Heavy-hearted in the Midwest since 2011
If you weren’t an awkward headbanging teen in the late 80s then you wouldn’t understand. To be a fan of hair metal was to suffer through a cavalcade of lousy dime a dozen rock bands. Most, you’d hear about once and then they’d disappear in a haze of White Rain. It was a constant process […]
Read More Extreme : SixThe last two days here in Northeast Indiana have been low air quality. How low, you ask? Well, a normal AQI number around here is 45-50. That is Good to Moderate. We have a lot of allergens in the air around here; from mold spores to pollen to just people having burn piles. But despite […]
Read More Every Breath You Take…I’ll Be Choking YouLightning Dust started as the electronic/pop side project of Black Mountain members Amber Webber and Joshua Wells, but after 2016s IV, Webber and Wells left the Canadian psych/prog behemoth permanently so they could concentrate on other things, including Lightning Dust. The band released the excellent and more Gothic-tinged Spectre in 2019, the same year that […]
Read More Lightning Dust : Nostalgia KillerIt’s been a few years since I’ve sat down to do a mid-year album review for Complex Distractions. Not sure why I’ve let that go by the way side. Granted, it’s a lot of work for me. Making lists the old fashioned way, by pen and paper; ranking albums in accordance to my adoration and […]
Read More Complex Distractions Presents : Favorite Albums Of 2023(Mid-Year Edition)It’s been a long week. There were a couple days at work where we struggled to be busy for even half the day. Now I’m not opposed to slacking off for a day and getting paid to sit at my desk, read up on world news online, and wait for someone to ring the door […]
Read More The Weekend, Work Wear, And We’re Not The Party Animals We Used To BeJames McKeown’s electronic music project Hawksmoor goes deep. McKeown’s sound is dense, heady, and pulls from the best that the early German electronic scene had to offer. Combining the warmth of analog via Moogs, Modular synthesis, guitar, and bass with a rhythmic backbone that feels more implied through mood, Hawksmoor makes the kind of music […]
Read More Hawksmoor : Telepathic HeightsI think I really do underestimate the power of a really good hang. I’ve become a much more solitary creature as I’ve gotten older, so much so that the idea of being social gives me anxiety. The preparation, the anticipation, and the fear of how do I remain interested talking for more than a 30 […]
Read More Nothing Like A Good HangQueens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme has had a pretty rough decade or more. Starting clear back in the early 2010s with a surgery that nearly killed him, then working his way into a very ugly and public battle with ex-wife Brody Dalle of the Distillers. Add in the death of friend and […]
Read More Queens of the Stone Age : In Times New RomanI slept in till a little after 8 am on Father’s Day. I slept in till a little after 8 am on Saturday as well. It’s kind of out of character for me to sleep in that late. Usually 7:30 am is the latest I’ll sleep in before either the sun fills our bedroom with […]
Read More Father’s Day Walk, Big Bird In A Tower, And Appreciating The Little Things EverydayTrevor Powers’ music project Youth Lagoon started in 2010 and 2011 saw the release of The Year Of Hibernation. The music Powers wrote felt personal, intimate, and at times fragile. His voice was a whisper above barely there; timid, squeaky, and with the feeling that he was reaching deep down for those words. The album […]
Read More Youth Lagoon : Heaven Is A Junkyard