California’s A Band of Orcs would love to release their forthcoming self-titled album in the huge, full-color glory that is a double-LP picture disc vinyl format. They would also love to come to your house and slay you and your family, then steal all your gold and eat all your food. They don’t seem too particular about which of those things takes place, but I suspect you might have strong feelings about one or the other.

Fortunately, the band has decided to give you the opportunity to help ensure the first outcome can happen — which would also ensure that you are spared during the orcs’ eventual quest for world domination. If that sounds appealing to you, here’s how it works…

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About this project

It’s bold. It’s stupid. It doesn’t make sense, and that’s why we’re doing it. We have always been entranced by the mythical visionscapes on LP’s and picture discs of the heavy metal greats like Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Slayer. So that’s what we’re doing. CDs are too small for the epicness of A Band of Orcs debut concept album about slaying giants in the home realm of Hirntodia…

The very best way to present our album is in a double vinyl picture disc set, complete with a 12-page art & lyrics booklet. To hell with what makes sense in today’s digital music environment! Not like your human world makes any sense anyway. We believe in the traditional values of metal–great visual art, spectacular music from start to finish, and well, general epicness. What’s more epic than a double vinyl picture disc set?!?!? If you don’t have a record player, don’t worry, all the sets will come with a download code for the digital version of the album. You can keep this picture-disc artifact as a relic of bygone times, or you can simply pledge your support for a digital copy and forego the record set altogether. Either way, you contribute to raising the money necessary to help us pay the production costs of this ancient metal practice of actually making “a record.” Remember the old Maiden epic album covers featuring the stunning art of Derek Riggs and the various incarnations of Eddie? How about the Slayer Live Undead picture disc? Or the Sacred Reich Surf Nicaragua one?

We wish to recreate this epoch in metal music with our own picture disc set. Records, due to their relatively low demand (taking the music industry as a whole) require a king’s ransom to forge an order of 500 sets, so we are about to embark on another kickstarter campaign to raise the required gold. The great thing about kickstarter is that it removes the middle-human (i.e., record labels) from the process and puts A Band of Orcs in a direct relationship with our fans. In other words, if the fans hail what we’re doing enough they will fund the project because they want to be part of forging the metal legacy that is A Band of Orcs.

So we charge forth with a Kickstarter campaign: If the fans don’t dig it, then no losses on either side, because Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing ordeal. Either we raise the money necessary to complete the project and fulfill our orders to our fans, or we don’t, in which case we just proceed with the normal digital release strategies most labels employ as a matter of course in their war on filthy human ear-drums.

Be sure to help us proselytize the wicked regarding this epic double vinyl release and embed the Kickstarter widget found on the upper right of this page on your blogs or other social media sites.

Hail Gzoroth!!!

 
At the top of this post is the proposed cover art (by Chuck Lukacs) for the album; below that is a series of drawings (by Lorraine Schleter) in various stages of completion, which represent a sampling of the illustrated booklet that would be included inside.

As the message quoted above states, the band needs to raise a very ambitious sum of money ($12,000) to get this made, and the only way you will be able to get your hands on one will be by pre-ordering a copy NOW! If the necessary funds cannot be raised in time, the vinyl release will not happen.

Pledge Levels

• Grunt ($1 or more) – Your name shall be recorded in the scrolls of the spared on the official A Band of Orcs website, and you will receive a digital version of the first single due out, “In the Keeper’s Chamber.”
• Declaimer of the Malspel ($10 or more) – In addition to your name appearing among the scrolls of the spared on the website, you will receive a digital download of the album the day before it drops, plus an official A Band of Orcs sticker (4.75×4.75) featuring the album front cover art.
• Prophet of the Domination ($25 or more) – Get your copy of our first full-length album in this beautiful Double Vinyl Picture Disc set, featuring the art of fantasy illustrator and favored slave of the Domination, Chuck Lukacs, as well as an interior map by Chuck of A Band of Orcs’ adventures slaying Giants in Hirntodia along with a 12-page art insert, featuring 12 illustrations (one for each song) by Lorraine Schleter, and the lyrics and translations of the bits that are in orc. And in case you’re buying this set strictly for the awesome art, it comes with a download code so you can keep the LPs pristine. But we recommend you play them; they will sound awesome! Plus, your name will appear among the scrolls of the spared on the website. Overseas pledges please add $10 for international shipping costs.
• Proselytizer of the Wicked ($35 or more) – get the Prophet of the Domination’s loot (i.e., the double vinyl picture set), plus an autographed 11×17 poster of art by Chuck or Lorraine or possibly both. It will be killer, whatever it turns out to be. Overseas pledges please add $10 for international shipping costs.
• Warrior of the Domination ($50 or more) – You get the Double Vinyl Picture Disc, a digital download of the album, an autographed poster, a 5″x4″ patch for your jacket and a sticker with the album cover on it.
• Iconomancer of Gzoroth ($70 or more) – Get the Double Vinyl Picture Disc and a set of A Band of Orcs Gore-stained Axe Tribe Official Gaming Miniatures ($43 retail; see photo below), plus a digital download of the album the day before it drops and your name in the scrolls of the spared.
• Patron of the Tribe ($100 or more) – You get all the loot above: the picture disc, the minis, the autographed poster, the patch, plus your name in the credits of the double vinyl picture disc set as a “WarChief of the Apocalypse” for your support and a personal phone call from Gogog Bloodthroat thanking you for your support and officially sparing you when the Domination comes.
• Patron of the Domination ($1,000 or more) – in addition to the Patron of the Tribe rewards, Cretos Filthgrinder will write you a shredding instrumental of 2 minutes in length with guitar, bass, and drum machine. Cretos happens to be excellent at programming drums and that’s how we do a lot of our demos before we go into the studio. If you plan on using the tune Cretos writes for you commercially, you will obtain the publishing rights, but Cretos will maintain song-writing rights. Perfect for independent film makers or video game creators looking for some shred to add to their projects. If you plan on using the tune non-commercially, then he will licence it to you under the Creative Commons agreement. Please allow 3-6 months for the completion of this project, depending on the parameters.

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The Kickstarter project page can be found here.

 
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