Austin Lamb - Co-Editor in Chief
[[SATIRE]] New workout pitched to board
The parents of Oswego students have worked their hardest to incorporate different wellness routines into Kinetic Wellness courses. After the overwhelming success of the 9/11 workout experience, a local Facebook group, We the Grandparents, immediately put it upon themselves to create a second, better workout. After weeks of research, a workout based on the events of the January 6th insurrection was modeled and pitched to the school board.
Opinion: Younger generations drive two-party discontent
Both dominant political parties in the US have been observably shifting away from their core ideology for decades, yet the years following the 2016 elections have brought even further political polarization and discontent for America’s deeply ingrained two-party political system. In a 2023 survey conducted by Pew Research, 28% of Americans reported holding negative views regarding both major political parties in the US, a percentage that has continued to rise since the 90s. The study additionally found that younger age groups hold more discontent for both parties than older groups, with 35% of 18 to 49-year-olds holding negative views for both Democrats and Republicans. “[[The two-party political system]] worked for what it was for a while, but now we’re getting to a point where we’re seeing how it’s not working anymore, with two very drastic sides that the two-party system is taking. Rather than just differing on values, it’s now completely skewed to hatred,” said OH senior and SD308 school board student ambassador Luke Lockwood.
A Dedication to Kai
On Aug. 25, 2023, a 17-year-old named Kai released an EP titled “Today I Laid Down.” He submitted the project to a YouTube livestream by Brad Taste in Music, to which it was met with overwhelmingly positive feedback and praise by both Brad and the stream chat. Only a few months following this, Kai tragically took his own life. Since then, “Today I Laid Down” has received even more praise and is now a beloved staple of the online music community.
Top 10 heavy albums of 2023
The heavy music landscape since 2020 has demonstrated tremendous growth for the various subgenres of metal and hardcore, and 2023 was no exception. Some of the highlights and trends of 2023 include the development of the “thall” offshoot of djent and progressive metal by bands like Catsclaw, Humanity’s Last Breath, and Vildhjarta, the meteoric rise of Sleep Token, Spiritbox’s collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion, and the explosion of popularity for bands were previously considered too heavy or inaccessible to be popular, such as Knocked Loose, Loathe, Invent Animate, Silent Planet, and many more.
Knocked Loose knocked some teeth loose at the Aragon Ballroom
2021 and 2022 brought about the rise of several major modern metal bands including Sleep Token, Spiritbox, and Bad Omens, but none have been as impactful or consistently boundary-pushing as Knocked Loose. Upon their 2021 release “A Tear In The Fabric Of Life,” Knocked Loose propelled themselves from an already big and essential name in the hardcore scene to a boundary pushing, genre defining modern metal and hardcore act. The EP and its accompanying animated short film brought the band some heightened attention from the scene as a whole, simply for how heavy and crushing yet enjoyable the entire project is.