Here we are, it's that time of the year when all the chips are down, time for Ohio State to make a final push toward Big Ten glory. In the meantime, we find ourselves in the penultimate edition of this long-lasting series that stretches all the way back to the early days of 2017. It's been a wild two years, hasn't it? 

Up first in this week's medley, we have, of course, a metal song. This one comes courtesy of one of my favorite bands, and perhaps the greatest (only good?) American folk metal band: Agalloch. This song is a classic example of Agalloch's progressive influences, as it features brilliant, innovative guitar work throughout. It is almost an instrumental, but not quite, for there are brief interjections of words, including a gorgeous sequence toward the end (evidently an excerpt from the Spanish-language film Fando y Lis) that highlights the simple beauty of spoken language, a sequence that always gives me chills. This is "The Hawthorne Passage."

Next is a song that I on first listen I thought could have belonged to any number of bands, because it stems from a sonic tradition begun by the great Thom Yorke of Radiohead. This song, "Where No One Knows Your Name" by Stereo Honey, has Coldplay-like keyboards, a Radiohead-esque guitar solo outro, and vocals that are like a cross between old school Thom Yorke and Tom Chaplin (Keane). 

Next is one of my favorite songs from epic rap duo Run the Jewels. This one was from their second album, RTJ II, and touches on important current events, to put it delicately. As with every RTJ song, it marries brilliant production with top notch lyrics and perfectly timed delivery from both MCs. This is "Early." 

Last up in our medley is an old--and I mean old, old, old--school tune. This is a recreation of an artists's imagining of an ancient Sumerian song, the opening lines of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest surviving work of poetry in human history. Sung in a reconstructed form of the Sumerian language (worth noting that the Epic of Gilgamesh as known today stems from an Akkadian, not a Sumerian, version) and performed with a replica of an ancient Mesopotamian stringed instrument called a gishgudi. It's haunting to think that we can now enjoy something that--in a similar if not identical form--would have been enjoyed by people 4,000 years ago.