(Click for full-size image)
See the Facebook event page for complete details.
The schedule of bands — which includes a couple from Pittsburgh, as well as all across Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Illinois — is listed below.
Click on a band name to visit their Facebook page.
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Hello, readers. To be honest with you, as much as I’ve bitched and moaned about the workdays dragging by, I really can’t believe it’s already Monday again! This weekend went by far too quickly, but not only that, it hardly feels like last Monday was a whole week ago. I’m guessing this is because school is just about wrapping up for this semester (only one more week to go!) and I’m trying to make sure everything is caught up and turned in before the deadline, and so it is starting to feel like days are slipping away from me. But enough about that, like I said, it’s Monday, and you all know what that means! It’s time for the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week! As you know, this is the thing where I go to the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website and check out the messages that bands have written to me asking for a review of their music. Then I grab one of those bands, listen to the songs they’ve got posted, then I write about them here so YOU can discover some awesome new music.
Today I’m looking at a solo artist from Dorchester, in the southern part of England, whose name is Jamie Parker. He says the three songs currently included on his Signmeto page are just demo tracks that will soon be re-recorded with a new full band line-up, but they sound pretty fully realized to me. I like where things seem to be going with this project so far, and if you like your stoner rock on the heavier end of the spectrum, then you’ll probably dig it as well.
Well, would you look at that. It’s early Monday morning, it’s cold and rainy outside, and I have to go to work. What a miserable way to start the day. Just when I was thinking I could really use something dark and dismal to match my bleak mood, so that I could feel a little better, check out this treasure trove of incredible news I just found on Facebook!
I’ve been bubbling with excitement about a new Undersmile album ever since it was announced, as I mentioned when I wrote about that announcement back in November. (Check out that earlier post if you need a brief introduction to the band and some of their earlier work.) Well as it turns out, Future Noise has just announced a ton of brand new details about that album, Narwhal, which is now scheduled to emerge on 28 May 2012.
At the top of this post you can admire the artwork that will be adorning the new record (by artist Tony Roberts, who has done work in the past for bands such as Conan and Electric Wizard), and further down will be the full tracklist, as well as information on where you can hear a couple of these tracks now — plus how you can preorder a copy of the album!
Whenever I discover a new band, I usually try to learn as much as I can about them, including where they come from. If it’s a country or a city I’m not especially familiar with, occasionally I’ll hit Wikipedia and see if there are any interesting facts to be learned there. Maybe I’m just a major dork, I don’t know. Whatever. Sometimes I like to look at a map of where a band comes from, just to see where it is in relation to things I do know about. This is how I discovered that the city of Burnaby, British Columbia, is right next to Vancouver, near the Pacific coast and just above the U.S./Canada border. Playing with the settings a bit, I found myself looking at a topographic map of that general area. In this way, I found that Burnaby is surrounded by a few lakes, and most of the land seems to be pretty close to sea level anyway. From that I would surmise that there just might be a good bit of swamps or marshlands near that area.
Now, I wasn’t just randomly seeking out information on the geographic characteristics of various cities in Canada. No, I was learning about Burnaby because it’s home to the band Tribune*, to whose recently-released double-EP Elder Lore / The Dark Arts I had just been listening. The blend of riffs and vocals they incorporate into their particular version of death metal might give you the impression that they come from the same backwater bayou country as Down or Crowbar, rather than the frozen tundra of British Columbia, which is what set me on that particular path of research. But anyway, hometown notwithstanding, these guys have put together a combination of styles that I’ve decided to call stoner/death metal. You just need to check it out to see what I mean.
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* By the way — I don’t know if it’s a Canadian thing or what, but I’ve learned that the band’s name is pronounced differently than I originally thought. It’s actually supposed to be “TRY-bune” (as in “tribunal”), rather than “TRIB-une” (as in “tribute”).
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Today — Saturday, 21 April 2012 — is the fifth annual Record Store Day. Basically, it’s a celebration of the small, independent music sellers, and it’s all full of special offers, free stuff, discounted prices, and some unique items that won’t be available any other time! You can learn more about the concept on the Record Store Day website or Facebook page. They also have published a list of stores that are participating in today’s event, so you can see if there are any in your area!
If you don’t have any participating local stores, you can take a moment to reflect on how sad the current state of the music industry is, such that so many small retailers have been forced to shut down over the past few decades. But then, cheer up! Because several online distributors or labels are also offering special Record Store Day deals, and for your convenience I am collecting a few of those here…
Dreaming Dead have officially released their new album Midnightmares (the follow-up to their 2009 full-length Within One) today. Described as “elements of black, death, thrash and Schuldiner-inspired progressive metal [melded] into one thought-provoking and intense sonic assault,” this trio of Angelenos (vocalist and guitarist Elizabeth Schall, drummer and vocalist Michael Caffell, and bassist Juan Ramirez) operate with a strict M.O. of DIY. So in putting together this new album, they aren’t working with any fancy labels, they just went to their fans to help raise the funds using Kickstarter — which has successfully met their goal of $5000, enabling them to release the album on both CD and vinyl!
To celebrate this achievement, and to celebrate the release of the album, the band has announced that they are giving away free downloads TODAY (20 April 2012) ONLY! Head on over to their Reverbnation page, PRONTO, to get in on this deal!
The Kickstarter campaign also runs through midnight (Pacific time) tonight, so there’s still time to join in and grab some great thank-you gifts, including CD and/or vinyl copies of the album, t-shirts, all the way up to a private show in your backyard (southern California area only)!
If you miss out on the Kickstarter thing and the free download thing, you’ll still have the chance to buy physical copies and other merchandise from the band’s online store.
Once again, you can download the album for free from here, just for the rest of today. I’ve got my copy already (and an actual review will be posted soon), now what are you waiting for?
Dreaming Dead website, Facebook, Reverbnation, Webstore
Hello Readers!
Earlier this week marked the six-month anniversary of this blog’s existence. During that time it has grown from a little repository for me to share some music-related snarky remarks and sarcastic comments, to an actual site for semi-legitimate music journalism, with news being shared and reviews being written based on requests from bands, labels, and publicists all over the world!
Well now, just a few days later, I am hitting another important milestone because this is the 100th post to be published here. And, at some point earlier this week (I don’t know exactly when, but it looks like it was probably on Tuesday), I had my 5000th visitor. That might not sound like a big number, but just for the sake of comparison: in the second half of October (from the time of my first post, through the end of the month) I had fewer than 25 viewers, but in the first half of April (through today) I have had just under 1000. That sounds pretty good to me, when I consider the fact that I have done virtually zero advertising (outside of sharing my posts with the bands/labels/etc. that I’ve written about, on their Facebook pages).
I know when I originally wrote the About the Valley of Steel (The Blog) page, I indicated that my reasons for starting to write were personal — in other words, that it was chiefly for my own benefit. That remains mostly true, because honestly, music is such a big part of my life, and I think it’s awesome that I have the opportunity to hear so much new and exciting stuff all the time. At the same time, I view writing as a way that I’m able to give something back to the musicians (and other people in various facets of the industry) to show my appreciation for what they do. If somebody reads something that I wrote, and they go on to “like” that band on Facebook, or attend a show I wrote about, or buy an album that I reviewed, well… then I feel like all the work I do here is 100% worth it.
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Ugh, I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday. Last week, with the holiday and me adding on a vacation day, I only actually worked three days… which I think has now totally spoiled me, because I keep feeling like the workweek should be just about over. This sucks. I spent most of the past couple days listening to some ultra-heavy monolithic death metal, which is usually great for settling the nerves and calming me down. Right now it isn’t really doing it for me, though, and I’m afraid the next person that bothers me is going to end up with a pretty nasty punch to the throat unless I find a better way to chill out. Considering the fact that the majority of the time, I deal with the pain-in-the-ass people over the phone or by e-mail, the whole punching thing might be a bit awkward, but believe me, I’d find a way.
So that brings us to the subject of this review, since I was looking for something totally different to listen to. How about some guitar-driven instrumental metal? Probably not something you’d expect me to gravitate towards, especially since I’ve discussed some of my thoughts on the genre previously, and how it can really rub me the wrong way unless it’s done just right. I was a bit skeptical too, at first, especially when I saw this album cover (see above) and noticed how much this guy looks like a French Steve Vai with a bunch of eyeliner. But then I decided, what the hell, I can be open-minded and at least check out a song or two, then move on to something else.
Well, I’m glad I did give this album a chance, because honestly I was pretty impressed by the quality, and — if I can say this without having it sound like a backhanded compliment — I was surprised by the overall lack of pretension and pomposity that one normally expects from solo guitarists (e.g. Yngwie, etc.).
Hello again, readers. To paraphrase a certain local musician’s recent post on Facebook, there are like 8,000 killer shows taking place right here in Pittsburgh this month! It seemed like about half of those were taking place last weekend (see here for a summary of those), but there are tons more going on this week too! Some big names, and some not-so-big but who have been talked about frequently on this very blog… details below.
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Hey look at that, it’s Monday. Around here, that can only mean one thing: it’s time for the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week! Just like I do every single Monday, without any exceptions ever*, I’ve gone to the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website and checked out some of the bands there who are looking for people to review their music. I’ve picked out one of those, listened to the songs they’ve got posted, and now I’m writing about them here so that once again, YOU can discover some awesome new music.
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*Okay, okay, okay, I lied. I missed last week. I was too busy travelling and visiting with relatives and junk like that over the Easter weekend, and didn’t have anything prepared for Monday. But that was just one time! It won’t ever happen again. Ever. But don’t quote me on that.
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Anyway, that bunch of pissed-off looking dudes in cartoon character shirts, up above, are a band of mathcore hooligans from Istanbul, Turkey, called Chopstick Suicide. These guys recently released an album called Lost Fathers and Sons on the Turkish label Peyote Müzik, but nevertheless they do have a few of their songs available on the Signmeto Roadrunner Records website, and therefore they qualify as an Unsigned Band of the Week here on Valley of Steel, mostly because they are currently seeking a relationship with other labels to help distribute their stuff internationally.
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Valley of Steel 