A truly Heavy episode about mortality and the afterlife in the eyes of R.E.M., The Antlers, and Touché Amoré.

…and it pays off well to move beyond the teenage angst in some way. Find out how Foxing and My Chemical Romance did just that.

Biggie never quite got a full grip on his fame and status. Listen in as we discuss how Jay-Z and Kanye West and Eminem wrestle with their own sensational rises.

An episode about Dismemberment Plan, Motion City Soundtrack, and Los Campesinos! is the beginnings of a syllabus on rock bands in their mid-20s depressed about the present and anxious about the future.

Matt and Tim talk the legacy of Courtney Love and how Elastica and The Distillers both come out swinging in typically male-dominated genres.

Outkast’s Aquemini remains the best Southern hip hop album but the South has much more to say. Matt considers UGK’s Ridin’ Dirty and Juvenile’s 400 Degreez and their corresponding scenes of Houston and New Orleans, respectively.

Matt introduces the loud-soft-loud legacy of The Pixies’ Doolittle and how that style has been made an emotional weapon in Modest Mouse’s The Lonesome Crowded West and The Mars Volta’s De-Loused in the Comatorium.

The Strokes Is This It remains a monumental release as the figurehead of the early 2000s rock revival in NYC. Matt pitches Fever to Tell and Bows + Arrows as equally important to the scene’s narrative.

Matt and Tim talk the visceral joys of Björk’s music before discussing Iceland’s fertile post-rock scene, namely Sigur Ros and mum.

Listen to hear Tim break Matt’s brain in real time as we discuss the marvelously Dense Paul’s Boutique and then tomes by mewithoutYou and Tool. Matt does his very best to not fawn too much.

In this episode we discuss three artists who have a bit of Brian Wilson - reclusive, maybe a bit prickly, genius-level songwriters - to them in The Magnetic Fields, D’Angelo, and Fiona Apple.

Matt introduces Public Enemy’s abrasive Fear of a Black Planet and discusses classics by Ms. Lauryn Hill and The Roots as other approaches to presenting, interrogating, and performing Black Power in music.

Matt explains Shoegaze while discussing the genre’s stone-cold classic Loveless by My Bloody Valentine. Slowdive’s Souvlaki and Ride’s Nowhere, well-regarded classics in their own right, are presented as replacement titles for the soul of Shoegaze.

A mighty triumvirate of hip-hop this episode. We talk Jay-Z, Nas, and Biggie as emblems of Growing Old in hip hop (and as masters of diss tracks).

Matt and Tim look at more recent artists that wield Distortion with a similar verve to Sonic Youth on their stone-cold classic Daydream Nation in Silversun Pickups (Carnavas) and Mitski (Bury Me at Makeout Creek).