Author Archives: valleyofsteel

Now Hear This! Previously Unreleased TrollfesT Song Now Streaming

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Over their nearly-decade-long existence, TrollfesT (who inexplicably describe themselves as “True Norwegian Balkan Metal”) have really built a name for themselves, as much for their unique folk instrumentation as for the drunken party environment that surrounds everything they do. By all accounts, their live performances are truly something to behold — and for those who live in Europe you just may get a chance to witness this, as they are playing at Norway’s Inferno Festival this Thursday (05 April) before embarking on a tour with kindred spirits Korpiklaani this month, as well as dates in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as part of MetalFest in July, Slovenia’s Metalcamp in August, and finally the Heidenfest tour in October and November.

For those of us who live elsewhere and aren’t lucky enough to be able to attend any of these festivals or tours, we can take heart in the knowledge that sometime this summer the band’s fifth album Brumlebassen will be released by Noise Art Records, but maybe that isn’t quite enough for you — perhaps you are still feeling left out?

Sadly, I can’t magically make the band appear in your city (although they did mention on Facebook, a while back, that they’d love to come to the U.S. — they just need enough people to go to their local venue owners and concert promoters and demand it! ask politely), but what I can give you is a sneak peek at a song that was previously only available at live shows!

 
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Get ’em While They’re Hot: Three Free HUGE Compilations from Grip of Delusion Radio!

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Check this out! The nice people at Grip of Delusion Radio have put together a gigantic compilation in three volumes (over one hundred songs altogether!) and they’re yours for the taking, absolutely free of charge. There are some pretty awesome bands represented here, including a couple I’ve written about in the past (Vulture and Undersmile) and one that I’ll be reviewing very soon (Fire in the Cave), plus Banda de la Muerte, Heavy Lord, Forged in Flame, Wo Fat, Cultura Tres, Thorr Axe, Behold! The Monolith, Shroud of Despondency, and tons more!!

These were just released on Sunday (01 April) and by Monday they had already run out of free Bandcamp downloads! But mere minutes ago, it was announced that due to the generosity of The Soda Shop, they’ve just added on another thousand downloads… so hurry up and grab one while you still can!

See the Bandcamp widgets below for each of the three volumes, where you can download them if you like (or just listen to the songs and then download your favorites)…

If the Bandcamp well runs dry again, don’t fear, they have alternate download capabilities on this page — including a link to Mediafire (where you can grab the songs one at a time) and Dropbox (which offers all three volumes in a single Gig-and-a-half bundle).

 

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The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: Obscurcis Romancia

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Well, it’s Monday again, and that can only mean one thing.  It’s time for the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week!  As you are already aware, this is that 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 pick one at random (where “at random” usually means “whoever wrote to me the longest amount of time ago”), I listen to the songs they’ve got posted, then I write about them here so YOU can discover some awesome new music. 

This week we’ve got a nice sample of black metal from the frozen tundra of the far north — except instead of northern Europe like you might be expecting, this is northern North America.  Specifically, we’re looking at a band who come from the French-Canadian province of Québec, who call themselves Obscurcis Romancia.  If you couldn’t decipher it yourself, the band’s name (which seems to be a hybrid of French and Latin, as far as I can tell) translates to something like “Obscured Romance.”  They play a fantastically proficient form of classically-influenced black metal, and they’ve also recently released their second full-length album (details on how to get your hands on a copy, later in this post!)

 

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Upcoming Shows: Wykked Wytch Joining Soulfly on Tour

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Hey, you remember Wykked Wytch, don’t you? Blackened death metal with vocals by a lady who is clearly possessed by demons? If not, you can check out the review I wrote for their latest album The Ultimate Deception, which was released by Goomba Music on the 14th of February, and you can also listen to it on Soundcloud:

 
 

Anyway, it’s just been announced that the band is heading out on the road with Soulfly, on what’s being called the “Maximum Cavalera” 15th Anniversary North American Tour…

I haven’t seen anything that clearly explains the meaning of the name — my first thought was that Max might be accompanied by his brother (and ex-Sepultura and Cavalera Conspiracy bandmate) Igor, but as far as I can tell, this is not the case. Rather, it appears to be a reference to one or more of Max’s sons; from what I understand, there were guest appearances by three offspring on one of the songs from Soulfly’s latest album Enslaved, and one of them reportedly was playing drums with the band on a recent South American tour. Furthermore, it looks like there are a few junior Cavaleras involved with the opening act, which would add up to a hell of a lot of Cavalera (if not literally the maximum as advertised).

Also joining Soulfly and Wykked Wytch on this month-long, 24 27-city trek are Incite and Lody Kong. See below for a full list of dates. UPDATE 11 April: three new dates have been confirmed and added to this list – Wilmington NC, Dallas TX, and Lubbock TX – see below.

 

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Contest Alerts: Win a Shitload of CDs or Records!

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Is today your lucky day? It might be! Check it out — I’ve got the details here for TWO different contests, one where the prize is a total of 29 CDs, and another where you can win a whole bunch of vinyl (including some ultra-rare pieces)!
 

First of all, check out this contest sponsored by Clawhammer PR and MetalReview.com:

The fine folks at Clawhammer PR have always been good to us here at MetalReview, but they’ve outdone themselves with this one. Quite simply, this is the biggest contest we’ve offered up in many a malevolent moon, if not forever and ever. So, first off, let’s all say a special thanks to the Clawhammerkids for hooking us up with this gigantic haul. Once we’ve done that, let’s get down to business, shall we?

WHAT YOU GET (if you win):

Of course, in any contest, you want to know what the prize is, right? Well, for this one, if you win, you get a proverbial shitload of CDs*. Here’s the full list:
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Upcoming Shows: Iron Atrocity Benefit, Vulture CD Release, Ernie and the Berts

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This post goes out to anyone who will be in or around the Pittsburgh area this weekend and can’t find anything to do: GET YOUR ASS OUT TO SOME SHOWS, because there are some awesome ones happening all three nights!! Check out the details below, and get excited!

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Iron Atrocity Vol.2 Benefit Show

at The Smiling Moose bar on the South Side
1306 East Carson Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203
Friday, 30 March 2012 – doors open at 9:00, show runs until 1:30am
21+ only, $5 per person (suggested minimum donation)

For more details, see the Facebook event page.

You’ve seen me talking about Iron Atrocity, the free compilation of the Pittsburgh metal scene many times before, and for good reason. There’s lots of great stuff on the first volume (don’t belive me? Download it here!), and there promises to be just as much awesomeness when the second one rolls around.

Innervenus, the local record label and music collective responsible for assembling this compilation, held a Kickstarter fundraising campaign recently to help finance the production of the CD. That was mostly successful — at least, enough pledges were made to cover about two-thirds of their target, while the Innervenus staff ended up supplementing the remainder out of their own pockets.

Well, some nice folks decided to throw together another benefit show to help offset some of those costs, and that show is happening this Friday night.

The Smiling Moose Facebook

Iron Atrocity Facebook
Innervenus Facebook, Website

 
 

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If that isn’t already too much excitement for you to handle, there’s plenty more on the way…

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Get ’em While They’re Hot: Free Meshuggah Track Download, Ticket Giveaway

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Well, the nice people of Scion A/V have done it yet again, hooking you up with some more free metal.  This time around, they’re letting you grab the song “I Am Colossus” from Koloss, the new Meshuggah album that was just released on Nuclear Blast.

Here’s what Scion had to say about the band and this song:

The larynx-lacerating, off-the-meter metal of Swedish powerhouse Meshuggah is so distinctive that it birthed its own sub-genre, called djent. On this exclusive single for Scion A/V, the band plumbs heavy grooves as only they can. Turtle-paced but with tightly-coiled potential for acceleration, “I Am Colossus” is one of the best Meshuggah songs in their gem-stuffed discography. Power up.

FREE DOWNLOAD OF MESHUGGAH’s “I AM COLOSSUS” HERE.

 
 

And if that isn’t enough for you, Scion A/V is also giving away a pair of tickets to every Meshuggah show on their upcoming tour with Baroness and Decapitated.

  To enter for a chance to win:

1. Read the RULES and TOUR SCHEDULE: http://www.scion.com/Meshuggahsweeps

2. Follow ScionAV on TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/ScionAV

3. Tweet “@SCIONAV #Meshuggah [date of show]”

Each winner will be chosen at random from the entries provided for each show. Winners will be contacted via Twitter one day before the concert with details on how to redeem the tickets.  Tour dates are listed below…

 

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Out Today: Vulture – Oblivious to Ruin

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Vulture – Oblivious to Ruin (27 March 2012, Innervenus Music Collective)

 

I’d to apologize to you in advance for the following review, because what I am about to bring to your attention is going to seriously fuck up the rest of your day.

Today marks the official release of Oblivious to Ruin, the debut LP from “Steel City Sludge” purveyors Vulture. These Pittsburgh natives have been around for a few years now — they had previously recorded a self-titled EP at the end of 2008 with a different singer (this was recorded in Virginia with the assistance of Gwar‘s late guitarist Cory Smoot). The following year, though, they swapped for new frontman Justin Erb, and soon started working on new material.

The first material anyone heard out of this revised line-up was the track they recorded in early 2011, exclusively for the Iron Atrocity Vol. 1 compilation: “Prick of Misery” . That song was definitely one of the highlights from that collection, so of course I was excited not long after that when I learned Vulture had teamed up with Innervenus to put together a full-length album.

The band returned to the same studio in Akron, Ohio, where “Prick” had been recorded, and once again they worked with Complete Failure‘s James Curl. After hammering away at it through August and October 2011, Oblivious to Ruin is now ready to be unleashed upon a thoroughly unsuspecting public.

 

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Reblog: Argus Interview with That Devil Music

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Good morning, readers, I hope you are doing well today. I just wanted to share this with you in case you haven’t already seen it, because That Devil Music, one of my favorite metal websites, has posted an interview with Argus, one of my favorite semi-local bands! (Semi-local, because they are just outside of Pittsburgh too, but in the opposite direction from me.)

 

Anyway, you can read the interview here — and see the band address such topics as the reaction to their second album (Boldly Stride the Doomed, out last year on Cruz del Sur Music); whether they consider themselves “doom metal” (spoiler alert: they can equivocate about genre as well as anybody); and what the future holds as far as upcoming shows (special mention is made of them playing the 31st Street Pub next month for the Dream Death reunion) and their forthcoming third album.

 

Enjoy!!

The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: Information Harvest

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Hello, Readers!  It’s Monday, so of course it’s time once again for the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week feature.  As you should all know by now, this is when I write about an artist whose songs appear on the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website.  People contact me there all the time, looking for reviews of their music, and I am more than happy to oblige. I listen to whatever they’ve got, and then I talk about it here, and then YOU (the devoted reader) can go check it out for yourself. Maybe you’ll really like what you hear. There’s only one way to find out, so let’s get started.

This week, I’ve got something totally different to share with you, and I’ve also got a request. It’s audience participation time! Usually when I check out a new artist over at Signmeto, I find a few songs that they have recorded for a collection of demos or promos, or sometimes even songs from an independently released EP or album. The goal, ostensibly, is to gain further exposure for the band, possibly even (judging by the name of the website) the chance at a contract with a record label. Well, today what we’re looking at will be more like rough sketches of unfinished songs, which have been posted for the purpose of soliciting feedback. These basic outlines have the potential to turn into something pretty great, so I think you should take the time to listen to them — hopefully you’ll have some great ideas of how something could be changed or improved (I’ve got faith in you, readers, because obviously you have good taste in music or you wouldn’t be here in the first place!).

 

The music you are about to hear was put together by a Rhode Islander named Andrew James Liles. I’ve gotten to know him as a reviewer, through my interaction with other members of the Signmeto website, and he seems like a pretty nice guy. Recently, Andrew sent me a request to check out these demos for his project Information Harvest, because he is getting together with the rest of the band soon to rehearse and work on fleshing out these songs a little more fully. As it stands currently, these are instrumental pieces with Mr. Liles playing the guitar, bass, and keyboard; some of the guitar solos or leads here might be replaced by vocals but he says he is still “on the fence” about whether or not to add vocals. Also these tracks are supported by drum loops temporarily; Andrew echoes my own sentiments 100% when he tells me he hates drum loops — so let’s all agree to ignore the fact that the drums currently sound terrible and fake, secure in the knowledge that they will ultimately be replaced by a living, breathing human drummer.

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