Category Archives: New Releases

Toxic Waste Split – 3rd Pressing Now Available!

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Good morning, readers, and a very happy Monday to you!

Or at least, a non-terrible one, if at all possible.

Remember the Toxic Waste split? Where Tankcrimes put together a couple songs by Municipal Waste and a couple by Toxic Holocaust, put them on each side of some uniquely colored vinyl, then slapped some ridiculously cool artwork on the front?

If not, I’ll give you a quick refresher on all the press coverage we’ve done so far: here was the story from May, about the initial pressing, which goes into a bit of detail about both bands, and the artwork, and also described the brilliant glow-in-the-dark vinyl (which was already sold out forever ago). Here was the story from June, right around the same time the first pressing was released, saying that the first thousand had already disappeared, but that a second set were available (and also that the four songs could be downloaded FOR FREE).

Well, the second thosand records also got snapped up pretty quickly — at this time there are still a few of the “Highlighter Yellow” and the green-yellow-blue “Striped” available, but less than a dozen of those are left! The “Toxic Spill” variety from the second batch is completely gone.

But don’t despair, because the those nice people that run Tankcrimes Records have announced that a third run has been produced, and they now have another thousand copies in stock — this time you can get Toxic Waste in the colors you see pictured above: 400 copies in “Slime” green, 350 in “Xtra Wild Party Blue,” and then 250 in “PP Spill” (clear vinyl with a big piss-yellow spot in the middle — yeah, they went there).

Once more, you can pick up one of these records (including the quickly-dwindling supply of second-editions) here.

And if you still haven’t heard it, you can listen to the split (and download the songs free) here:

 
———————————————–
Municipal Waste: website, Facebook, Myspace, Reverbnation
Toxic Holocaust: Facebook, Myspace, Reverbnation, Bandcamp
Tankcrimes: website, Facebook, Myspace, Bandcamp

Currently Touring: The Catalyst

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Here’s another announcement about a current U.S. tour, which somehow slipped past me until after it actually got underway. If you live in Indiana, Illinois, Nebraska, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, or Texas, then I am very, very sorry.

Just like Windhand, whose summer tour I wrote about yesterday, The Catalyst also come from Richmond, Virginia, and also are with Forcefield Records. These folks are really starting to make waves with their grunge/noise-rock/hardcore sound (Decibel Magazine mentions the “multi-directional weirdness of their AmRep-meets-Melvins-meets-thrash-meets-Lollapalooza-when-it-was-cool sonic soup”).

Their new album Voyager is set to be released on 04 September, in a 12″ vinyl format with full-color gatefold. However, you can get your hands on it earlier: during their tour, the band will have an advance limited run of the LP on clear and orange haze vinyl (limited to 200 pieces) available.

If, however, The Catalyst aren’t coming to your city (or if you live in one of the places they’ve already played), you can also pre-order a copy from Forcefield (here), limited to 100 copies in an orange and yellow swirl with black and red splatter. The pre-orders will ship on 13 August, so you’ll have it very soon — and around three weeks before the official release date!

 
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What To Do In Pittsburgh This Weekend (3-4 August 2012)

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Hey yinz guys, good afternoon! As I write this, Thursday is approaching an end, which means the end of the work week is not too far off, meaning it’s almost time for the weekend to start! Probably the best news I’ve heard all day.

Do you have your weekend plans all figured out yet? If not, then please allow me to offer a few suggestions — I’ve got the details about some shows taking place around town on Friday and Saturday, and trust me, you aren’t going to want to miss these!

(Unfortunately, a few of these do overlap, so you’ll definitely be missing something, no matter what you end up doing… #firstworldproblems)

 

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Just Released: MAKE – Trephine

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MAKE – Trephine (Devouter Records, 30 July 2012)

 
Well hello there, readers! I know it’s been a long-ass time since I’ve posted anything, and for that I apologize. Things have just gotten super-busy at work and at home, and so there’s barely been any time for writing … I definitely hope to get some more posts published in the very near future, because I do have a ton of stuff to share with you! To start with, here’s my review of an amazing album that just came out on vinyl…

Originally self-released digitally and on CD in March of this year, Trephine by Chapel Hill’s MAKE is now available via Devouter Records as of this Monday (30 July).

As you’re surely aware, a trephine is a special type of saw used to cut a hole in the skull, allowing a brain surgeon access to operate.

Similarly, the album Trephine will enter your head, forcing its way deep into the recesses of your mind, but there’ll be no anesthæsia here; you’ll be fully aware the whole time, to witness the journey down to the darkest depths of your psyche.

 
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Coming Soon: The Faceless Reveal Details for New Album

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Well. The last time we talked about those darlings of progressive death from California, The Faceless, it was way back in January when they had announced — and then dropped out of — a co-headlining tour with Dying Fetus. Around that time, and ever since then, there have been whispers about the band working on a new album. Now, thanks to Hold Tight! PR, I’m happy to announce that some details (including the official release date and a video trailer) have emerged…

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Get Yourself Some FREE Pittsburgh Metal: Innervenus Music Collective – Iron Atrocity v.2

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Innervenus Music Collective – Iron Atrocity v.2 (Innervenus Music, 03 August 2012)

 
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past nine months, or have never ever seen a post on this blog before, chances are you’ve heard me talking about the Iron Atrocity project. This is purely a labor of love by the wonderful folks who run the Innervenus Music Collective, and designed as a showcase for the array of high-quality metal (and other related music) we’ve got here in the Pittsburgh area.

It’s been a long time coming, and there have been many trials and tribulations along the way, but the second edition of this compendium of local talent has been completed! Just like volume 1, this new collection will be handed out for free by Innervenus-related bands at shows and other events (beginning with the Iron Atrocity Vol.2 release show, which is scheduled for Friday 03 August 2012), but also just like its predecessor, the compilation can be downloaded for free — and it’s available right now!

The new CD has assembled tracks — some newly recorded, exclusively for the compilation, some taken from recent releases — from sixteen different local bands, all of whom have been mentioned on this website in some form or fashion, at one time or another. Nevertheless, I’ll give you the full rundown on all the songs, about an hour and a quarter in all, that will be yours FREE when you grab this download. All you need to do in return is listen and enjoy, spread the word, and whenever possible, show your support by heading out to some shows (or buying some merchandise)!

 
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Get Yourself Some FREE Canadian Metal: Canuck Metal Vol. 2

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Heavy Metal Music Association of Canada – Canuck Metal Vol. 2 (01 July 2012, LoudTrax)

 
The H.M.M.A.C. recently announced the release of their second collection of Canadian metal music (actually, it was about two weeks ago — the official release was on Canada Day)!

If you missed out on the first volume from back in October, it’s no longer free, but you can still grab a copy for really cheap right here from LoudTrax.

Spanning a variety of hard rock and heavy metal as wide as the Canadian countryside itself, Canuck Metal Vol.2 includes an hour’s worth of songs from a bunch of bands that might be familiar to you, and some that might not be but should be!
 
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Out Last Week: Monsterworks – Man::Instincts (FREE Download!)

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Monsterworks – Man::Instincts (Mortal Music, 10 July 2012)

 
Whoah.

Despite all my attempts to stay alert and focused on doing my job, I think I might have accidentally dozed off a little bit just now.

And let me tell you — I had one fucked up dream.

Picture this: King Diamond and his band, Chris Cornell and the rest of Soundgarden, Rob Zombie, Glen Benton and the rest of Deicide, and all four dudes from Mastodon somehow all met up at a party, where they ended up playing cards and drinking and having a good time, and suddenly they decided they wanted to collaborate on a musical project. All of them.

Naturally, with so much talent in the room, nobody could decide who should be the vocalist, so they figured the only fair way would be to let everyone sing — sometimes they’d take turns, or sometimes they’d all join together in like this massive heavy metal choir. Something like the chorus in the Blue Öyster Cult song “Extra Terrestrial Intelligence,” just on a much grander scale.

Another issue arose when it came time to start writing songs, since they all came from such diverse musical backgrounds. But this supergroup soon discovered that they at least had some influences in common — all the great old-school metal, proto-metal, and hard rock bands. So they let this sound be the foundation for their new music, and as they began working together on the songs, they found that the little bits of death metal, stoner metal, thrash, NWOBHM, and whatever else kept creeping into the writing process seemed to mesh together surprisingly well. (I know it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense — I told you it was a pretty crazy dream!)

 
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Out Last Month: Ne Obliviscaris – Portal of I

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Ne Obliviscaris – Portal of I (11 June 2012, Code666 Records)

 
How’s it going, Dear Readers? I’ve got another amazing album I would like to share with you. I’ve been so fortunate with how much good stuff I’ve been coming across lately, I only wish that I had more time to write about it all so that you could have the chance to read about it and listen to it sooner! I guess what I’m saying is, it makes me feel guilty that my brain and fingers don’t work quite as fast as my ears sometimes…

Anyway, here we have Portal of I, the (relatively) new album by the Melburnian sextet Ne Obliviscaris. I usually have a pretty good memory when it comes to my history with specific bands, but to be honest I have no idea where or when I discovered these guys. Chances are, I probably read something about them over at No Clean Singing, or possibly at The Number of the Blog, since I’ve made an awful lot of discoveries through both of those places.

Oh and by the way, for all you former TNOTB readers who have been grieving since that website was lost in cyberspace, I hope you’ve started reading Oculus Infernus, the new home of head editor and writer Grover XIII. In case you haven’t seen it yet, the new blog can be found here. (And while we’re at it, No Clean Singing is over here.)

As I was saying, sometime, somehow I came across this group of Aussies, and I found them intriguing enough to “like” them on Facebook. Fast-forward to this May, when the band invited all their fans to “International Ne Obliviscaris Sharing Day” — when they planned to reveal an advance single from their then-forthcoming new album. I wrote about that impromptu holiday, and then shared the song (“Xenoflux”). Based on previous experience I had expected it would be good, but as it turns out, it was amazing!

To make a long story short, soon after that, the album was released in Australia and New Zealand on Welkin Records, a small, independent label run by one of the band members; right around the same time it was announced that Ne Obliviscaris had signed on with Italy’s Code666 Records for the rest of the world. This made perfect sense to me, since I’ve always found that Code666 tends to work with very good — and very unique — bands. So then the album was available all over the world, and about a month later, it’s finally time for me to share this masterpiece with you.

 

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Coming Soon: Titans Eve – Life Apocalypse (Free T-Shirt with Pre-Order!)

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Titans Eve – Life Apocalypse (13 July 2012, Self-Released)

 
Good morning, readers!

You may have noticed that I don’t normally publish album reviews before the official release dates. Part of the reason might be because I want to share things with you when they’re actually available for you to get your hands on them, because I know how short people’s attention spans can be sometimes — myself included! Sometimes when I read about something several months before it comes out, I might think to myself, “Oh that sounds great, I’ll have to check that out” and then I completely forget about it a few days later.

More than that, though, it’s mostly because I usually just don’t get around to it. I hear about loads of great music and I want to write about all of it, because I want to make sure the bands get the exposure they deserve, and I want to make sure YOU have every opportunity to hear about the new music you want. Besides that, I try to spend as much time as possible with something before I start writing — albums usually get numerous listens on several different days, so that I feel familiar enough with the material to be able to describe it adequately AND so that I can be sure I wasn’t hearing something wrong just because I was grumpy or preoccupied on a particular day.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an unlimited amount of time for writing, which means I’m perpetually running behind. I’ve still got a bunch of albums from 2011 I haven’t even listened to yet, not to mention how much stuff I haven’t had the chance to write about!

When I heard this album full of killer thrash music by Vancouver’s Titans Eve, I knew I would want to write about it and share it with you, but then when I found out that they have pre-order packages (either the digital or CD versions) where they are throwing in a FREE t-shirt, I decided I needed to bring this to your attention sooner rather than later! This Friday (the 13th of July) is the official release date, so hurry up and finish reading, then at the end of this post you’ll get the chance to hear the album for yourself, and I’ll give you all the links you need to take advantage of this special pre-order deal.

For my Canadian friends, I’ve also provided the dates for the band’s July/August tour of western Canada with Anvil, as well as a list of stops when they will be heading east across the rest of the country with Kill Devil Hill.

 

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