Author Archives: valleyofsteel

The Sword: Details for New Album & Pre-Order Bundles On Sale Now

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Hey, here’s another bit of good news for you — since you’ve all been good boys and girls (as far as I know!)…

Texan stoner metal ensemble The Sword — who saw their career really take off with the inclusion of one of their early singles as part of the Guitar Hero II video game (at least, that’s when they first popped onto my radar screen) — are now just a few weeks away from releasing their fourth full-length album!

Apocryphon will hit store shelves (as well as the iTunes equivalent of shelves, whatever that may be) on Monday, the 22nd of October. And I’ve got the cover art and tracklisting right here, in addition to a whole plethora of pre-order bundles you can choose from! Also, there will be some tour dates further down, if you keep on reading.
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Win a Test Press Copy of the Author & Punisher LP from Seventh Rule!

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Hey readers, here’s another cool contest you might want to check out — but hurry, you only have until tomorrow (Friday, the 5th of October) to enter!

Seventh Rule Recordings is giving you the chance to pick up a test press of Author & Punisher‘s newest LP, Ursus Americanus! If you haven’t seen it yet (or if you’ve blocked it out of your conscious memory), you can check out my review for this gem of industrial-doom here — which was without a doubt the most fucked-up thing I’ve written in a long time.

So anyway, if you’d be interested in grabbing one of these (since the record plants only produce a very limited number of tests for each album, these are very rare and hence they’ve become a pretty hot commodity among vinyl collectors), all you have to do is throw together a mash-up video using the A&P song “Terrorbird” …

Now that sounds pretty daunting, right? I mean, you’ve only got til tomorrow to do it! (I didn’t get a chance to post this right away when I got the email from Seventh Rule, or else you would have had two whole days’ notice — sorry about that!) But fear not: you have a tool available to you that will drastically simplify the process! It’s called Youtube Doubler, and it looks like it’ll be a lot of fun to play with…

 
So, check out these rules for the contest, and then get to it!!

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Kosher Metal is Giving Away a Copy of the Rock Science Trivia Game!

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TONIGHT (Thursday, the 4th of October), the Kosher Metal radio station is throwing a birthday party for the one-year anniversary of the Metalocity live show with Stack the Ripper and Steven Steel!

To celebrate this milestone, they are going to be giving away a copy of the Rock Science rock trivia game!

 

 

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The Fat Dukes of Fuck – Honey from the Lips of an Angel

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The Fat Dukes of Fuck – Honey from the Lips of an Angel (self-released, 25 September 2012)

 
Hey there, fellow music afficianados.  I don’t know if you noticed, but it feels like all of a sudden, there have been all kinds of huge releases over the past couple of weeks!  Not in the sense that they’re bands who’ll appear on the cover of major magazines, or will hit the mainstream radio airwaves or anything like that, but significant to me, because I’d been looking forward to them for a long, long time!

Well, in any case, there have been a few that I’ve been excited about, and I’ve been listening to them and I definitely plan on publishing reviews for some of those in the very near future.  Don’t worry, we’ll get there.

Today, though, I feel compelled to share something with you, which was not one of those highly anticipated albums. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, I don’t want to give you that impression — but simply due to the fact that I’d never heard of this band before their new album came out last week, so obviously I wouldn’t have been able to look forward to it!

Yeah, the Las Vegas-based group called The Fat Dukes of Fuck, and their brand-new album Honey from the Lips of an Angel caught me completely by surprise. But I have to be honest, as soon as I heard the band’s name, I felt overcome by curiosity, and immediately knew this was something I needed to check out…

 

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Cultura Tres’ El Mal del Bien to be Released on CD!

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All I can say is, Hell Yeah! Devouter Records is putting out another winner of an album…

Venezuelan sludge-doom lords Cultura Tres‘ album El Mal del Bien was self-released back in 2011, and around the beginning of 2012 it became available worldwide on vinyl. It has also been available for digital download, but never has been released on CD — until now!

I discovered this album earlier this year (and wrote about it back in May), and Cultura Tres very quickly became one of my favorite South American exports. So I’m pretty excited about this, and I’ll be ordering a CD for myself very soon — see below for information on how you can get one too!

 

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Incantation Reveals: a New Album is Coming Soon!

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After more than two decades, American death metal pioneers Incantation just keep going and going, showing neither any signs of slowing down nor any inclination to follow the latest fad or change their style… despite the fact that sole original member John McEntee is now working with (if my counting abilities are accurate) the three-hundred-eighty-seventh different line-up of the band since its inception in 1989.

In the years since then, Incantation has made its mark as one of the very first bands signed to Relapse Records (growing alongside that label during their decade-long relationship), and as one of the originators of the New York Death Militia sound (remaining very close to former labelmates Mortician, and even sharing bandmembers with their NYDM brethren from time to time). In addition to having an ever-shifting cast of characters, the band has also called various locations its home — New York, Ohio, and Johnstown, PA.

Throughout this history, Incantation has put out numerous demos and EPs, participated in countless splits and compilations, and released a total of eight LPs. After a trek through Brazil earlier this year and several stops at European festivals during the summer, the guys have returned home to the States and announced that album number nine would be arriving sometime next month via the label that has handled their past few releases, Listenable Records.

 
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A Band of Orcs’ New Album Now Available for Pre-Order

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Dear Readers, how are you on this lovely Monday afternoon??

Haha, I’m just kidding. Of course there’s no such thing as a lovely Monday afternoon, unless by some chance you happen to accidentally sleep through the entire day.

But I do have a little bit of good news to share with you … Adding Heads to the Pile, the debut full-length album by A Band of Orcs, will be released in exactly thirty days — on Halloween, fittingly — and starting right now, you can pre-order it to make sure you are one of the first to get your hands on the album! (Also to make extra sure the orcs are going to spare you during their forthcoming world domination — they obviously aren’t going to warn you in advance when it’s coming, so you’d better not take any chances!)

 
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Download a Free Track from Titans Eve!

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Titans Eve: Jesse Hord (Bass/Vocals), Brian Gamblin (Lead Vocals/Guitar), Casey Ory (Drums), Kyle Gamblin (Vocals/Guitar)

 
Canadian thrashmeisters Titans Eve, whose second album Life Apocalypse was released to huge critical acclaim back in July (at least from this particular reviewer) are now offering you the chance to download one of the tracks from that album for FREE!

(Also, at the end of this post, there’s a list of dates for the band’s upcoming European tour — after spending the past few months on the road going back and forth across Canada, first with Anvil and then Kill Devil Hill, now Titans Eve will be venturing across the ocean for the first time in support of Arch Enemy.)

 
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VOS Interview: Dethlehem!!

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Good evening, readers! As I mentioned earlier today, local RPG-nerd-metal band Dethlehem are headlining The Pittsburgh Scene‘s second birthday extravaganza at Stage AE tomorrow evening.

Preparations have been underway for this show for quite some time — the Dethlehem guys have been sharpening their swords and patching their chain mail, as well as rehearsing their music. But during a recent practice, they were kind enough to allow me exclusive access to their underground lair to sit down and chat, and to find out what’s been happening with the band.

 
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What To Do In Pittsburgh This Weekend (29-30 September 2012)

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Ladies and Gentlemen of the Steel City metropolitan region, I am pleased to once again present you with your list of weekendly happenings in the area!  Read on, become informed, and then go support your local music scene!

 
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