Category Archives: Free Stuff

Contest Alert: Win 3 Free CDs from Doomentia

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Happy Tuesday, readers!  Just passing along the word about another great contest sponsored by Metalhit and Metal Maniacs.  This one offers you the chance to pick up three brand new CDs from Doomentia Records!

  • Horn of the Rhino – Grengus
    “A collusion of sludge, doom and heavy fuckin’ metal”
  • Moonless – Calling All Demons
    “Slow bonecrushin’ rock ‘n’ roll”
  • Horse Latitudes – Awakening
    “A vortex of hypnotic slow groove”

All you have to do to enter is CLICK HERE, then fill out your name and address.  Good luck!

The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: Mind Structure

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Good evening, readers!  Well, another Monday has come and gone.  That’s okay by me; coming back to work after a three-day weekend is never fun, and I am glad to get it over with as quickly as possible.  Before the end of the day, though, I need to check in with the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website to find something good to listen to, so that I can share it with you!  Today, I found a message that I’d received from Mind Structure, a band whose members come from the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv (Київ) and Kryvyi Rih (Кривий Ріг) asking for a review of their music.  Now, I’m familiar with Kyiv (also called “Kiev”), which is the capital of the country, but Kryvyi Rih was brand new to me.  Thankfully, I have Wikipedia to help me; it informs me that this city is located in the middle of a large iron mining region, and in fact, that it’s one of the most important locations in eastern Europe’s steel industry.  Sounds like a place I can relate to!  Besides that, I had such success listening to Ukrainian black metal last week, I figured it would be a good idea to check out someone else from that country.

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Out Last Month: Ea – Self-Titled

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Ea – Ea (Solitude Productions, 5 March 2012)

 
Time to breathe a huge sigh of relief. As of midnight last night, school’s out for summer! I feel a bit dazed, and a bit numb. I’ve been out of high school for fifteen years now, so it’s refreshing to know I should only have about one more year to go before I finally complete my degree. But honestly, I don’t want to think about that right now. I don’t want to think about anything at all if I can help it. I know I can use a bit of work on my time management skills, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been up until past four in the morning Thursday night trying to get stuff caught up. Let me tell you, it’s pretty surreal to be getting ready to go to bed and to hear your alarm clock telling you it’s time to get up for work. I didn’t have to get up for work yesterday; I had the day off and took advantage of that to head out to the physical campus to take some final exams, as well as getting some last-minute homework turned in, but nevertheless it is weird to be getting into bed at around the same time I had gotten out of bed the previous day!

All of that made for a pretty interesting Friday, but I am just totally relieved to have all of that over with — at least for the next few months. And as I said, I really don’t want to have to do any thinking, or anything at all that might be mentally taxing. I just need a few days to recover, I think. On the upside, I will probably be spending more time writing blog posts, so you’re welcome for that! For now, though, I just want to curl up in this chair with a bottle of wine (an Argentinian chardonnay from Bodega Elena de Mendoza, if you were curious), and my headphones, and listen to something that doesn’t really require any mental effort. My plan is just to close my eyes and let my consciousness drift off into some state of complete numbness.
 
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Now Available for FREE: Basement Torture Killings – The First Cumming

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Basement Torture Killings – The First Cumming (Self-released, Summer 2008)

 
London-based deathgrind/goregrind band Basement Torture Killings are also sometimes referred to by the acronym BTK — not coincidentally, the same initials used by serial killer Dennis Rader (in which case the letters stood for “Bind, Torture, Kill”). With this sort of pedigree, and with song titles such as “Drill Bit Erotica,” “Cut, Drained and Disposed,” and “Necrophiled and Cannibalised,” your first reaction might be — as mine was — to expect them to be one of those super-extreme-brutal-death-wacko bands. You know, where the whole thing sounds so muddled and the guitars and bass are both equalized so low that you can’t distinguish between them? And usually the vocals sound more like a handful of crickets tossed into a bunch of stomach acid inside a blender set to “puree”? I don’t know how people listen to that sort of thing, to be honest, and if you’re with me on that, then you’re in for a pleasant surprise just as I was when I first heard BTK’s music.
 
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In Case You Missed It: The Noumenon – Apocrypha

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The Noumenon – Apocrypha (Self-released, 13 December 2011)

Well, would you look at that — the week’s halfway over already. But then again, that means there’s still half of it left. And I’ve got a terrible fucking headache. Feeling lousy seems to be a common problem this time of year though, especially living in a city that’s notorious for its unpredictable and ever-shifting weather patterns. The past couple mornings the temperature has been hovering just above freezing level, but it’s supposed to go up about 25 degrees higher by the time I leave work this afternoon. It’s hard to get adjusted to stupid shit like that, and the fact that every day this week has had high or very high pollen levels has not helped things one bit. But, whatever. I can sit here and whine and bitch about it, but that won’t do me any good — so instead I’ve decided to take some allergy pills, drink a shitload of coffee, and throw on my headphones with some loud fucking metal music until I can’t feel anything anymore.

Fortunately, I find that today I’ve got a new CD with me, Apocrypha by Edmontonian band The Noumenon, which is pretty much just what the doctor ordered…
 
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Coming Soon: Undersmile Reveal Cover Art, Track Listing, and More!

Posted by valleyofsteel on

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!

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Out Last Month: Tribune – Elder Lore / The Dark Arts

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Tribune – Elder Lore / The Dark Arts (Corpse Corrosion Music, 20 March 2012)

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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Happy Record Store Day!

Posted by valleyofsteel on

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…

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Get ’em While They’re Hot: Download the New Dreaming Dead Album for Free (Today Only!)

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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

Just Released: Obolus – Lament

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Obolus – Lament (The Flenser Records, 10 April 2012)

In the “Inferno” section of his Divine Comedy, the poet Dante describes his descent through the various circles of Hell, including the particular sins which had landed the condemned souls in each of these, and what tragic fate had been assigned to them.  A large part of the allegorical nature of this tale revolves around the narrator’s interaction with some of these damned creatures; while often serving as political commentary on what he perceived as misdeeds in his own time, Dante’s poem also speaks on the evils of human nature in a far more universal sense.

Of the nine circles through which the author must pass, the seventh is the final resting place for those deemed guilty of sins of violence.  This circle is further subdivided into three narrower rings.  The section “Canto XIII” discusses what he sees in the second of these three rings, which is classified as sins of violence against oneself:
 

“… we had put ourselves within a wood,
That was not marked by any path whatever.
Not foliage green, but of a dusky colour,
Not branches smooth, but gnarled and intertangled,
Not apple-trees were there, but thorns with poison.”

“There do the hideous Harpies make their nests…
They make laments upon the wondrous trees.”

“I heard on all sides lamentations uttered,
And person none beheld I who might make them,
Whence, utterly bewildered, I stood still.”

 
Soon, at the urging of his netherworldly guide Virgil, our hero discovers that the voices he hears are issuing from the disfigured trees themselves, in which form are trapped the souls of those who had ended their lives by their own hands.

By breaking off a piece of one of their limbs, he finds he is able to address the tortured soul within, and have it respond to his inquiries:
 

“As out of a green brand, that is on fire
At one of the ends, and from the other drips
And hisses with the wind that is escaping;
So from that splinter issued forth together
Both words and blood…”

 
If the lamentations he heard from this poor, wretched being could be captured on tape, I’m sure the result would be extremely similar to the just-released Lament by the San Franciscan atmospheric black metal band Obolus.
 

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