There’s that word again: “Heavy.”

Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth’s gravitational pull?

 
That’s right, folks, I’ve got some more music for you to check out, and it’s gonna be heavy. HEAVY. Like multiple metric fucktons of heavy. Just letting you know in advance so you’re prepared.

 

Weaving Shadows – Existential Decay (self-released, 20 April 2026)

 

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy – Heavy (Learning Curve Records, 14 November 2025)

 

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Weaving Shadows, sludge/doom quartet from Omaha Nebraska, just dropped their second full-length record this Monday. The band’s name derives from a 1923 story by W. H. Holmes. Details about the author have been lost to history, theoretically due to “not being very good at writing,” according to one reviewer, but the tale itself features elements of the classic American ghost story: “themes of pain, loss, anxiety, and failure,” says its namesake band, who endeavor to portray these concepts in their music.

Between the album title “Existential Decay” and track titles such as “Anguish” and “Kodokushi” (aka “lonely death“; the Japanese term for the idea of dying alone and remaining undiscovered for a long period of time), they’ve certainly got those feelings of loss and anxiety and bleakness nailed down.

The opening track consists of several minutes of dark and ominous introduction before unexpectedly and briefly exploding into a burst of black metal; after that, the album principally consists of glacially slow doom riffs, rhythms that creep along at an absolute crawl, with dismayed and despairing vocals somewhere between a deep roar and an exhausted groan — like as if the phantom from a ghost story comes out saying he’s been haunting this same cemetery for hundreds of years, frightening the people away every night and they keep coming back and honestly what’s even the point anymore??

According to their bio, Weaving Shadows were once told by a fan that their music sounds like “being thrown down a pit of despair,” and I mean, if THAT’s not a selling point, I don’t know what is, right?

 

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The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, non-genre-conforming quintet from San Antonio Texas, called their fifth full-length (which came out late last year, roughly twenty years into their career as a band) “Heavy” and believe me when I tell you, they weren’t kidding.

Named for a fictional novel within Philip K. Dick‘s The Man in the High Castle, TGLH have been known to alternate between moods: as they explain it, “one side, this super heavy thing and the other side, more cinematic or post-rock,” but Heavy sees the group’s output at, well not to belabor the point, but at its most weighty.

Not quite sludge, a bit more post-hardcore tonally, yet these compositions all seem tightly-composed, getting their point across relatively concisely (only one track hits the five-minute mark, less than half exceed four minutes). But at the same time the riffs are built upon repetitive rhythms that keep going around and around in intricate patterns. I feel like I’m stumbling over words here because what I’m trying to express feels like a contradiction inherent in the structure and the sound — like, is this a progressive punk rock band?

The band’s own description of the album mentions Mastodon which seems fitting, as well as “Sepultura and Napalm Death homages” which, maybe not quite as much, but… sure, I guess so? At the end of the day, though, does it even matter? When it comes down to it, the real question is, does it sound good? Yes, it does. And is it heavy? Yes, definitely.

 

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The Weaving Shadows album digital edition is located right here, while it’s also available on CD here.
 
Find the Grasshopper Lies Heavy digitally here or on vinyl/CD/cassette over here.
 

 

Weaving Shadows: website | Bandcamp
 
Grasshopper: Bandcamp
Learning Curve: website | Bandcamp | store