Week of Sep 28 – Oct 04 · 2026
A hundred and eight tracks over seven heard days as September turns into October, and the week keeps reaching for sources. Wednesday morning starts at the root of anarcho-punk, Crass and Subhumans, before the crust bands that descend from them. Thursday's hour is a reading list of the records that made death metal difficult, Focus and Obscura and None So Vile. Friday goes back further still, to the first four songs of Pink Floyd's 1967 debut, played in order and set down. Around those readings the week is lighter than any in a while: it opens on a full run of the Hellacopters, the least tortured music the record has held in weeks, and ends on a shuffle of fifty years of prog. Even an old obsession loosens; the Mastodon song he once looped all night now gets a single play, and he moves on.
The same week as numbers
| Day | Tracks | First play | Last play | Mean heaviness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 13 | 22:14 | 23:07 | 6.8 |
| Tuesday | 11 | 11:40 | 22:09 | 7.8 |
| Wednesday | 47 | 10:03 | 23:18 | 7.6 |
| Thursday | 14 | 22:56 | 00:03 | 8.5 |
| Friday | 4 | 17:27 | 17:36 | 4.0 |
| Saturday | 8 | 00:04 | 01:18 | 6.6 |
| Sunday | 11 | 23:42 | 00:48 | 5.4 |
The Arc
The week climbs and then lets go. Monday is fun, the Hellacopters. Tuesday checks on the current underground. Wednesday is the volume peak, forty-seven tracks, anger with an address all morning and weight without one at night. Thursday is the heaviest hour of the week, the technical death metal canon after eleven. Then the pressure drops: four songs of Pink Floyd on Friday, an hour of prog metal after midnight on Saturday, an hour of shuffled prog on Sunday.
The Map
America holds the centre, the crust and powerviolence of disrupt and Dystopia and the 2000s sludge of ISIS and Baroness. Sweden supplies the Hellacopters that open the week and the Skitsystem and Disfear in Wednesday's crust. Britain is the week's past: Crass and Subhumans and Doom, founders of anarcho-punk and crust, and Pink Floyd at the start of everything. Canada sends the Cryptopsy and Gorguts of Thursday's canon, the Netherlands its Pestilence.
The Subjects
Revolt is the loudest subject, Wednesday morning's songs about police and the state and war, every one with a target. The rest of the week turns from what music is against to where it came from: origins, lineages, the records that set the rules. The night hours of Saturday and Sunday carry the familiar melancholy, but lightly, and Friday's Pink Floyd is almost whimsical. For a record that has lived on despair for months, this week's dominant mood is curiosity.
The Turn
The turn is a single play on Saturday. Your Ghost Again, the Mastodon song he looped to the end of the night on September 5, opens the hour four weeks later and is played once. Then he moves on. It is a small thing on the page and a large one in the record: the compulsion that defined September loosening its grip as October begins.
Of the 66 artists heard this week, 21 had never appeared on the record before. The longest he stayed with one name: The Hellacopters, 8 tracks unbroken.
Who spanned the week
What followed what
| Hushed | Low | Mid | Heavy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hushed | ||||
| Low | 3 | 1 | ||
| Mid | 2 | 17 | 7 | |
| Heavy | 7 | 64 |