Category Archives: Free Downloads

Employed to Serve – Long Time Dead (2012)

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Employed to Serve – Long Time Dead (18 September 2012, Grindcore Karaoke)

 

Hello readers, and happy Tuesday. For the majority of you, this is just like any other Tuesday in any other week, but for many of my domestic readers, we’re fumbling our way through our first day back to work from a long weekend — due to Presidents Day, which is a made-up American holiday based on the fact that a couple of the country’s better-known presidents had been born sometime in February, and is used as a convenient excuse to take an extra Monday off work. It’s a nice idea in theory, but then heading back to reality is just that much more unpleasant. Everyone hates Mondays, but I’ve mentioned in the past how Tuesdays can be even worse sometimes, and especially when it’s a Tuesday that behaves like a Monday. Ugh.

Fortunately — whether we’re returning to work today or yesterday or any day, since it’s all equally miserable — I’ve got the perfect soundtrack to help make it through.

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MAKE – Demos & Outtakes (2013), The Golden Veil (2015), In Pursuit (2015)

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MAKE – Demos & Outtakes (self-released, 26 January 2013)

 

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MAKE – The Golden Veil (Black Iron Records, 17 July 2015)

 

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MAKE – In Pursuit (self-released, 30 December 2015)

Okay folks, lots of ground to cover today, so let’s just jump straight in. Cool? Cool.

The last time we talked about MAKE, the Chapel Hill band that combines blackened atmospheric doom with blackgaze and drone/ambient elements (for lack of a more concise description), it was a little over three years ago, and the band had just put out an EP of material that didn’t quite fit on their previous album (one which had ranked among the best albums of 2012), but also wouldn’t quite match the direction of their next one — which they had said they were beginning to work on around that same time…

 

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Oak Pantheon – From a Whisper (2012)

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Oak Pantheon – From a Whisper (Broken Limbs Recordings, 25 September 2012)

 

Winter can be pretty stressful at times: for someone who has to commute long distances on a daily basis, wondering how long traffic delays might be during inclement weather, whether the worst of a storm will come earlier than predicted before arriving safely at home, which steep hill that leads home is more likely to have been plowed or salted more recently; for someone who has to walk to and from the bus stop, afraid that hiding under that snow or on that poorly-lit section of sidewalk may be a treacherous patch of ice, that maybe it will be possible to maintain balance in the event of slipping or skidding, but if not, will the result just be a few bruises again, or something much worse this time?; and for someone who lives in an old house wherein everything seems to be falling apart all at once, where it seems that the scarcely-adequate amount of heat coughed out by the ancient furnace just goes straight through poorly insulated windows.

I imagine there are lots of folks out there who can relate to many of these concerns, or at least some variation of them. But we’re going to put all of that out of mind today, because we’re coming back from a weekend full of atypically mild weather — at least here in western Pennsylvania — and even at four o’clock this morning when I left for work it was lovely outside (relatively speaking), with a pleasant, warm-ish breeze. Anyway. Having said all of that, now perhaps we can look at some of the more positive aspects of winter. For example, if you don’t have to travel anywhere (and if you’re sufficiently bundled up), walking through the woods and seeing all the snow-covered trees can be sort of pretty. Also it’s generally an appropriate environment for listening to black metal, particularly of the atmospheric or pastoral varieties. Also… nah, that’s all I can think of, just those two things.

It just so happens there’s an excellent album full of exactly the right type of sounds for this time of year — one that came out a little over three years ago and I’ve been listening to it quite a bit (especially during the wintertime) since then, and that I’ve always meant to share with you people but somehow just never got to it yet. I suppose that, as they say, there’s no time like the present…

 

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Cave of Swimmers – Cave of Swimmers (2014) and Reflection (2015)

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Cave of Swimmers – Cave of Swimmers (The Path Less Traveled Records, 15 April 2014)

 

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Cave of Swimmers – Reflection (self-released, 4 May 2015)

 

Dear Friends, I am thoroughly confused about something. It’s been about two months since Cave of Swimmers, the Venezuelan-American guitar/moog/vocals/drums duo who live in Miami, released their second album Reflection. This is a collection of four songs that are sheer excellence — every bit as fantastic as the four songs on their self-titled debut which had been released about a year prior — unquestionably one of the most incredible things I heard in 2014, and quite a pleasant out-of-nowhere surprise. So what I can’t understand is, at this point, why is this band not just exploding, and being lauded with overwhelming international renown??

To a small extent, I accept and acknowledge my share of the blame: on both occasions I’ve let trivial things like “being too busy at work to get much writing done” keep me from publicly sharing my thoughts on the release of these two brilliant albums (with one minor exception). Well that all ends today. Get ready to fill your ears with this…

 

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Corrupt Leaders – Grindmother (2015)

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Corrupt Leaders – Grindmother (self-released, 03 February 2015)

 

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Forest of Tygers – Bruises (2014)

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Forest of Tygers – Bruises (29 April 2014, Primitive Violence [cassette] / Acteon [CD/digital])

 

Hey there, ladies and gentlemen (and whomever else might be lurking out there reading this). Welcome to a new month! It’s strange: this week is almost over already, and I still feel like I’m trying to recover from last weekend. It was packed full of running around — for example, to the hospital to visit our cousin’s newborn triplets, and to a friend’s wedding — and a few late nights, between the wedding and my band playing our first show in over seven months(!) which was pretty cool. But yeah, just trying to get back into the swing of things — not to mention now we’ll need to be preparing for our next show, which as I mentioned last week would be on October 10th when Black Tar Prophet, the sludgy, noisy duo from Nashville, come to town.

Well. Today I’ve got a treat for you, because we’re going to talk about another great two-piece band: Forest of Tygers, which consists of guitarist Jim Valosik and drummer Rachel Valosik. Just like their fellow Nashvillains BTP, FOT have also put out a new release back in the spring of this year, the Bruises EP. Although just four tracks long, this debut is crushing, and just the right amount of nasty, and serves as an excellent introduction to this husband-and-wife team.

 

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Recreant – Still Burn (2014)

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Recreant – Still Burn (Halo of Flies, 02 September 2014)

 

Until sometime last summer, there used to be a house out in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Well, actually I suppose the house is still there. But previously it had been the home of a couple friends, who (at the time) had been members of a few local bands including Cerebral Apophysis and Old Man of the Mountain. This little urban bungalow was referred to as the Gopher Hole, and it was here (specifically, in one small room which adjoined the kitchen) that a great many DIY shows were held, which featured a huge assortment of local and nationally touring bands.

At one such event, back in April 2013, my wife and I had dropped by to see local hardcore sensation Meth Quarry, and we also got to check out the grindy-screamy bass/drums duo Shiff. Later that evening a band from Florida, whom I’d never heard before, called Recreant was supposed to play, but unfortunately we had a prior engagement and had to leave the show early. While we were there, though, we briefly met some of the members of the touring band, who seemed like really nice people. Half based on that, half based the fact that it had some really sweet artwork, we decided to buy a copy of the record they had for sale. The idea was, it’s nice to help out bands on tour — especially when they’re playing a free DIY show — and if it wasn’t very good, well, we know enough people who collect vinyl and surely we could find a good home for it.

Well. The next day I took that LP with its Crass-inspired logo out of the sleeve (it turns out, it was housed in a recycled old album cover which had been turned outside-in, re-glued, and with the band’s artwork screenprinted on the new blank front), and decided to give it a spin. As I recall, it took less than twenty seconds to realize there would be no need to worry about finding someone else to adopt the record: this was some pretty incredible stuff. (You can check it out right here.)

So anyway, fast forward a bit, and now earlier this month, the band has just put out another record — this one through the Halo of Flies label. It’s awesome, too. They’re on the road again, in the middle of a huge cross-country tour. For months I’ve been looking forward to their return to Pittsburgh (which will be tomorrow night!), but I’ve got the full list of remaining dates here. I’ll share them with you after I talk a little bit more about the new album Still Burn.

 

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Cowards – Shooting Blanks and Pills (2012)

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Cowards – Shooting Blanks and Pills (Throatruiner Records, 30 June 2012)

 

Good afternoon, readers. How are you on this fine Wednesday? I’m glad that I’ll be leaving work shortly, but I’m also dreading walking outside into the terrible heatwave we’ve been experiencing this week. But I’d rather not think about that — right now I’ll just sit here and enjoy the air conditioning and listen to something especially nasty and dark and angry. At the moment, I’m listening to one of my favorite hardcore records I’ve heard in a long time, which just happened to be released two years ago this week.

The album came out through Throatruiner Records, a label I’ve mentioned in the past that I have a lot of respect for, and that I’ve also discovered some incredible underground bands from — most of which are European and many of which play in a dark-toned style of hardcore that I’ve really come to appreciate.

Parisian quintet Cowards is no exception, I found when I downloaded their debut album Shooting Blanks and Pills (for free, as per usual for this record label). As I listen to it now, perhaps for the fiftieth or hundredth time, it occurs to me that I’ve never written about this band or this album before, which is really a shame because more people should get the chance to enjoy this piece of fine art. So here we are.

 

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Begrime Exemious – Visions of the Scourge (2012)

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Begrime Exemious – Visions of the Scourge (Dark Descent Records, 04 April 2012)

 

Good afternoon! Remember yesterday when I wrote about the new Wrought Iron album? I mentioned that they’d be having a release show to celebrate TONIGHT, at Howler’s Coyote Cafe in Bloomfield (Pittsburgh). Full details on that can be found right here. That show also features locals Post Mortal Possession and two out-of-town bands who are each currently engaged in (separate) tours: Cryptic Yeast from New York, and Begrime Exemious from Alberta.

Well as it turns out, I remembered that I had an album from the Canadian band — one that I’d never quite gotten around to writing about, so it’s just sort of been sitting here in my “to do” pile for the past 2+ years. With this news that they’re coming to Pittsburgh, in the midst of what I believe to be their first American tour (outside of a short excursion down the Pacific coast last summer), I figured it’s as good a time as any to revisit Begrime Exemious and their second full-length album Visions of the Scourge. (They’ve also released a number of splits and EPs, before and since then, and you may be interested to learn that pretty much their whole discography is available to download from Bandcamp for free or “pay what you like” — see the relevant link at the end of this post.)

 

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Now Available on Vinyl: Autarch – The Death of Actiacus

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Autarch – The Death of Actiacus (originally released 19 April 2013 on cassette and via Bandcamp; re-released May 2014 on vinyl by Headfirst! Records and All We Know Records)

 

Crust, as a musical genre, can be difficult to precisely pinpoint — it seems to hover somewhere around the intersection of gritty hardcore punk and various forms of extreme metal such as death/thrash/crossover or, sometimes, black metal. (This last association works especially well when the combined genres also incorporate atmospheric or “post-metal” elements.) While musically the term can span a fairly wide spectrum (while staying primarily within the general confines of the collection of styles mentioned), crust as a concept tends to be more clearly defined by its attitude and lyrical themes — often focusing on things like social issues, or protesting against perceived injustices. Therefore, it would seem to make sense for a band called Autarch to identify themselves with that tag: “autarchy” is a philosophy similar to anarchy, but with a strong emphasis on self-governance and pure individualism.

Following a self-titled demo in 2012 (which you can download from Moshpit Tragedy here, either for free or by donating any amount you choose, which will then be sent to Canada’s Cedar Row Farm Animal Sanctuary), this group from the Blue Ridge region of western North Carolina released an album called The Death of Actiacus last spring. (“Actiacus” is one of several names used for Apollo, due to the fact that one of the major ancient Greek temples dedicated to this god of sun and light was located at a site called Actium — so it seems, metaphorically, the album title is basically referring to the extinguishing of light.)

And now (actually, sometime within the past week), the album has been made available in a limited vinyl edition (just 300 copies pressed on grey marble). And the band is also in the midst of a tour up and down the eastern U.S. and Canada — with only a handful of dates remaining before they head back home, but including a stop in Pittsburgh tonight (Wednesday, 28 May). More on both the tour and the album can be found below.

 

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