Category Archives: Free Stuff

Kosher Komp Vol. 3 – FREE MUSIC!

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Good morning, folks! If you ever feel sluggish and unmotivated during the day, it’s probably because you didn’t start things out right — every morning routine should always start out with plenty of loud music to help the blood start flowing and the brain to start thinking.

Internet radio station Kosher Metal knows this is true, and so they’ve helpfully assembled another collection of some of the great underground music they play.

You might remember I told you about their second compilation earlier this year. That had some great stuff on it, and a few bands (Mouth of the Serpent, Sangre) that I ended up writing more about later.

Well, as of midnight last night, Kosher Komp Vol. 3 has been released and is now free for you to download!

 
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Wizard Smoke – The Tickler EP (Free Download / On Vinyl Soon)

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Wizard Smoke – The Tickler (self-released, 28 September 2012)

 
In a world that often feels overrun by generic stoner/psychedelic metal bands, where you can hardly turn around without running into another group of hirsute Big-Muff-pedal-stompers, who use more drug references per song than an entire Cheech and Chong movie that co-stars Bill Hicks, and who often get complimented on the cool fog machine effects during their shows when in fact they don’t even use one…

I think you get the idea. Anyway, in spite of all of that, Atlanta, Georgia’s Wizard Smoke have always stood out among the crowd, to me; their output easily meeting the standards set by some of their more famous fellow southern U.S. contemporaries, as well as that of any of the similarly-named bands you might think of, either across the country or across the pond.

My deep appreciation for this group began the very first time I heard one of their songs — that being the opening track from 2009’s Live Rock in Hell, the confusingly titled “II”. The rest of that album and the 2011 follow-up The Speed of Smoke both maintain a pretty consistently high quality of material, but “II” remains among my absolute favorites across the entire genre.

I guess the point I’m trying to drive home is, if you are a fan of all things fuzzy and sludgy, and you also enjoy harsh vocals that often veer into blackened territory, you really ought to be familiar with the Wizard Smoke catalog. Lucky for you, I’ll have some helpful links later on.

But first, I want to say a few words about The Tickler, the new EP they just made available about a week and a half ago. Like everything else the band has done so far, it’s good stuff — and also like everything else they’ve released, you can download it totally free!

 
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Another Mortal Music DR Coming Soon: Monsterworks

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Well holy shit, check this out.  It’s just like they say: speak of the devil and he appears at your elbow.

In this case, “the devil” is Mortal Music‘s Digital Releases — their little gift packages containing a few tracks at a time from a particular band, and made available for free download for a limited time, eventually leading up to a full-length album from that band.

Just this afternoon I was talking about the fact that Ion Vein is getting the details straightened out for their second DR, and I had literally just hit the “Publish” button on that article, when an email suddenly popped up in my in-box telling me that Monsterworks has announced details for the release of their second DR!

 
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Ion Vein: Another Digital Release is in Progress

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Hello again, good people who have subscribed to this blog or like it on Facebook and read my rambly words sometimes! I hope you all are having a pleasant Monday — except for whoever the fucker was that unliked my page today! That person probably won’t ever see this, but still, I hope they have the worst day ever, and then keep re-living it Groundhog Day style!

Haha, but not YOU, dear faithful reader who is currently reading this! In fact, to show my appreciation, I’ll let you in on a secret — for the second time today, I’ve got some information about a band we’ve talked about in the past, who plans on having some new material for us soon!

 
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Win a Test Press Copy of the Author & Punisher LP from Seventh Rule!

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Hey readers, here’s another cool contest you might want to check out — but hurry, you only have until tomorrow (Friday, the 5th of October) to enter!

Seventh Rule Recordings is giving you the chance to pick up a test press of Author & Punisher‘s newest LP, Ursus Americanus! If you haven’t seen it yet (or if you’ve blocked it out of your conscious memory), you can check out my review for this gem of industrial-doom here — which was without a doubt the most fucked-up thing I’ve written in a long time.

So anyway, if you’d be interested in grabbing one of these (since the record plants only produce a very limited number of tests for each album, these are very rare and hence they’ve become a pretty hot commodity among vinyl collectors), all you have to do is throw together a mash-up video using the A&P song “Terrorbird” …

Now that sounds pretty daunting, right? I mean, you’ve only got til tomorrow to do it! (I didn’t get a chance to post this right away when I got the email from Seventh Rule, or else you would have had two whole days’ notice — sorry about that!) But fear not: you have a tool available to you that will drastically simplify the process! It’s called Youtube Doubler, and it looks like it’ll be a lot of fun to play with…

 
So, check out these rules for the contest, and then get to it!!

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Kosher Metal is Giving Away a Copy of the Rock Science Trivia Game!

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TONIGHT (Thursday, the 4th of October), the Kosher Metal radio station is throwing a birthday party for the one-year anniversary of the Metalocity live show with Stack the Ripper and Steven Steel!

To celebrate this milestone, they are going to be giving away a copy of the Rock Science rock trivia game!

 

 

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Download a Free Track from Titans Eve!

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Titans Eve: Jesse Hord (Bass/Vocals), Brian Gamblin (Lead Vocals/Guitar), Casey Ory (Drums), Kyle Gamblin (Vocals/Guitar)

 
Canadian thrashmeisters Titans Eve, whose second album Life Apocalypse was released to huge critical acclaim back in July (at least from this particular reviewer) are now offering you the chance to download one of the tracks from that album for FREE!

(Also, at the end of this post, there’s a list of dates for the band’s upcoming European tour — after spending the past few months on the road going back and forth across Canada, first with Anvil and then Kill Devil Hill, now Titans Eve will be venturing across the ocean for the first time in support of Arch Enemy.)

 
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Drones for Queens Hitting the Road This Weekend / Free EP Download!

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When I heard the name Drones for Queens, my immediate thought was that there are two different directions this band might be taking. On one hand, they could specialize in slow, drawn-out, ambient, meditative music that’s specifically targeted to homosexuals. The other possibility is that the name refers to worker bees who devote their entire lives to serving those at the top of the social hierarchy — perhaps using this concept as a metaphor for the conflict between the proletariat and bourgeoisie classes in human society.

Then, a quick peek at the cover art from their recent EP Health (see above) led me to believe that perhaps the second case was more likely.

But you can hear for yourself — in person, if you happen to live near the spots in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia where the band will be making appearances over the next few days (starting with a hometown show in Philadelphia tonight) — or if it turns out you aren’t able to make it to any of these, you can still download your very own copy of Health for any amount you choose to pay!

 
First, here’s some more information on these guys, courtesy of Catharsis PR:

The two-man outfit is comprised of brothers Shane and Evan Madden (also of Rifflifter Touring) who spent years exploring the realms of doom and black metal in bands like Woods of Ypres, Woe, and The Green Evening Requiem before succumbing to a mutual desire to make raw, real, pissed off music. The result? Four tracks of virulent, noisy, thrashy grindcore, spat out with DIY fury but backed by label-hardened savvy; Health is fast, furious, and fucking intense. Recorded and mixed by Brian McKay at Audiolux in Philadelphia and Audiolab in Millville, New Jersey and mastered by Dan O’Hare, Health is a shotgun blast echoing out into a stale scene.

 
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Biipiigwan – Nibaak EP

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Biipiigwan – Nibaak EP (Handshake Inc., 27 February 2012)

 
Man, what a horrendously ugly day this has been. As I begin writing this review, I’ve been at work for over seven hours already, and my feet are STILL cold and damp from traipsing through the streets of downtown Pittsburgh during a deluge of Noachian proportions, after getting off the bus this morning.

If they ever published a list of ways to make being at work less miserable, I can guarantee “walk around with wet socks all day” will not be anywhere on that list.

Nevertheless, regular readers of this blog have probably figured out by now — an ugly day calls for some ugly music! (Very observant regular readers may also have noticed that ANY day can benefit from some ugliness, regardless of the weather!)

So to help me along today, I’ve turned to some new friends, whom I discovered two weeks ago when they came to play a show here from their native Ontario. The band is called Biipiigwan (don’t worry, it’s easier to pronounce than it is to spell — and in fact it isn’t really that hard to spell either — drummer Steve Vargas informed me that the double “i” sounds like an “e”, so just say “BEE PEEG wahn“), and their newest release is an EP called Nibaak (again, the “i” sounds like an “e”, so that’s “NEE bawk“).

Now that we got all that out of the way, let’s turn our attention to the actual music. I’ve already mentioned that it’s ugly, but that isn’t nearly descriptive enough — this is grimy, sludgey, filthy, and soul-wrenchingly painful stuff. Plus, you can listen to it for free or download it for any price you choose. Honestly, what more could you ask for?

 

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Now Available: River City Rebels – Headed to Hell 7″

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River City Rebels – Headed to Hell (28 August 2012, Screaming Crow Records)

 
Hello again, readers, and a happy Wednesday morning to you! My vacation has ended and I’m back to pollute your in-box and/or RSS reader with random ramblings and desultory dialogue.

…and music, of course. After all, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it — to discover some new tunes, not to hear me whine about how lousy my day was at work or whatever?

So then, let’s get straight to it, shall we?

 
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