily swings around the repetitions of its titular hook until the drums take boogie flight on their own, delay adding to the trippery at hand. Comparatively, the clarity and forward placement of the riff at the outset of “Funky Dollar Bill,” with its wacky keyboard line, dug-in verse and what’s-the-point-of-that-dayjob-anyway lyrical stance unfolding from there, feels like another step away from the severity of the opener’s declarations. Worrell shines, and Ross leads the chorus in a finish that underscores the notion that, however far-out they went in terms of the album’s making, somebody was still thinking of putting out singles.
They’re not done with experimentalism, mind you. It’s a defining feature of this era of Funkadelic, and within “I Wanna Know if It’s Good to You” and “Some More” and extra-gone capper “Eulogy and Light” as side B unfolds following “Funky Dollar Bill,” there’s no shortage, but until that finale, they continue to work in balance between accessibility — funk as a music for people, to enjoy, to engage with, to dance to, to be part of — and the more high-minded artistry and willful boundary pushing. “I Wanna Know if It’s Good to You,” just under six minutes with a lead vocal from Hazel that presages some of the work he’d do in 1977 on his lone solo album, Games, Dames and Guitar Thangs (briefly discussed here), albeit with a more lysergic affect. It’s some form of pop, but it refuses to compromise the sharper corners of its tones, and the malleability of the mix once again becomes a part of the character in its jam, which is allowed to organically come apart at the end before the bluesy bump of “Some More” quickly takes hold.
Here, again, Worrell makes his presence felt. An easy swing accompanies and a watery effect on Clinton‘s vocal is the element that keeps “Some More” in line with the freakery surrounding. It’s like the normal version of the thing, but not. Prescient of rap, indebted to theatrical rock as much as blues for its over-the-top chorus, and smooth into its fade thanks in no small part to the keys out in front, it gives over to the swirl at the start of “Eulogy and Light,” which I’m pretty sure samples tracks from the self-titled amid its roiling melting pot of audio, which is topped with Clinton doing a spoken preach with the uncredited backing vocalists and Hazel (the latter backmasked) complementing the anti-greed treatise, echoing into a space left initially empty of instrumentation. It is peak weird, sneakily on-theme with “Funky Dollar Bill,” and transgressive in a way that if it came out today would probably result in death-threats owing to the various unhinged stupidities of the times.
While it wins outright in terms of titles, Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow has neither the legacy of Funkadelic nor of 1971’s Maggot Brain (discussed here). Compared to the former, it’s more insular in its approach — the first record tells you what funk is, the second immediately sets about pushing back on its own definitions; seemingly for fun, which is rad — but there’s still enough here to make you move, and considering it surfaced so soon after the debut, thinking of it as a complement to that offering isn’t a bad way to go, adding as it does to what the band had done months prior and finding new ground to cover on an nearly-impossible quick at the behest of Clinton as producer and the landmark group with which he’d surrounded himself.
Concurrent to the release of Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow, in July 1970, Parliament‘s first full-length, Osmium, was issued through Invictus Records, beginning the trajectory that would gradually bring the two projects together as Parliament-Funkadelic and lay out a cross-genre influence that continues to expand across multiple generations in exponential reach. I think we might hit that one up next week as this informal, unannounced, ultra-casual Friday Full-Length mini-series continues.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
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Another week. We’re coming down to the end of the school year, which is good. The Patient Mrs.’ semester is over, which is good. Freak Valley is in a couple weeks, which I’m looking forward to.
The Pecan’s had two days of school so far this week, since she was off Monday and Tuesday for Memorial Day and a give-back snow day. We had family over for Memorial Day, set up a little tent in the driveway with the tables and I grilled burgers and hot dogs. Americana. Still eating leftover cheeseburgers, which is probably more red meat than I’ve had in my system in 20 years. Shrug. Life’s pointless anyway. Let it sit in my colon forever.
We were also in Connecticut last weekend and such as the kid was actually off for five days, so we had plenty of time. Her two days in school have been good by all reports, but we still got a notice from the principal this week that the team wants to discuss “other options” for next year, which I think means we need a lawyer. I asked my sister to put some feelers out yesterday since she, you know, talks to and knows humans, and sure enough she had someone to reach out to. We’ll see how that comes together and how the whole thing plays out.
It’s pretty clear the school she’s in can’t handle her when she loses her cool — and I get it — but it would be hard to frame getting kicked out of elementary school after first grade as a win on the day it happens, whatever better-for-her situation she might end up in eventually as a result. She has 25 kids in her class this year and there looks to be no relief in that regard coming. If the town wants to pay to send my daughter to private school from now through 12th grade where the classes will be half that and she’ll get a more personalized curriculum, well, I don’t think that’ll hurt her in the long run. But it’s not necessarily how you want to set out on the path to get there.
The last few months — like more than three at this point — have been pretty hard and intense for her. I lost it the other night and was yelling, just tired of being hit and scratched and the throwing things and whatnot. Not my best moment, but we actually sat and talked for a few minutes after that and it was okay. She had been fucking with my computer basically just to spite me after I told her not to, and I did the full “how dare you who do you think you are” rigamarole. I was pissed and I made sure she knew it.
I said I felt hurt and disrespected, that I don’t take orders from her, and like she didn’t care and that she treated me like garbage. All of which are true to some extent — I am the less-preferred parent and it can be a low rung sometimes — and which prompted the response from her, “I don’t want to.” We sat for a couple minutes and talked. I told her I loved her. She said I know. I wept tears of joy. We hugged. She and I will continue to butt heads, I expect, for the rest of my life. It was nice to have a moment that felt even like a sliver of resolution. She walked across the room to hug me. I never get that. Then I went and did the ‘calming yoga’ that she had disrupted the start of before the argument began, trying to control the wheres and whens of her mother, who was joining me in the practice. The rest of the evening was pleasant in the moderate way of things.
In about an hour and a half, I’ll go to the school to give her her meds bump. We’ll pick her up at 3 at the door to avoid issues at dismissal with the other kids — that’s definitely my job and not the school’s, right? — and then bring her home. Try to get some food in her before we have to go to the high school because tonight, wonder of wonders, is the elementary school talent show. Following up on her 2024 performance doing math-themed standup, my adorable little weirdo will be doing a science experiment with a compound known colloquially as ‘elephant’s toothpaste,’ having learned about it from obsessively watching Mark Rober videos on YouTube. We’ve done more practice concoctions than I can count and can’t quite get the vertical shoot-up we wanted, but the rehearsal looked good the other day, she’ll have fun up there, and since she goes fifth out of 30-someodd acts, I’ll get to leave early after to bring my mother home. Last year I stayed for three and a half hours and it was a special kind of hell.
To completely redirect, here’s a Zelda update: I finished a first playthrough of The Wind Waker and accidentally saved over the game with the start of a second quest. The game tells you not to. I was stoned, it was dumb. Give me a break. Frustrated, I decided to actually do the second playthrough (you get to keep the lobster shirt and there are some other light differences), and I’m back to having done all the dungeons except for the last one where you go fight all the bosses again before Ganondorf. I like it. There are some tedious parts and I’ve never been able to get 25 letters in the post-office mini-game, which is sad, but for something I wrote off 20-however-many years ago as a very dignified, self-serious 20-year-old, it’s a lot of fun, even though I accidentally left the Savage Labyrinth last night with just 20 levels to go before I got the last heart-piece in the game (not that I’ve gotten them all). Dumbass.
I’ve also started a playthrough of A Link to the Past on my phone on an emulator (can connect the Switch controller to that as well), and after doing the first two dungeons, I decided to use Game Genie codes to unlock everything. I piled on a bunch of items and abilities to basically make an open world version of the game where, at the start as I am, I’d otherwise still be really limited in where I went. Kind of a nerdy boink of a way to play, but I can check in for like 10 minutes when I’m bored and roam around and do whatever. I will probably bumble into progressing the story eventually.
I played a little Tears of the Kingdom with the older son of family friends who had a question about his game this past weekend — he brought the Switch over to ask how to get up to fight the monsters poking out of Death Mountain in the Goron main quest — and I was crazy rusty, which was kind of fun in itself considering how much time I’ve spent with that game over the last year and a half. Switch 2 comes out next week. I eventually hope to get one and import my TOTK game to it.
Next week at some point I’m going to review the Dwellers record. That’s my only goal. There will be more than that, obviously, but I’ll figure out what probably tomorrow morning with my coffee.
Thanks for reading. Apparently I felt like writing, so if you’re here, I appreciate it. Have a great and safe weekend and I’ll be back Monday.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 20th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Six full-lengths deep, Borracho are pretty secure in their awareness of who they are as a band. They’ve known all along — the slogan “heavy repetitive grooves” endures — but it’s refreshing to hear them continue to put together songs in a spirit of camaraderie and expression, whether it’s wondering where they world went wrong or embracing classic tropes like in “Succubus.” They are a riff rocker’s riff rock, and the first word of their bio tells you much of what you need to and probably already know about them: they’re consistent. A Borracho record — any record, not just the upcoming Ouroboros in question — is going to be made to a standard of sound and songwriting that, as a listener, you’re right to expect from the band. And I’ve heard the record so I’ll tell you right now, they deliver again on exactly what you came for. To do less would not be Borracho.
I’ll hope to have more to come before August — I have a pretty decent history of writing about this band at this point, have done bios, etc., will probably ask to premiere a track if that’s a thing they’re doing — but you can dig into the initial info below, which I admit is pretty preliminary:
Consistency. Quality. Consistent quality. What more can you ask of a Stoner/Doom band these days? In a time when more than one thousand stoner/doom albums are released in a year, it’s hard to stand out, let alone do it with every single release. But that’s just what veteran Washington DC riff-masters BORRACHO have done over more than 15 years of bringing the heavy.
BORRACHO is a heavy rock trio hailing from Washington, D.C. Over more than a decade of consistently strong releases and live appearances they have become a staple of the stoner/doom scene and earned a large international following. With five critically acclaimed LPs, a compilation of non-album releases, and numerous single and split releases, the band has sold thousands of records all over the word, and shared stages with some of the genre’s most popular and influential acts. Their sixth LP Ouroboros will be released on Ripple Music in August 2025.
Tracklisting: 1. Vegas, Baby 2. Succubus 3. Lord of Suffering 4. Vale of Tears 5. Machine is the Master (Human is the Slave) 6. Freakshow 7. Broken Man
BORRACHO: Steve Fisher – Guitar, Vocals Mario Trubiano – Drums, Percussion Tim Martin – Bass, Backing Vocals
“Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, For y’all have knocked her up. I have tasted the maggot in the mind of the universe. I was not offended, for I knew I had to rise above it all Or drown in my own shit.” – “Maggot Brain”
No, I don’t honestly think I’m going to present any new or remarkable insight on one of the most opined-about guitar solos of all time — that being Eddie Hazel‘s melancholic soul-tear on the title-track — but honestly, it was the hook of the subsequent “Can You Get to That” that brought the album to mind, one of those things where you hear, say, think of a phrase and it associates to the song in your head. I’ve come to understand in recent years that’s an ADHD thing. For me it’s always been a lifestyle (therefore determining ‘my deathstyle’; see how this works?).
The emotional labor involved in its title-track notwithstanding — and I’m not taking anything away from it; it’s one of the best performances of rock guitar ever captured on tape and I’d sooner listen to it one thousand times than hear anything by the likes of Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page or whichever ’60s/’70s guitar hero you want to name who isn’t Tony Iommi — the bulk of Maggot Brain is much breezier, starting with “Can You Get to That” and moving into “Hit it and Quit It” and “You and Your Folks and Me and My Folks” before “Super Stupid” and “Back in Our Minds” ignite the party-rock vibe and “Wars of Armageddon,” though dark in its voice and mood, builds on the title-cut from Funkadelic’s second album, 1970’s Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow, and helps lay the foundation for Funkadelic excursions into longform instrumental dance music that would become part of the bedrock beats beneath hip-hop. That’s an influence inarguably still felt today, and something the George Clinton-led troupe would refine as they moved closer over the course of the 1970s to uniting the two projects Funkadelic and Parliament into the p-funk they’d become, out of the psychedelic comedown, through the disco years and into the arrival of keyboard-driven dance music, less emphasis on guitar and more on movement.
Of course, “Maggot Brain” remains the album’s defining moment as well as its longest track, and it’s right there at the front (immediate points), disorienting the listener with its slow tempo but this-needs-to-be-first creative urgency and human expression. Opening a funk record with a drifting improv navelgaze epic instrumental is counterintuitive — which is not to say brave — but this was Funkadelic‘s third album and they were no strangers by then to shirking expectations or genre boundaries. Preceded in 1970 by their self-titled debut (discussed here) and the aforementioned Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow, Maggot Brain follows the folk-funk-blues patterns of the first Parliament LP or some of the more easy-swinging material on Funkadelic, lysergic as that record was on balance. You can’t really argue that Maggot Brain is straightforward with the title-track up front pushing the limits of where pop can go and what it can do, but once you’re past that, the acoustic twang on “Can You Get to That” feels like a willful redirect, ditto the vocal arrangement, and it’s casual vibes and/or sing-alongs from there on until “Wars of Armageddon.”
Some of the psychedelia is still there, in “Maggot Brain” and the instrumental “Super Stupid,” but the latter is so much more about the swagger and shred in Eddie Hazel‘s guitar, the ringout of the organ and the gauntlet being thrown down by that solo, and after the gloriously riffy “Hit it and Quit It” and the centerpiece shuffle of “You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks,” which brings in a little Stevie Wonder-type piano and dares toward advocating for social justice, which perhaps feels more like a risk now than it might have in 1971. “You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks” ties in with “Can You Get to That,” and “Super Stupid” gives space between the middle cut and the sillier “Back in Our Minds” again, a bouncy jam with the title-line repeated, “We are back in our minds again” before they move into a verse. It’s under three minutes long and kind of goofy with what I think is a triangle, but well within this era of Funkadelic‘s weirdo wheelhouse, and after the freakout in “Super Stupid,” it’s another effective reorientation of the listener before “Wars of Armageddon” starts its strange litany of noises, samples, spoken parts, shouts and such over a dancey backbeat and instrumental jam.
And one could go on at length about the development of dance music from out of something like “Wars of Armageddon” being performed in a Washington D.C. club in the early 1970s to somehow it being reasonable to watch a person stand in front of a laptop and a couple turntables and mix live, but frankly that’s fodder for an entirely different discussion. Funkadelic‘s early period, from 1970-1975, is largely untouchable. In that span of five years and amid touring and lineup changes, legendary partying, etc., Funkadelic put out seven records and Parliament put out four, the last of which is the ultra-seminal Mothership Connection, so as runs go, there are few in pop or rock music that can compare, and that’s before you get into bringing the two sides together as Parliament-Funkadelic and affecting music such that here we are five decades later and the party is still going. Parliament-Funkadelic is on tour this month, going coast-to-coast before hitting Australia in September. Train doesn’t stop.
So maybe Maggot Brain is willfully uneven. In its title-track, it stands on the strength of Hazel‘s performance — which, again, is plenty — and for the rest takes on a brighter persona. The fact of the matter is Funkadelic were a good enough band at this point in time not only to make that leap from the opener to the rest of the LP, but to carry it off like it’s no big deal, with a super-easy, we-do-this-all-the-time-usually-on-Tuesdays groove. To acknowledge it as one of the best LPs ever made feels like calling the sky blue.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
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Did you catch the Funkadelic reference in that Quasars of Destiny review that went up this morning? I said something in that post about “if you can get to…” whatever it was and my head immediately went to Maggot Brain. I wasn’t actually going to close the week with anything. I started writing that Quasars review yesterday and didn’t get to finish before I ran out of time in the day so I figured I’d wrap it this (Friday) morning and then just not close out the week, maybe put up a little post in case anyone came looking. Once I checked and saw I hadn’t already closed a week with Maggot Brain, it was a no-brainer.
There’s a lesson in there for me about rigidity though. I generally work a day ahead precisely so that when something like a day where I don’t have as much time comes up, I can still have some flexibility. I just so rarely use that flexibility that it took me a bit to recognize it for what it was this morning. Don’t get so stuck in a way of doing a thing that you miss out on something cool. In my case, that’s spending a morning listening to Funkadelic, which I can assure you has only had a positive impact on my mood broadly, even more so now that I’ve finished writing about it.
Limited time was kind of the theme this week, if you couldn’t tell by a few lighter-on-posts days. Three posts a day isn’t nothing. Four is kind of my standard these days — today was five — but I’m not willing to either half-ass some filler news post so there can be ‘content’ to feel some imaginary need for it or break my brain to the point where I don’t want to be on the laptop anymore. I’m working with what I’ve got in terms of faculties, and with The Pecan having trouble in school these past weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of early pickups and juggling various therapy appointments — she got kicked out on Monday for hitting a para who touched her and had to be evaluated before they’d let her back in the building, today is the psychiatrist virtual appointment that I’ll have to drag her off the playground after school to go to, I’ve been going in at noon to give her a bumper dose of ritalin to get through the afternoon (which helped the other day, it seemed), and so on — and it’s generally been hands-on-deck really since before I left for Roadburn. Which let me appreciate all the more being able to go.
Speaking of travel, this coming week is Desertfest Oslo, and I’m going to that. So Friday and Saturday look out for coverage. Before that, I’ve got streams and such lined up. Tuesday is a full premiere for the new Madmess record, Wednesday is a Northern Heretic track premiere (they’re playing with Paradise Lost and Trouble in NYC, you know) and Thursday is a fully for Cavern Deep.
I wouldn’t mind reviewing Clamfight, Witchcraft or Turtle Skull before I go, but it’s probably pick-one-and-make-it-happen with the rest of the schedule booked and, again, limited time. I’ll do my best, even if my best kind of sucks.
Zelda update: I still like The Wind Waker. I have the un-upgraded Master Sword and will enter the Earth Temple next time I play. In the meantime though, The Patient Mrs. both rented Super Smash Bros. Ultimate from the library — I destroyed The Pecan yesterday; we were told to stop letting her win games so she can get used to it with peers — and bought me a copy of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, which I’ve been sweating since I played the original game on NES as a kid. It will come with me to Norway, for sure, as will The Wind Waker, since it’s on my laptop with the mods and such.
Oh, and I’ve been trying to build the habit since I got back from Roadburn of doing yoga every day. If you have a killer video you know of, drop the link. The more sympathetic, the better. Yoga for sore back, sore knees, etc., or “Hey I’m really sorry to hear about your ongoing existential crisis. Let’s do some cat-cows.” I like the comforting aspect before I get my ass kicked by stretching.
Thanks for reading and have a great and safe weekend. I’m gonna go change over the laundry, empty the dishwasher, and maybe peel an orange before I need to run to the school. The weather’s good, so have fun.
FRM. There’s no merch up right now, but if Brooklyn Dave’s got something up, support his ass anyway just to support it.
