Monthly Archives: May 2012

Get ’em While They’re Hot: The Soda Shop Presents a New Compilation – FREE DOWNLOAD!

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Well, The Soda Shop has done it again — they keep putting together these incredible compilations (and then giving them away for free), full of the same great stoner/fuzz/psychedelic/doom/blues bands they are constantly writing about on their blog.

The third volume has just been released, featuring songs by: The Dead Exs, The Heavy Eyes, The Grand Astoria, Mothership, Fellwoods, Shock Radar, Orcus Chylde, The Big Wheel Stunt Show, Groan, The Heavy Company, Once-ler and Venomin James.

I’ve heard most of these bands before (most of them after being introduced to them via The Soda Shop!), and I look forward to hearing the rest of them as soon as this finishes downloading. See the Bandcamp widget below to grab your own copy…

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Get to Know: The Bloody Seamen (Pittsburgh’s Premier Pirate-Rock Band)

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The Bloody Seamen is the premier Pirate-Rock band in the Pittsbugh area. They won an award from Backallie Music for “Best Live Band in Pittsburgh” in 2011. Also, little known fact, they’re actually better at playing baseball than the actual Major League Baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. But the same could be said about practically anybody, so these guys tend to focus on their own unique skill-set, which involves drinking rum*, plundering booty (both kinds), and plenty of high-seas hijinks, but primarily their mission statement is to “crush your souls and melt your faces with sheer rock n’ roll power.”

“Their songs range from traditional accapella shanties to blistering, bombastic rock n’ roll. Their music can only be matched by their stage shows which include swordplay, firearms, audience participation, fisticuffs, and all sorts of high-seas skullduggery.” See below for audio and video evidence of said skullduggery.

 
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* – And speaking of rum, these buccaneers embarked on a campaign a few weeks ago to attrack the attention and sponsorship of Sailor Jerry brand “Original Spiced Navy Rum” — the potent-potable maker has sponsored music acts, but never a pirate-themed rock band, and TBS have made it their mission to become the first. To this end, any fans are encouraged to get in touch with the company with a (polite) request to consider the band.
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Led by Captaine Maurice Lafiet Blaqueguttes (vocals), this band of cut-throats also consists of First Mate Mr. Alasdiar “Pipes” Quint (fife/accordion/bagpipes), Quartermaster “Filthy” Cheswick Springdale (guitar), Botswain “Keelhaul” Von Blaggard III (drums), Master Gunner Thom “Gunny” Castor (guitar), and Swabbie “Squid” (bass).

 
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Make a Video for Gwydion, Win a SUPER FAN PACK!

Posted by valleyofsteel on

 
Portuguese pagan/viking metal band Gwydion want to see if there are any aspiring video directors among their fans!

They’ve just announced a new contest where you can win a great prize package by putting together a video using their music…

 

The Gwydion Beerzerker Contest

 
Complete the Six Trials To Become a Real Beerzerker!
 

 

Make a Video with our music (2 Minutes minimum length) and win a Super Gwydion Fan Pack and a signed Beerzerker Certificate!

The winning video will become an official Gwydion Video with your name on it!

Send Your videos (until July 31st) to beerzerker@gwydion.org

The “Super Fan Pack” includes all of the following:

  • CD copy of their 2008 album Ŷnys Mön (Trollzorn Records)
  • CD copy of their 2010 album Horn Triskelion (Trollzorn Records)
  • Horn Triskelion t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, pin…

 
The contest is named for the closing track on their last album, “Six Trials to Become a Beerzerker” — the rules don’t explicitly say that the music you use needs to come from that song, though.

 
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Gwydion: Facebook, Myspace, Reverbnation, Youtube
Trollzorn: website, Facebook

Help Dirty Shirt Record Their Next Album!

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Do you remember the Romanian metal band Dirty Shirt?

We first met them a few months back when they were the “Signmeto Roadrunner Records Unsigned Band of the Week,” and then checked in with them earlier this week when I reported about some awards they had won.

Anyway, at the time of that original post, I pointed out that their most recent release was the album Same Shi(r)t Different Day, released in 2010. I told you that that album could be downloaded for free by emailing info@dirty-shirt.com (in a lower-quality 128k version), and that it is also available for sale in a higher quality format from their “Dirty Shop” webstore.

Well, considering that it’s now been two years since that album’s release, it seems the band have decided they want to get back in the studio to work on the next one. And that’s where you come in! Recording, engineering, mixing, mastering, etc. — all that stuff isn’t cheap, and so the guys are trying to raise some of the costs in advance; in exchange for donations now, you can be rewarded with copies of the album once it’s completed — and a whole lot more!

 
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Get ’em While They’re Hot: THIRD New Vesperia Song Now Available for FREE!

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STOP! You should totally check out THIS POST instead. Vesperia‘s entire The Swordsman demo is now available to download for free; the full details are included there.

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Out Tomorrow: Embers – Shadows (2xLP Vinyl Release)

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Embers – Shadows (Self-released, 29 March 2011 / vinyl by Iconoclast Records, 25 May 2012)

Californian blackened-crust band Embers released their debut LP Shadows to much critical acclaim early last year. At that time, it was made available as a free (or pay what you choose) download, and it’s still available that way (more details later), but the band recently announced that the album is finally being made available in a vinyl format for those fans who had been requesting that…

Tomorrow (Friday, 25 May) Embers will be kicking off a two-week European tour, starting in Bologna (see the end of this post for a list of dates). At the same time, they will be releasing Shadows as a 2xLP vinyl edition via the Bolognese label Iconoclast Records.

 
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Get to Know: Injury Deepen (Review of Demo 2011 – FREE Download)

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So the other day, I saw some exciting news on Facebook, that I just had to share with you, Readers. Indonesian brutal death metal band Injury Deepen posted, “Minggu ini Kami Siap Untuk Melangsungkan Proses Rekaman Untuk Debut Album Kami!!”

For those of us who don’t speak Indonesian, fortunately we have Google Translate to assist. It isn’t always perfect, and if any readers out there have a better translation for me I’d appreciate it, but as far as I can tell, it says, “This week, we are ready to establish the process of recording our debut album!!”

Anyway, like I said, I was pretty excited to see this; probably if you’d heard the band’s demo from last year, you’d feel the same way too.

I found the four-track Demo 2011 EP at the Death Metal Invasion blog, which is a wonderful resource for discovering new music, because several times a week they post another release (sometimes demos, EPs, or singles, sometimes full albums), and they are all 100% FREE to download — and 100% LEGAL because they only post stuff that comes directly from bands or record labels. As the name implies, they primarily cater to the death metal crowd, but the content spans the huge spectrum of sub-subgenres that fall under that umbrella: traditional, brutal, slamming, technical, melodic, etc., with bits of deathgrind or grindcore thrown in the mix as well.

So I end up downloading A LOT of stuff from DMI, across all those different styles, and from literally all over the world. As you might expect, there is also a wide range of quality in these releases — some I end up liking quite a bit, while others may not resonate so well with me.

Out of all that, Injury Deepen really caught my attention and ended up being one of the more memorable bands I’d heard on that site. So when I learned they’d be working on a new album, I decided to revisit their demo, and then share it with you! (Including, of course, where you can grab a copy for yourself, because they’re still offering it for free!)
 
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Upcoming Shows: What To Do In Pittsburgh This Weekend (25 May 2012)

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Hello there, Pittsburgh-area readers. Once again, it’s time for me to share my weekly digest of shows and events that are happening in town. As it turns out, I’ve got a few pretty interesting ones, and they’re all taking place Friday night (the 25th). Below you will find all the necessary information and details, and then YOU can decide which you want to attend!

And once again, I can only write about what I know about — so if you work for a local promotion company, a venue, or a band, please be sure to get in touch with me with anything you want to share.

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Q: What Do TrollfesT and Madonna Have In Common?

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A: They both want you to strike a pose!

 

 

STRIKE A POSE AND WIN A PRIZE WITH TROLLFEST

 
You may have seen the teaser photos we’ve been running recently on our Facebook page, so here is the story behind them and your chance to win a TROLLFEST prize.

With the summer coming up, lots of you will be going on holiday, or attending festivals or doing whatever it is you do in summer, so we thought you might like to have even more fun by striking a Black Metal pose in front of a landmark, or not so much of a landmark even, and link the photo on the TROLLFEST Facebook page, which we will then upload onto the Strike A Pose album and people can vote for their favourite photo by liking it. The photos with the most likes will win a TROLLFEST prize, so get all your friends to like your photo or make them suffer horrible consequences if they don’t.

The guys in the band have put up a series of photos to demonstrate what they mean by “a Black Metal pose.” Apparently it mostly involves scowling and invisible oranges.

The example photos can be found in this Facebook album.

The closing date for photos will be 31 August, and then we will have another couple of weeks before announcing the winner to allow later photos to catch up. If you’re not going on holiday, don’t worry, just pose wherever you are. ONE PHOTO PER PERSON ONLY PLEASE.

What will be the prize you are asking yourselves? Well, we aren’t going to tell you just yet, but it will be something TROLLFEST and therefore it’s bound to be awesome.

So let’s have some fun, get striking and good luck everyone.

Thanks to Patricia Thomas Band Management for passing along the information about this competition. Some of the example pictures here are pretty interesting, and some are just plain silly. I look forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with!

 
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TrollfesT: website, Facebook, Myspace, Reverbnation, Soundcloud, webshop
Patricia Thomas Band Management: website, Facebook, Myspace, Reverbnation, Soundcloud, Youtube

Out Last Week: Pinkish Black – Self-Titled

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Pinkish Black – Pinkish Black (Handmade Birds, 15 May 2012)

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

The rest of his bandmates came back from wherever they’d been all day, and walked in to find a hellish nightmare: there lay his lifeless body, extinguished by his own hand while he’d been home alone.

It sounds like a tale from Until the Light Takes Us, I know, but this was the story of Tommy Atkins, bassist for Denton, Texas’s The Great Tyrant. Bandmates Daron Beck and Jon Teague reportedly discovered him in the bathroom. Having found their band reduced from a trio to a duo, they decided to continue on under a new name — in honor of the terrible scene they had come across, in which (they said) “the walls were pinkish black.”

With an origin such as this, it’s not at all surprising that the new musical project would seem inspired by and surrounded by death. Sometimes frightening, sometimes peaceful; sometimes horribly ugly, sometimes angelically beautiful; sometimes all of these at once. And dark. Such an intense darkness that it could almost blind anyone who gazes upon it.

 
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