Hello Heathens,

Now that I’ve had some time away from writing about music I decided that I want to do more with the blog and just write about music and games. I want to use this place as mostly a dumping ground for whatever bullshit I’ve been thinking about this week so expect a little bit more variety and frequency in my posts here.

First thing I want to get out of the way is where I stand on free speech. I’m not a free speech absolutist, but I think that we should have as few barriers on free speech as possible. Currently I think the US has the best free speech laws that I’ve seen. I kind of waiver back and forth on freedom from consequences from speech, and really I think that is the interesting part of free speech conversations. I think that in general people should be able to say what they want, but if you keep your shit together at work then who cares? In the last few years that have been people fired for going to BLM protests and I think that’s fucked up. Regardless of whether or not you agree with BLM, or other large protests, you have a right to protest and your employer should not be able to fire you for this. Both sides seem to only agree with free speech when it’s free speech that agrees with them.

There are all kinds of historic examples of both sides of the political spectrum in the US creating laws that are aimed at limiting free speech. Teachers in Texas have to pledge an oath to Israel, or risk being fired. Tanahasi Coates books being removed from AP African American History classes. The famous Don’t Say Gay Bill.

As much as people try to make free speech out to be a “THE LEFT IS TRYING TO CENSOR US!” there is as much recent history of Republicans also trying to limit our free speech. As heavy metal fans we owe it to ourselves to advocate for free speech, protect our right to free speech, and hold people who try to limit our right to free speech accountable for being anti-American. It wasn’t that long ago that concerned parents were trying to ban heavy metal by claiming it’s demonic and inspiring children to commit crime. Your rights only exist for as long as you are willing to be annoying and defend them.

Outside of that it’s been a great week for music and I highlighted some of the awesome releases this week. The Bizarrekult album was something I listened to a few times this week while I audited some financial reports at work. Really powerful stuff and it’s an album that you should expect to hear more of this year. The Privateer is a band I had never heard of before, and while they are a cheesy genre band I think pirate metal deserves more airtime. People love viking metal, but pirate metal doesn’t get the same amount of love. Had a lotof fun putting together this playlist and the biggest surprise was the band that I thought was Greek, Ὁπλίτης is actually a Chinese band. I think I am going to have to investigate this band more given that it’s a Chinese band, singing songs in Greek. Wild stuff.

Keep Heavy The Sabbath Day

02.04.23