» 2026-10-31

Monthly Release Round-up: October 2026

The year is quickly coming to and end, but we've got plenty of good music still on the way. We've even got some material for year-end list consideration in this month's batch.

Darkest Hour, Suffer Divine

The follow-up to 2024's Perpetual Terminal is another batch of the band's best work. After seeing the band live twice between these last two albums, I can definitely say they are getting better with age.

Listen: Bandcamp

Master Boot Record, Computer Metal

Does what it says on the can. Instrumental metal full of chunky riffs and 80s / early 90s-era PC synths. This record also includes a lot more grandiose production, with big orchestral string arrangements backing the material.

Listen: Bandcamp

The Number 12 Looks Like You, Howls From The Holographic Heart

A surprise new album from this veteran 'mathcore' band really hit the spot. You've still got songs packed full of abrupt changeups and overt technicality, but there are also a lot of clean vocals and melodic sections that reminded me of Astronoid.

Listen: Bandcamp

Wolves In The Throne Room, Estuary

More dense, atmospheric black metal from one of the genre's best band. Every few years these guys resurface with another epic, conceptual album, this time narrating the world 1,000 years after humanity's extinction.

Listen: Bandcamp

Queens Of The Stone Age, Perfecth

Not having listened to any of the advance singles, this record ended up being a lot more mellow and laid back than I expected. Still, it's a good album from a band that doesn't really have any misses in its catalog.

Listen: Spotify

Atavista, Old Gods Awaken

Chalk one up for The Algorithm on this one; I was in the right mood for something in the vein of Wintersun and these guys delivered. The only knock is they sound *a lot* like Wintersun, but that's also a hard act to pull off.

Listen: Bandcamp

Polyphia, Be Not Afraid

I would consider myself a fan of this band, but this new album did not resonate with me. I liked the drum and bass interplay, but the guitar work felt scatterbrained and intrusive at times. These feel more like a collection of sound loops than conventional songs. We'll see if my opinion changes with time and a few more listens, but I feel that is unlikely.

Listen: Bandcamp

The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir, Songs From A Dying Empire

Really good black metal with folk influences. Moments reminded me of early Panopticon and Wayfarer.

Listen: Bandcamp

Deafheaven, At Work In The Fields Of The Bomb EP

The band really leans into their black metal influences on this tight little EP. I really hope the next full-length album sounds like this.

Listen: Spotify

» 2026-10-23

Rogue Invitational 2026 - Post-Event Thoughts

First off, I am extremely thankful for the quality stream that Rogue puts on for this event. By the time I had finished work on Friday, there were already individual videos on YouTube for each event, so I was able to catch up as quickly as I could and with minimal hassle. I didn't even have to dig through the full day stream.

Strongman

My initial pre-event thoughts had some hits and misses. Martins Licis, while nowhere near his prime, looked far better than I expected. Tom Stoltman didn't even show up — and I mean literally, not figuratively. I must have missed news of his withdrawal from the event.

Mitch Hooper looked good, but far from dominant on the first day. He's not known as the best deadlifter, but he looked like he was straining in the first event. The absence of his trademarked speed on the yoke was a sign something was amiss, and his log pressing form was genuinely awful. He did eventually complete the grip medley, but his pace was slow enough to cost him significant points. I said he'd either dominate or withdraw with an injury and I think he met me in the middle — I have to assume his back injuries are still a big impediment. ("But he had stem cells!" you might say, and you'd be a mark for completely unproven medical science performed by sketchy clinics.)

Trey Mitchell is a guy I always tend to overlook. I feel like he's sort of cursed, as he'll have one bad event in an otherwise stellar showing and all I will remember is "grip issues" or something like that — completely eliding the fact he's one of the best overhead pressers on the planet. Despite this, I am always happy to see him do well; if anyone deserves a major competition win like the Rogue Invitational or the Arnold, it's Trey Mitchell. I'm always a sucker for a story like this.

Thomas Evans is a newer competitor who keeps impressing me. His only glaring issue seems to be conditioning; he passed out on the Conan's wheel (which is more common than you may think) and was brutally winded in the grip medley. That said, his raw, static strength is off the charts. Strict pressing a 363 pound log is hard to believe, even when you see someone actually doing it — and multiple times in a row!

Ondrej Fojtu and Rayno Nel were both very impressive. I've seen very little of the former and the latter's best showings have been at World's Strongest Man, which renders them almost completely inaccessible. For two guys who don't have the cartoonish physiques I tend to associate with strongman, these men are unbelievably strong. I have seen a lot of criticism of Nel, that WSM is a "faster" event and that he's "not that strong," both of which are ludicrous assertions — even moreso after this performance. At 24 years old, Fojtu's potential is practically limitless, I wrote him off in a shameful number of events and happily ate my words.

Strongwoman

The women's side went mostly how I expected, with Innez Carrasquillo asserting her dominance after a rough showing in the first event, the deadlift ladder. After that she put up an absurd 24 reps on the viking press and won 4 consecutive events to establish a comfortable lead. The yoke into log event was won in similarly dominating fashion. I wouldn't say it was an upset that she lost, as it was by a margin on 9 seconds lifting a 300 pound stone. It was still an amazing showing and Inez still remains a heavy favourite to win any show she enters.

Congratulations to Angelica Jardine on winning the show. Strongman / strongwoman rewards a variety of athletes, it's not just about raw, brute strength and size. Jardine's also a lot more nimble than you'd expect, given her size and this showed with her consistent placing near the top in each event — capped off with a dominant win in the final stone loading. Her battle with Carrasquillo was so fun to watch; there was a single point between 1st and 2nd place and then 10 points between 2nd and 3rd.

Seeing as the deadlift is my favourite event in any strength sport, I've got a huge soft spot for Lucy Underdown. She absolutely crushed the deadlift ladder, putting in 10 reps at 540 pounds on the heaviest bar. She's also come a long way from just being a deadlift specialist, making considerable improvements to her overhead pressing — which tends to be a weakness of long-limbed lifters like Lucy. As long as she keeps improving at this rate, Underdown is going to be a threat to win any event she enters. Taking 3rd place at the Rogue is no small feat.

Andrea Thompson made a much better showing than I expected, perhaps I read too much into the injuries she had recently recovered from. Two-day events with this kind of weight are gruelling but Thompson remained competitive throughout despite being the oldest athlete in the lineup.

Katie Blunden showed a lot of heart while also illustrating the gap between winning something like the Arnold Classic pro / amateur event and the top of the pro circuit. I'm sure she'll benefit from the experience and make a better showing next year. You can tell the potential is there, it's just a matter of accumulating more experience and training time.

Jackie Oszevsky and Jennifer Lyle did well, with the latter really improving over time. Honestly, everyone was fun to watch and I'm encouraged by the strongwomen every time I watch them compete.

» 2026-10-22

Rogue Invitational 2026 - Pre-Event Thoughts

Strongman

I don't have a comprehensive breakdown for this show, but I am incredibly excited for it. There simply are not enough big time strongman events, and the business geniuses behind World's Strongest Man still act like it's 1993 — keeping the video content under lock and key until Christmas.

With the (temproary?) loss of the Shaw Classic, all we really have is the Arnold Strongman Classic and a handful of Giants Live shows. Unless you're a diehard like me, you're probably not tuning in to the livestream of shows like Clash On The Coast or The Magnus Ver Magnussen Classic. And those are fun, but they don't draw the big names.

This year's Rogue is more or less Mitch Hooper's to lose, I think. He's either going to show up in his usual form and win or he's going to pull out with some sort of injury — I don't really see room for anything else. Mitch has been less active this year, which is probably for the best given the mileage he's accumulted in such a short career.

I don't think Tom Stoltman is much of a threat here. It's always possible that he surprises everyone, but the odds of that actually happen seem to be shrinking with each year. I'm hoping he does well in general, even if only to bolster his confidence going into the next year's World's Strongest Man.

I have more or less the same thoughts regarding Martins Licis as I do Tom Stoltman, and I hope he can show he's not completely finished from the litany of injuries he's incurred over the years. I think we're looking for personal victories rather than a competition win here.

It's unfortunate that Hafthor Bjornsson had to withdraw from the show, but a year of chasing deadlift records has to be extremely taxing. He gave an interview with Big Loz and indicated he was dealing with a number of nagging injuries. It's a shame we aren't going to get a proper rivalry between Thor and Mitch Hooper — like Brian Shaw and Zydrunas Savickas or Thor and Eddie Hall.

The rest of field is really solid. Guys like Austin Andrade, Ondrej Fojtu, Rayno Nel and Thomas Evans are a great crop of young talent. Regardless of the outcome, I think it's going to be a really fun show to watch.

Strongwoman

The women's side of the scompetition is a really good lineup. I think Inez Carrasquillo is a really good choice for the overall winner, but the level of competition keeps increasing significantly year-over-year. Jackie Osczevski, Jennifer Lyle and Angelica Jardine are worth keeping an eye on. The deadlift event will be won by Lucy Underdown, that much I am sure of. The women's division is always entertaining and I'm really looking forward to it.

» 2026-10-19

Sleep

In what I guess I should consider good news, I finally got the results back from a sleep study I did about 1.5 months ago and I don't have sleep apnea. The reason I hesitate is that means that the long periods of fatigue I've had have been more or less my own fault — I'm 43 and working myself pretty hard.

After listening to The Barbell Medicine podcast for over a decade, it's a condition that I've been made highly aware of. I had some potential signs, and spoke to my doctor about it. Luckily, the Canadian healthcare system hasn't been completely sold off yet, so none of this cost me anything except time.

Ironically, ever since I pursued the study, my overall sleep quality has been much better. I have no idea how that works, but I'm glad I don't have to shell out for a CPAP machine.

» 2026-10-11

Closed For The Season

Another 16-week season at the lake is in the books. I was pretty happy to close everything up; the end of the year always feels like it comes too soon, but the weather quickly serves up a reminder that summer is gone.

I have a growing list of projects for the campsite, but they will have to wait until spring. The current priorities are: finish some writing projects that got shelved over the spring / summer, and keep iterating and improving this website.