Author Archives: valleyofsteel

The Visit – Through Darkness into Light (2015); The Night Watch – Boundaries, Nathanaël Larochette – Earth and Sky (2016)

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The Visit – Through Darkness into Light (self-released, 09 October 2015)

 

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The Night Watch – Boundaries (self-released, 15 July 2016)

 

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Nathanaël Larochette – Earth and Sky (self-released, 29 July 2016)

 

Hey, folks — have you read this review of Canadian neofolk/baroque trio Musk Ox‘s 2014 album Woodfall? If you haven’t, I’d be kind of surprised — after all, in the two years since it was published, that review has become the most popular single item to ever appear on this website (as I alluded to when I named the album as an honorable mention for the Top 14 of 2014 list). In fact, it has had more visitors than the About or Contact pages, and far more than any other article I’ve ever written: twice as many as the second-most popular review ever, and almost three times as many as the most-visited article that I published in 2016.

As incredible as all that is, it’s absolutely true, and I figure it can be ascribed to one of two things: either I’m exceptionally good at writing about non-metal music performed with folk/classical instruments, or Musk Ox is just really, really popular. On the off chance that it would happen to be the first one, I’m going to take some time over the next few days to write about some more neo-folk/neo-classical groups whose orchestrations are decidedly non-metal. But in the event that the second thing also comes into play, I will be hedging my bets a bit today: what I’ll be sharing with you has been released by three different musical entities that each involve one or more of the three people who make up Musk Ox. And away we go …

 

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Katatonia – Dethroned & Uncrowned (2013), Sanctitude (2015), The Fall of Hearts (2016)

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Katatonia – Dethroned & Uncrowned (Kscope, 10 Sepember 2013)

 

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Katatonia – Sanctitude (Kscope, 30 March 2015)

 

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Katatonia – The Fall of Hearts (Peaceville Records, 20 May 2016)

 

Commonly referred to as “The Peaceville Three,” British bands Paradise Lost, Anathema, and My Dying Bride each formed in the late 1980s or early ’90s, each signed with Peaceville Records soon after (even though the actual amount of time during which all three of them were on the label’s roster together was actually pretty brief), and each went on to release some major landmark albums that ended up defining the development of the gothic metal genre from its roots in melodic death and doom metal. And, just like when people talk about other bands who just as easily could have been included in lists like “The Big Four” of thrash, there’s an unofficial fourth member of “The Peaceville Three,” who have been in existence about as long as the others, who have been with the Peaceville label for nearly the past twenty years, and who have been just as instrumental in the realm of gothic metal (including the symphonic, progressive, and dark melodic elements that have been interwoven together during its decades-long evolution): their neighbors across the North Sea, Katatonia.

Four years ago, Katatonia released their ninth full-length Dead End Kings, which was subsequently described in press as the band’s “most successful to date,” having “cemented [their] position as masters of sorrowful metal [… and] marked another step in the journey towards a more progressive sound.” Following that acclaim, naturally there would be a high degree of anticipation to see what would come next — and eventually a tenth album of all-new material emerged, just a few short months ago. But before we discuss The Fall of Hearts, the journey to this release has included a look backwards and a good bit of twisting previous entries from this substantial discography into new and interesting shapes, so let’s take a quick tour of what these Swedes have been up to over the past three years, shall we?

 

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Plebeian Grandstand – False Highs, True Lows; Verdun – The Eternal Drift’s Canticles (2016)

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Plebeian Grandstand – False Highs, True Lows (Throatruiner Records / Basement Apes / BLWBCK / Tapes of a Neon God, 29 April 2016)

 

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Verdun – The Eternal Drift’s Canticles (Throatruiner Records / Head Records / Lost Pilgrims, 29 April 2016)

 

When there’s a new Throatruiner Records release, you can pretty much be guaranteed it’ll be filled with plenty of gloomy, yet intensely vicious music of exceptionally high quality. That’s been the case each time I’ve heard anything from this French label (including a few that I’ve written about), and the two we’ll be discussing today — one by toulousains Plebeian Grandstand and the other by montpelliérains Verdun, which both came out back in April of this year — are no exception.

And for some additional good news, at least for readers who live in the U.S., Plebeian Grandstand will be kicking off an American tour this weekend! After you’re done reading about these albums, divert your eyes down to the comments section to check out all the relevant details. Bonne écoute!

 

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supercorrupter – Amps. Anecdotes. Annihilation.; Horseburner – Dead Seeds, Barren Soil (2016)

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supercorrupter – Amps. Anecdotes. Annihilation. (self-released, 30 June 2016)

 

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Horseburner – Dead Seeds, Barren Soil (self-released, 08 July 2016)

 

Hey all you music lovers, or people who are indifferent about music but afficionados of rambly written words! There’s more of both of those in store for you today. I’d like to share recently-released albums by a pair of local (regional) bands: supercorrupter (formerly known as The Gingerdead Men and containing members of various other area groups such as DeathCrawl and Showboy) from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio (between Akron and Cleveland), and Horseburner from Parkersburg, West Virginia (about halfway down the state, going north-to-south, and right at the edge of the Ohio River). Both of these just happen to be appearing at Ohio’s Blackout Cookout next month, but why not give them a listen today?

 

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The Ravenna Arsenal – I. (2013); Gholas – Litanies (2014)

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The Ravenna Arsenal – I. (self-released, 23 February 2013)

 

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Gholas – Litanies (Dullest Records, 11 February 2014)

 

Hello out there, folks. Hope this week has gone well for you all. Over the past few days — during which things got pretty crazy busy, to the point where I didn’t have any time to get anything written — I’ve heard some pretty incredible brand-new releases, and I definitely look forward to sharing those with you. But not quite yet; instead, today we’re going to turn back the calendar a little bit, and spend some time with a couple of my favorite releases from years past that I just never quite got around to writing about yet. These were featured in my Top 13 of 2013 and Top 14 of 2014 lists, respectively, chiefly due to the fact that both of these bands know how to write a hell of a song. These are both albums that I’ve listened to front-to-back like dozens of times, and I feel pretty certain you’ll agree that every single song on each is of excellent quality …

 

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Win FREE Tickets for FULL OF HELL in Pittsburgh!!

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Steel Bridge Promotions Presents:

Full of Hell

with Bleak, Joey Molinaro, CHOIR, Pregnant Nun

Saturday 06 August 2016

at Black Forge Coffee House, 1206 Arlington Ave., Pittsburgh (Allentown) PA 15210

All Ages (BYOB for 21+), 8:00 show / 7:30 doors, $10

 
Tickets are on sale NOW at this link… OR you can WIN a pair of tickets FREE, courtesy of Steel Bridge Promotions and Valley of Steel! Keep on reading to learn more about the show and to enter for your chance to win …

 
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Conan / Slomatics – Split (2016 Reissue)

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Conan / Slomatics – Split (original release 2011 / to be reissued by Black Bow Records, September 2016)

 

Yesterday when we talked about Slomatics‘ first two albums, I mentioned that the band has signed with Black Bow Records, who has rereleased those two albums in advance of the band’s new record due later this year. But this partnership was not the first time they’ve dealt with that label OR its owner Jon Davis. Slomatics and Davis‘ band Conan — from Merseyside County, England, just across the Irish Sea from Belfast — had put together a split record back in 2011. After that limited-edition vinyl quickly sold out, Black Bow put out another pressing of the split in 2014, which also wasn’t around for very long.

And now, they’ve announced that there will be a new batch coming soon — only 200 copies will be made available this time, and each record will be pressed onto a full-color representation of that incredible cover art! An exact release date hasn’t been set yet, but pre-orders are on sale now, and they’re expected to begin shipping around early September.

 

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Steel City Fest (July 2016, Pittsburgh PA)

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Steel City Fest

Saturday 23 July 2016

at Cattivo

146 44th St., Pittsburgh PA 15201

All Ages | doors 3:00, show 3:30 | $13 ADV, $15 DOS

 
More details | Buy tickets

 
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Slomatics – Flooding the Weir, Kalceanna (2015 Reissues)

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Slomatics – Flooding the Weir (original release 2005 / reissued by Black Bow Records, 20 November 2015)

 

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Slomatics – Kalceanna (original release 2007 / reissued by Black Bow Records, 20 November 2015)

 

Here we find ourselves in the midst of another magnificent Monday. It’s kind of shocking to realize how much of each day (and therefore how much of the workweek) is spent basically sleepwalking, semi-conscious, sort of in that fuzzy slow-motion daze that they always use in movies and tv shows when someone has been drugged or tranquilized or something. And I mean, a large portion of each day even after a cup of coffee or two. Maybe this is why I find myself drawn to low-tempo, fuzzy, swampy/sludgy, crawling-through-quicksand styles of music so much of the time?

I don’t know. But that’s exactly what the music we’re here to talk about today sounds like. Slomatics, from Northern Ireland, have been actively creating heavy fuzz-sludge music for about a dozen years now. Their first two albums were released in 2005 and 2007 on CD, but have been out of print for years. So naturally, after they had signed to Black Bow Records (the label run by their neighbor across the Irish Sea, Conan‘s Jon Davis), while the band got working on their upcoming fifth album (which is set to release in early September), the label decided to once again make those early two releases available in digital format.

 

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Anicon – Exegeses (2016)

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Anicon – Exegeses (vinyl Gilead Media / CD Avantgarde Music, 08 July 2016)

 

Good morning, reader — hope you’re having a good, relaxing weekend! Normally this would be my time away from writing, too, but I just realized that Anicon are coming to Pittsburgh tonight. And I realized that last year when these blackened Brooklynites came to town, I had their 2015 EP Aphasia on my to-do list, but something came up that prevented me from attending that show or even getting a chance to write about the band’s most recent release. (I eventually did get around to it earlier this year, but I still felt bad for my negligence.)

So this time around, the band has a brand-new album which just came out earlier this month, and — even though, due to some rotten luck, family obligations will prevent me from being able to see this fantastic band perform again — I definitely did not want to miss the opportunity to share this with you people before tonight.

For those of you in the Pittsburgh area, The Smiling Moose on the Southside is the place to be; here are all the details. For those living elsewhere, the band’s scheduled dates can be found here, and in either case, keep reading to check out their newest record …

 

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