Free Show Today: Heavy Metal Monessen 3

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Heavy Metal Monessen 3

at the Monessen City Park Amphitheater

1918 Grand Blvd, Monessen PA 15062

Saturday 23 April 2016 | 1:00 pm | all ages | FREE

 
Good morning, everyone! For those Pittsburgh-area folks out there, the weather looks a bit gloomy and chilly at the moment, but on the news they’re saying it’s supposed to get sunnier and more pleasant as the day goes on — which is perfect, because this afternoon and evening will be the third annual installment of Heavy Metal Monessen, the FREE outdoor concert that includes a wide variety of local metal talent at the amphitheater in the heart of the city park in Monessen (Mon Valley, Westmoreland County, PA)!

 
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Laster – De Verste Verte is Hier, Sordide – La France a Peur (2014); Cantique Lépreux – Cendres Célestes (2016)

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LasterDe Verste Verte is Hier (Dunkelheit Produktionen, 01 November 2014)

 

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SordideLa France a Peur (Avantgarde Music, 21 December 2014)

 

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Cantique LépreuxCendres Célestes (Eisenwald, 18 March 2016)

 

My calendar is lying to me, I am sure of this. How could it possibly be only Tuesday, when it already feels like this week has lasted about sixteen years?? I have no reasonable or logical explanation. Anyway, as I sit here watching the seconds creep by, I might as well get something written to share with you folks. How does some atmospheric black metal sound? What about albums by three different bands, who approach “atmosphere” in three different ways? And — rather peculiarly — what about a unifying theme between all three albums that just might make you want to get up out of your chair and dance? What if all these questions were rhetorical, because no matter what your answer, that’s what you’re getting anyway?

 

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CHELSEA WOLFE Coming to Pittsburgh — Win FREE Tickets!!

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Opus One Productions Presents:

Chelsea Wolfe with A Dead Forest Index

Saturday 14 May 2016

at Mr. Smalls Theatre, 400 Lincoln Ave. Pittsburgh (Millvale) PA 15209

ALL AGES, 9:00 show / 8:00 doors, $18 in advance / $20 day of show

 

Tickets are on sale NOW at Ticketweb… OR you can WIN a pair of tickets FREE, courtesy of Opus One Productions and Valley of Steel! Keep on reading to find out how…

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BARONESS Coming to Pittsburgh — Win FREE Tickets!!

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Opus One Productions Presents:

Baroness

Sunday 08 May 2016

at Mr. Smalls Theatre, 400 Lincoln Ave. Pittsburgh (Millvale) PA 15209

ALL AGES, 8:00 show / 7:00 doors, $22.50 in advance / $25 day of show

 

Tickets are on sale NOW at Ticketweb… OR you can WIN a pair of tickets FREE, courtesy of Opus One Productions and Valley of Steel! Keep on reading to find out how…

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Venus Sleeps – Dead Sun Worship (2016), Brigantia – Midnight (2015)

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Venus SleepsDead Sun Worship (on cassette via Tartarus Records, 22 March 2016; originally released 13 March 2015)

 

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Brigantia – “Midnight” (self-released, 28 May 2015)

 

Hello out there, and good afternoon! Hope your week is going well — as for myself, I’m just relieved that it’s halfway over. Anyway, I’ve been planning on telling you about the debut album by Irish psychedelic doom band Venus Sleeps, which has been out for a while now but I just discovered it when it was re-released by Tartarus Records last week.

Well today that’s just what I’m going to do, except that I also decided to throw in an extra treat for you all: a song that was put out last spring by another Irish doom band, Brigantia, which you can download for free. Think of it as kind of a bonus track at the end of the article. I’ve got a feeling you’ll enjoy both of these …

 

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Kavyk – Hymns and Hollow Words (2015), Crawl – Old Wood & Broken Dreams (2014)

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KavykHymns and Hollow Words (self-released, 22 April 2015)

 

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CrawlOld Wood & Broken Dreams (Stone Groove Records, 18 October 2014)

 

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! Today I’m going to discuss a pair of releases — each of these was submitted to me by one of the members of each band a little while ago for me to check out, which I’ve done, and to share with all of you, which I’m doing now.

The first of these, released nearly a year ago, is the debut EP from a blackened doom band from Louisiana; although this band is relatively new, its members have been around for a while in various other projects (including one that was written about here on Valley of Steel, not long after the time this EP was released). The second one is a little older, almost a year and a half old by now, and it comes to us from a sludgier doom band out of Atlanta, Georgia — a band which also has been written about previously on this very website. And so, let’s just jump right in …

 

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Writhe – The Shrouded Grove (2014)

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WritheThe Shrouded Grove (self-released, 22 September 2014)

 

“One-man black metal band” — or perhaps to be more accurate, “one-man black metal project.” What do you think of when you hear (read) those words? It sort of makes my skin crawl just to type them. In my line of work (expert music-opinion-haver), the phrase almost always means bad news: some kid who lives in his parents basement downloaded some pirated sound editing software onto his Macbook, cut-and-pasted the same generic drumbeat for twelve minutes, plugged his crappy guitar directly into the line-in input, screamed some stuff about the Impending Conquest of the Dark Lord Urkel Grue into the built-in laptop mic, and then ran the whole thing through some cheesy preset distortion plug-in. Then found some old black-and-white picture of some old buildings using Google image search, photoshopped some nonsense like “Desolation of Solitude” (using Parchment font) onto it, and then emailed it all to me. The message probably started out by saying “Infernal Hailz.” Never a good sign.

But today — surprise!! — I’m going to introduce you to something that goes against all of those stereotypes…

 

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Cormorant – Earth Diver (2014)

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CormorantEarth Diver (self-released, 08 April 2014)

 

Well, sleep-walking my way to the bus this morning really felt like a reality check. Tuesday mornings are generally pretty tough anyway, but following a week and a half of vacation, it just makes it that much harder. To be clear, I’ve been back to work and back to “the real world” for several days now, but today I’m really feeling like “Oh yeah, I forgot how much going to work sucks, I could really use a vacation.”

Speaking of which, how was my vacation? It was nice, thanks for asking. I’ve learned that they don’t call Florida “The Sunshine State” for nothing, everything is way too bright there, and it was some god-awful temperature (well above 80° every single day — in the middle of March!!) and the humidity was nearly unbearable. But on the plus side, I did see all sorts of fascinating nature and wildlife — especially birds. There were birds everywhere, fancy exotic kinds I’d never seen outside of a zoo or even some I’d never seen anywhere. For example, the little guy pictured below, who I encountered in a mangrove swamp while hiking through a place called Bailey Tract on Sanibel Island.

 

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Thy Art Is Murder Coming to Pittsburgh — Win FREE Tickets!!

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Opus One Productions Presents:

The Coffin Dragger Tour – Featuring:

Thy Art Is Murder, Rings of Saturn, Fit for an Autopsy, Dark Sermon

Saturday 07 May 2016

at Mr. Smalls Theatre, 400 Lincoln Ave. Pittsburgh (Millvale) PA 15209

ALL AGES, 6:30 show / 6:00 doors, $16 in advance / $19 day of show

 

Tickets are on sale NOW at Ticketweb… OR you can WIN a pair of tickets FREE, courtesy of Opus One Productions and Valley of Steel! Keep on reading to find out how…

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Acid Mothers Temple Coming to Pittsburgh — Win FREE Tickets!!

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Opus One Productions Presents:

Acid Mothers Temple with special guest Mounds

Thursday 31 March 2016

at Club Cafe, 56-58 12th St. Pittsburgh (South Side) PA 15203

21+ only, 8pm show / 7pm doors, $12

 

Tickets are on sale NOW at Ticketweb, Dave’s Music Mine, or the Club Cafe box office… OR you can WIN a pair of tickets FREE, courtesy of Opus One Productions and Valley of Steel! Keep on reading to find out how…

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