Category Archives: New Releases

GUEST REVIEW: Grisly Amputation – Cannibalistic Tendencies

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Dear readers, as you should already know (because I just told you a couple weeks ago!), two Innervenus artists have CDs coming out tomorrow (Tuesday, 12 February 2013)! One of those is the death metal + grind unit called Grisly Amputation, with their debut full-length Cannibalistic Tendencies.

 
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Considering my professional relationship with the band, as the record label’s PR representative, it didn’t seem appropriate for me to write a review of their album, because it wouldn’t seem objective or unbiased. So I found a neutral outside reviewer who was willing to write about the album and then let me publish it for him. He was a frequent contributor to the “Sign Me To Roadrunner Records” website when I used to spend a lot of time there, and his reviews were always very thoughtful and detailed. Plus, as a musician in a death metal band himself, I’d be inclined to say he’s even more qualified to discuss this album than I am…

 
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GUEST REVIEW: Lycosa – Self-Titled EP

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Dear readers, as you should already know (because I just told you a couple weeks ago!), two Innervenus artists have CDs coming out tomorrow (Tuesday, 12 February 2013)! One of those is the brutal death/thrash/groove/sludge conglomeration known as Lycosa, who will be putting out their debut, self-titled EP.

 
Lycosa_CDcover

 
Considering my professional relationship with the band, as the record label’s PR representative, it didn’t seem appropriate for me to write a review of their album, because it wouldn’t seem objective or unbiased. So I found a neutral outside reviewer who was willing to write about the album and then let me publish it for him. He was a frequent contributor to the “Sign Me To Roadrunner Records” website when I used to spend a lot of time there, and his reviews were always very thoughtful and detailed. So I asked if he’d be willing to discuss this EP, and he graciously agreed…

 
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Crawl – Crawl Demo

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Crawl – Crawl Demo (self-released, 12 October 2012)

So who’s in the mood for some heavy doom with a nice dose of southern sludge??

Don’t bother answering that; it was a rhetorical question. Here we go…

There have been a few bands called Crawl over the years, but this one formed in Atlanta, in spring 2012. Most of what I hear coming out of Georgia nowadays is rather fuzzy and stonery; it’s clear these guys draw from SOME of the same influences as their fellow statesmen, but they also incorporate some darker elements of west coast doom and the weightiness of gulf coast sludge, for an amalgam that’s definitely worth checking out.

 
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Innervenus Music: Two New CDs Coming Next Month!

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Hello, friends. Regular visitors to this website have surely noticed that recently the volume of writing I am putting out there has significantly decreased. I apologize for that. But it hasn’t been the result of laziness, I assure you. I’ve been getting myself involved with a few other things — as I keep alluding to in several new posts over the past few weeks — and finally I want to let you know about one of those.

So, I have been asked to join the Pittsburgh-based record label The Innervenus Music Collective to help out with their PR and publicity. It’s a pretty exciting opportunty for me — first of all, as a writer I’ve been working with a variety of PR people and representatives from other labels, so I understand what’s involved, and it’s cool to be getting some experience from the other direction now. But even more than that, now I get to work directly with a group of people who do so much to support our local music scene — between planning shows and giving away the Iron Atrocity compilations, not to mention releasing albums from some really talented bands (Vulture, Invader, Fist Fight in the Parking Lot — just to name a few examples that I had written about last year)!

And so this new position has been using up a lot of my free time recently, mostly because we’re gearing up to put out two CDs in February: the debut full-length by grindcore/death dealers Grisly Amputation, and a self-titled EP by death-thrash-groove-sludge-core band Lycosa. I’ve been sending out promo materials to a whole slew of websites and magazines, so we should start seeing some reviews trickle in shortly, but I figure I wouldn’t really be doing my job (EITHER job – as a writer OR a publicist!) if I didn’t also inform you about the releases here on Valley of Steel!

 
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Kongh: New Album Details + Pre-Orders Now Available

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Hello again, folks. You might not remember, but last summer I was happy to report that Kongh, Swedish titans of heavy doom, had signed a deal with Polish label Agonia Records — and especially excited about the news that the band was working on a new album, their third overall!

Well, I haven’t forgotten — I’ve been excited about that news in the several months since then, and I’m glad to say, my most-anticipated album of 2013 is finally almost here!

 
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Vesperia Now Have A New Guitarist; New Album On The Way Soon!

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Good afternoon, readers! I hope your day is going well. In my opinion, this Monday doesn’t seem to be coming to an end nearly quickly enough! All I’ve wanted to do all day is go back home and get back in bed. Oh well, only a couple more hours before I’m able to do that.

In the meantime, I’d like to share some news with you. It’s been a few months since we mentioned Vesperia — the Canadian black/folk/pagan metal band who used to be called Bolero — and as you might have guessed, they’ve been as busy as ever during that time!

Following the release of their first demo EP under their new band name, the re-release of their 2011 full-length album, and the announcement that they were searching for a new guitarist, it turns out that they now have filled that missing spot in their line-up, and have been spending this winter working on more new material!

 
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Gay Kiss – Fault (Free Download / In Pittsburgh Tonight!)

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Gay Kiss – Fault (Anxiety Machine Records, 21 December 2012)

 
HELLO OUT THERE! HAPPY 2013!! How’s life been treating you, dear readers?

I wish I could say that flipping the calendar over to a new year has also turned the page on all the problems and stresses and worries and other crap that infringes on my time I’d rather be spending with fun stuff like listening to music and writing about music and all that.

So far, that has not been the case. And at this moment I almost literally feel like I am bursting at the seams with stuff I want to share with you, because you’ve all been such wonderful, loyal readers for so long, I feel like you really deserve to be rewarded with some good music you can listen to.

For my first post as we enter into the thirteenth year of this millennium, I want to tell you about an up-and-coming group of young men who come from the city of Tempe, which is just outside Phoenix and is also the home of the ASU Sun Devils.

That band is called Gay Kiss.

 
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Supervoid – Endless Planets EP

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Supervoid – Endless Planets EP (self-released, 11 November 2012)

Good afternoon, all you fine people! How are things where you are? Here it’s been rainy and nasty, and of course it’s Monday which is never good, but I’m actually feeling pretty good. For one thing, the day’s over, which means I get to go home. But mostly, I’m starting to feel healthy again!

You may have noticed things have been quiet around here for a while. Part of the reason is all the normal crap that keeps me busy and unable to write as often as I’d like to. But a bigger part — at least for the past two weeks or so — is the fact that I have felt like absolute garbage. My normal yearly sinus infection, which tends to completely drain my energy and make my whole body tired and sore for a few weeks (plus my chest, throat, nose and sinuses feeling congested and clogged — which is miserable enough as it is, but also makes it tough for me to listen to music because my ears don’t work right and my head hurts from feeling stuffed up and in general I’m in a very foggy and cloudy state). But I’ve been to the doctor and got some antibiotics, and they’ve finally started taking effect over the past day or two, so I definitely feel like I’m on the road to recovery.

I’m still pretty exhausted and blah, but no more than on any other workday. So, hooray for just feeling marginally lousy, rather than completely and utterly terrible! BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME.

With a few exceptions, I’ve really been slacking as far as writing anything here, and I’ve been especially remiss in my duties to share new music with you readers. Here it is, nearly the end of the year, and I’ve got a virtual stack of music I’ve yet to write about, which figuratively is towering over me as I sit here. I’d better get moving!

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Here, for example, is something that I’ve been hanging onto for the past few weeks, and kept meaning to write about and share with you — because it’s a really incredible discovery, and I sure hope you all aren’t upset that I didn’t tell you about it sooner!

Endless Planets is the debut release from a relatively new band from the Pittsburgh area called Supervoid. Formed in 2011 by a couple Dethlehem ex-pats, and current and/or former members of several other bands across the region, the band decided to take time to perfect their style of space-rock/stoner/psychedelic/prog-metal before revealing themselves to the public. (By the way, check out this interview with The Sludgelord for more information about the band’s formation and their journey up to this point in their career.)

They had their debut performance at the end of August, and a few more shows since then, attracting a good bit of attention in the local music scene along the way. During that time, the band got together at Pittsburgh’s Treelady Studios to lay down some demo tracks — which they then decided to release in the form of this two-song EP.

Clocking in at around sixteen minutes, Endless Planets serves as a great introduction to Supervoid, as it showcases the band’s talent and is representative of the range they span as performers and songwriters. Plus, it’s available to download for free, so you have no reason not to grab yourself a copy — and once you do, you’ll understand why everyone who has seen this band has been so impressed, and you’ll find yourself anxiously watching to see where this quintet is heading next…

 
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Borracho – Plunge/Return 10″ Single Now Available

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Borracho – Plunge/Return 10″ Single (Strange Magic Records, 27 November 2012)

 
So over the course of the past year or so, you’ve been following along with everything I’ve written, including all the mentions of Washingtonian heavy fuzz-rock band Borracho, right?

Including when I named their album Splitting Sky as one of my Top 11 of 2011 over at No Clean Singing? (Which reminds me, I promised to send them another list this year, so I guess I should start thinking about that, huh?)

Presumably, on my recommendation, you went straight out and bought a copy of that album. Now, if you got the CD or the digital download (including the download that comes free with the vinyl LP), then you are lucky enough to have the full album including the massive epic final track “Plunge/Return”.

However, if you do have that vinyl edition, you probably noticed that it’s about eleven and a half minutes shorter than the digital formats — because that last song just didn’t fit. And even though you have listened to the version you downloaded, the purist in you wishes that you had all of the album’s tracks on vinyl, right?

Well finally, your prayers have been answered.

 
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MAKE – Axis EP

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MAKE – Axis (01 November 2012, Black Iron Records)

 
Hellooooooooo out there, readers! I vaguely remember that I used to do this thing where I’d listen to music, and then write about it, and then you’d read it and listen to the music too, and then everyone was happy. I don’t know why I haven’t been doing much of that recently — I guess a variety of reasons which could pretty much be summed up as “life getting in the way” — but I do want to get back into the habit.

Today let’s talk about this EP that was released by the North Carolinian post-atmospheric-ambient-blackish-doomy band MAKE back at the beginning of this month. I told you it would be coming (here and here) and if you’ve been reading my stuff for a while you already know how much I fawned over their debut LP Trephine (reviewed here).

Somehow during the course of all of that, I neglected to share the preview video for the EP — for which I apologize, but I shall make up for it by adding it here:
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