Corrupt Leaders – Grindmother (self-released, 03 February 2015)
Category Archives: New Releases
Cold Blue Mountain – Cold Blue Mountain (2013) and Old Blood (2014)
Cold Blue Mountain – Cold Blue Mountain (Gogmagogical Records/Vulture Print, 19 April 2013)
Cold Blue Mountain – Old Blood (Halo of Flies, 07 October 2014)
Well, it finally happened. I mean, sure, it was inevitable, but still. In my email right at this moment, I’ve got my first promo copy of an album scheduled for a January 2015 release. So that’s a clear sign — in case the incessant marching past of the days on the calendar (into November now!) wasn’t enough of a clue — that this year is drawing swiftly to a close.
Almost three weeks ago, incidentally, this website hit another anniversary: we’re now entering year #4. I guess that’s kind of cool, but at the same time, that means I’ve been accumulating various music that has caught my attention and that I feel is worth sharing with you folks, from 2011 to the present. Starting to receive material for next year just means that now I’ll have stuff from five different years to write about. Yikes.
The highest priority for me, right now, is knocking out the rest of the reviews from my best of 2013 list, while also trying to stay on top of some of the current year’s best releases — so that I’m not quite so far behind when it comes time to put together the 2014 list. Today I’m going to address both of those concerns, as I write about northern California’s Cold Blue Mountain: their self-titled debut effort ranked in the top half of last year’s best albums (in my opinion), while the follow-up from last month, Old Blood, is definitely among the better records I’ve heard so far this year. Both are available now, and either one comes highly, highly recommended.
Details of NEW Pink Floyd Album Have Been OFFICIALLY Announced!
Rumors have been flying around for the past few months, as some details had “accidentally” been released earlier this summer. But today, the legendary psychedelic/classic rock band Pink Floyd has announced that their new album The Endless River will be available for pre-order.
Recreant – Still Burn (2014)
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.
Pallbearer – Foundations of Burden (2014)
EDITOR’S NOTE: for nearly two years, the Arkansas melodic doom quartet Pallbearer has been among my wife’s absolute favorite bands. I know she’d been eagerly snapping up every available bit of information leading up to the release of their second album; now that it’s been released, we listened to it together, and she had some strong reactions and opinions — so I asked whether she wanted to write something about it. So here is her review of Foundations of Burden.In the VIP balcony at Mr. Small’s Theatre (Pittsburgh), February 2013
Pallbearer – Foundations of Burden (Profound Lore Records, 19 August 2014)
reviewed by Mrs. Valley of Steel
I first heard Pallbearer in December of 2012 on accident. I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a video that someone had posted, which I thought was something else. I clicked on it, I listened and I had no idea what I was in for ultimately. I have to admit, I felt an immediate kinship to this music. For much of my life, I have felt an attachment to a darker side of my personality; I often embrace being melancholy and don’t always see it as the burden that some people do with those types of emotions. Pallbearer definitely tapped into that for me. I felt instantaneously connected to each riff and sludgy chord. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, this band is mainly responsible for so much of the music I have discovered in this journey with my husband over the past three years. It’s clearly felt personal to me and I am sure, with all the recent hype, that I am not the only one who enjoys dwelling in the despair.
Lifetime Shitlist – Lifetime Shitlist (2014)
Lifetime Shitlist – Lifetime Shitlist (Grimoire Records, 10 June 2014)
Well holy crap. When did this happen — I can’t believe it’s more than halfway through August already! (Well, to be honest, just the fact that we’re more than halfway through 2014 seems kind of insane…) The past month or two has completely been a blur to me, mostly in regards to craziness at work. My company bought another company, adding tons of extra paperwork for us pencil-pushers, exactly at the same time that someone in my department who’d had lots of responsibilities had to suddenly go out on medical leave. Add in all the usual week-long summer vacations that people tend to take, plus new temps who’ve needed training as they’ve come and gone randomly over the past several weeks, and I’ve barely been finding time to breathe or eat (let alone sit still long enough to even LISTEN to much music, nevermind trying to actually WRITE anything!)
But I have had the chance to listen to some stuff recently — some really good stuff — and gradually things will be settling down a bit. And anyway, I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten about you, readers! So I’ll be trying to take advantage of what little freetime I can find (for example right now I’m writing this intro on the bus at 4:30 am, instead of sleeping, since I found myself inexplicably unable to sleep most of last night anyway), to share with you some new releases that you really ought to hear. Besides, this particular EP I’d like to tell you about today is only sixteen minutes long, give or take, so I’ll try to keep this relatively short.
Slaves BC / Grace & Thieves – Cursed Breath / Innocent Blood (2014)
Slaves BC / Grace & Thieves – Cursed Breath / Innocent Blood (Veritas Vinyl, 04 August 2014)
The split record is an interesting concept in the music industry. The vinyl EP or LP or cassette with (usually) one band on each side, or the more modern CD or digital release with tracks contributed by two (or occasionally more) bands — these frequently fall into a couple different categories. Sometimes bands will be such kindred spirits, sharing all the same influences and each representing a similar approach to their particular genre, that it seems completely natural for them to work together; in these cases the bands probably already have a huge overlap in their fan bases, but the split will surely be a treat for those people who already like both bands. On the other hand, many joint releases are the result of bands who are close friends — perhaps they live in the same city and play shows together all the time — but who actually have little else in common; the result here is that die-hard “completist” fans of either band will end up buying the record, but probably few of them will listen to the flip side more than once (if at all).
In most other cases, two bands are brought together by songs third party: perhaps they share management or PR representation, or belong to the same record label’s roster. These could be marketed to fans of each band or just people who may have been familiar with some of the other output from that label (or whatever); it becomes an efficient way for listeners to “test drive” bands, without having to take a chance investing in a full length from someone unfamiliar. Ideally, the person putting together the release will have done some homework (or just have good instincts) and pair up artists who are different enough to attract a wide range of listeners, yet share enough of a common bond for both sides to appeal (at least to some degree) to that whole audience.
And if you ask me (and technically, by clicking on this review and reading these words I wrote, you did ask me — at least implicitly), the Veritas Vinyl label has accomplished this successfully with their Cursed Breath / Innocent Blood 12″ which officially comes out today. This split brings together bands that employ two rather disparate styles of metal (one leaning in a blackened direction, the other sticking with a more old-school doom and traditional heavy metal sound), but they each combine their respective patois with a foundation heavily influenced by hardcore/noise and/or hardcore punk.
Mortals – Cursed to See the Future (2014)
Mortals – Cursed to See the Future (Relapse Records, 08 July 2014)
I don’t know who wrote the official band bio for Brooklynite trio Mortals (the one that accompanies their press kit and also appears on their record label’s website), but I don’t think I really understand what it’s trying to say. It starts off by contrasting this band with the way most other bands come together:
Many heavy bands follow a straight line — they start a band with some people they know, they pick a well-worn genre, they write riffs and drum beats that sound pretty similar to all the other riffs and drum beats that have been written. That isn’t Mortals.
…but then it goes on to explain how the three members met when they were involved with various other bands (for example, two of them were in a Slayer cover band together, two of them were in a math-rock band together) and eventually the three of them found they had enough common interests that they decided to form a new band; chemistry developed and gradually they found themselves evolving into their own style. Which, in essence, sounds like a variant of the history behind almost every band I know. So that’s got me feeling slightly confused.
But anyway, none of that really matters. What the band sounds like is far more important than any written description, when it comes to me picking what I want to write about and share with you, and the music should be able to speak for itself. And here it certainly does. It also helps that I’ve been watching for news from this band over the past couple of years — on the advice of Meat Mead Metal (whom you should absolutely familiarize yourself with immediately if you aren’t already a regular reader, because not only is this without a doubt the best music journalism you’ll find here in Pittsburgh, but this guy churns out high-quality writing with a consistency that could rival just about anyone else out there!), who has had plenty of good things to say about Mortals on several occasions (like here, for example). About a year after that particular article was written, the band had signed a deal with Relapse Records, and today marks their first release with that label, the full-length Cursed to See the Future.
Sunwølf – Beholden to Nothing and No One (2014)
Sunwølf – Beholden to Nothing and No One (30 June 2014)
Hello out there, and Happy Monday everyone! My original plan was for this review to be published last Friday, but that was the 4th of July, aka Independence Day, which is the American holiday commemorating the time when some folks who lived here decided to send a letter to England saying they wanted to get a divorce. And I realized that it would be very un-patriotic of me to finish writing this on that date. Not because it’s about a British band, but because it would have involved actually doing something productive on a day off from work. In this country, we take our leisure time very seriously. But now it’s Monday and time to jump right back in. So here’s Beholden to Nothing and No One, a massive 80+ minute collection of post-metal/ambient music (spanning two CDs) by Leodensian band Sunwølf.
Two Reviews: DRCARLSONALBION and Tumbleweed Dealer (2014)
DRCARLSONALBION – Gold (16 June 2014)
Tumbleweed Dealer – Western Horror (23 June 2014)
Good afternoon, everyone. Today I’ve got two different albums to introduce to you, which coincidentally have a common thread between them. Released just a week apart, one of these was conceived as the soundtrack to an imaginary western movie, while the other features incidental music that was recorded for the score of an actual western film.
Both of these are purely instrumental affairs, and they’re both more on the mellow side. If that sounds appealing to you, then there’s a pretty good chance one or the other may be right up your alley. So just pour yourself a tequila sunrise, grab a pack of rolling papers, kick off your boots and relax.
Valley of Steel 