The Northern Indiana/Southwestern Michigan music scene is an interesting beast. While my hometown of South Bend is the de facto center of it, we’re close enough to other cities that bands that are born out of towns within an hour drive from us end up cutting their teeth in Chicago or Indianapolis or Grand Rapids instead.
Sometimes, this leads me to discoveries of local(ish) bands that I didn’t even realize were somewhat local to me (see also: Lume, Locktender, Cloakroom).
Earlier this year, I had the similar realization (or reminder, rather) that the mathy, heavy post-hardcore outfit Native were also localish (from Michigan City, but played mostly in Chicagoland).
It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise—after all, Native is fronted by Bobby Markos, the bassist of the aforementioned Cloakroom. And while his rumbling, heavy bass strings are a through line between the two bands, that’s about where the comparison ends.
Now this is more like it.
If you thought that I would have learned my lesson from the bait and switch of 
I discovered all too recently that the Moody Blues weren’t the sort of schlocky, soulless dad rock that I had expected them to be.
Speaking of 
For the last six years, post metal heroes 
At some point in the mid to late 2000s, Gorillaz founder Damon Albarn decided that leading the world’s best cartoon band wasn’t enough, and started to aim a bit higher.
If you’ve followed this blog at all, you’re already well aware that I have a very soft spot for a particular kind of heavy, glacial, melodic sludge metal (see: 
For years, I’ve had a fascination with trip hop. I became a huge fan of Portishead when Third was released, and later got into acts like