Category Archives: Uncategorized

Happy Record Store Day!

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Today — Saturday, 21 April 2012 — is the fifth annual Record Store Day. Basically, it’s a celebration of the small, independent music sellers, and it’s all full of special offers, free stuff, discounted prices, and some unique items that won’t be available any other time! You can learn more about the concept on the Record Store Day website or Facebook page. They also have published a list of stores that are participating in today’s event, so you can see if there are any in your area!

If you don’t have any participating local stores, you can take a moment to reflect on how sad the current state of the music industry is, such that so many small retailers have been forced to shut down over the past few decades. But then, cheer up! Because several online distributors or labels are also offering special Record Store Day deals, and for your convenience I am collecting a few of those here…

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100th Post: So Far… So Good… So What Do You Think??

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Hello Readers!

Earlier this week marked the six-month anniversary of this blog’s existence. During that time it has grown from a little repository for me to share some music-related snarky remarks and sarcastic comments, to an actual site for semi-legitimate music journalism, with news being shared and reviews being written based on requests from bands, labels, and publicists all over the world!

Well now, just a few days later, I am hitting another important milestone because this is the 100th post to be published here. And, at some point earlier this week (I don’t know exactly when, but it looks like it was probably on Tuesday), I had my 5000th visitor. That might not sound like a big number, but just for the sake of comparison: in the second half of October (from the time of my first post, through the end of the month) I had fewer than 25 viewers, but in the first half of April (through today) I have had just under 1000. That sounds pretty good to me, when I consider the fact that I have done virtually zero advertising (outside of sharing my posts with the bands/labels/etc. that I’ve written about, on their Facebook pages).

I know when I originally wrote the About the Valley of Steel (The Blog) page, I indicated that my reasons for starting to write were personal — in other words, that it was chiefly for my own benefit. That remains mostly true, because honestly, music is such a big part of my life, and I think it’s awesome that I have the opportunity to hear so much new and exciting stuff all the time. At the same time, I view writing as a way that I’m able to give something back to the musicians (and other people in various facets of the industry) to show my appreciation for what they do. If somebody reads something that I wrote, and they go on to “like” that band on Facebook, or attend a show I wrote about, or buy an album that I reviewed, well… then I feel like all the work I do here is 100% worth it.
 
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The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: Barbarian Prophecies

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Happy Monday to you, Dear Reader.  It’s time once again for the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week feature.  As you know by now, this is where I write about a band I’ve discovered on the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website (usually after they’ve written to me asking for a review of their music).  The process goes something like this: I listen to their songs, and I tell you all about them, then you can go listen to them, and bingo! you’ve found a brand new band to fall in love with, and that band has a new devoted fan.  Everyone wins.

Today’s artist is called Barbarian Prophecies, formed over a decade ago by merging two other bands called Barbarianth and Venomous Prophecies.  These gentlemen come to us via Lugo, a town in northwestern Spain which lies in the region of Galicia.  This town has the distinction of being the only place in the world that is still surrounded by fully intact Roman walls.  Although the population of this town generally speaks either Galician or Spanish (or both), this band’s lyrics tend to be in English.  Furthermore, although this area is just a little inland of the Atlantic Ocean (to the west) and the Bay of Biscay (to the north), and therefore generally enjoys a fairly temperate oceanic climate year-round, you’ll find that Barbarian Prophecies concoct a cold, dark variety of death metal that leans in a rather doomy direction, such as you might expect to come from someplace much further to the north…

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The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: Ex Inferis

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Hello, Readers!  Once again it’s Monday, which means it’s time for the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week feature.  As you know by now, this is where I write about a band I’ve discovered on the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website (usually because they’ve written to me asking for a review of their music).  The process goes something like this: I listen to their songs, and I tell you all about them, then you can go listen to them, and bingo! you’ve found a brand new band to fall in love with, and that band has a new devoted fan.  Everyone wins.

Today I would like to share a band from Bandung, Indonesia called Ex Inferis.  That latin phrase (which literally means “from below” or more colloquially, “from Hell”) is also the name of an album by Sweden’s Naglfar, and the two bands happen to share a similar style of melodic blackened metal. Continue reading →

The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: Chtonium

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Welcome to yet another installment of the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week feature, which is a profile of a band I’ve discovered on the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website.  You’ll find a huge variety of material here; each week you’ll have the opportunity to listen to a few songs from a different band you might never have heard before.  My hope is, you might find something you really dig, and then when they explode in popularity and sell a million records, you can scoff at all the bandwagon-jumpers, saying you’ve been a fan since the beginning.

This week we’re talking about Chtonium, from Uddevalla, in southern Sweden near the Norwegian border.  If that artwork above didn’t contain the word “THRASHMETAL,” I’m guessing the look of the logo and flaming skull might still have given you a pretty big hint about what direction we will be heading today! Continue reading →

The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: Amorphead

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Hello, and welcome to another installment of the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week feature, which is a profile of a band I’ve discovered on the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website.  As always, you’ll find a huge variety of material here; each week you’ll have the opportunity to listen to a few songs from a different band you might never have heard before.  My hope is, you might find something you really dig, and then when they explode in popularity and sell a million records, you can scoff at all the bandwagon-jumpers, saying you’ve been a fan since the beginning.

Today’s featured artist is Amorphead, who describe themselves as “melodic death and groove metal,” from Catanzaro, Italy.  Since forming in 2007, the band has toured all over Europe, “meeting the approval of the public,” and they have had two releases so far: an EP entitled Psychotic in mid-2009, followed by Chaos Expression which emerged on 3 March 2011.  The two songs we’ll talk about today were taken from that second EP.

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The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: Victorian

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Hello, and welcome to another installment of the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week feature, where I post a profile of a band I’ve discovered on the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website.  As always, the material here may be of varying quality, but each week you’ll have the opportunity to listen to music from a  different band; my hope is, maybe you’ll find something you really dig.  Then one day, when they explode in popularity and sell a million records, you can scoff at all the bandwagon-jumpers, saying you’ve been a fan since their first demo recording or whatever.

Today’s featured artist is Victorian, a symphonic/gothic metal band from Indonesia.  As I understand it, they have been around since January 2008, and started out with only male vocals.  After some lineup changes and about a year of inactivity, the band was reignited in mid-2010, deciding to instead feature a female vocalist.  Their first demo single “Beginning of Sorrow” was released in early 2011, and the band has stated that they are hoping to expand their reach beyond their hometown of Bandung (West Java), especially using the internet as a means of promotion “with hope of acceptance from the metal lovers in Indonesia and abroad.”  I first heard these guys in early 2011 and fell in love with that first single.  Then, they contacted me in September saying they had added a second single, called “Weak” and they were looking for some opinions.  After the jump I’ll tell you more about these two songs and you’ll get a chance to discover them for yourself.

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The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: Necro

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Hello, and welcome to the second installment of the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week, the weekly profile of a little-known unsigned band for you to check out.  As I have said before, the material here will be of varying quality, but in every case you’ll have the opportunity to listen to whatever music the band has available at this point in their career; my hope is, maybe you’ll find something you really dig, which you might not have heard otherwise. Then, when they explode in popularity and sell a million records, you can scoff at all the bandwagon-jumpers, saying you’ve been a fan since their first demo recording or whatever.

Once again, for those who might not have been paying attention: “Signmeto” is a division of the Roadrunner Records website, where unsigned bands get the chance to upload their recordings for other users to hear and rate, as well as (hopefully) to catch the ear of a label representative (hence, “Sign Me To Roadrunner Records”). I don’t know if anyone who uses that website has ever gotten a record deal out of it, so I don’t have any idea how useful it is from that perspective. However, as a music fan, it can be a good resource for seeking out new things to listen to, and perhaps in that way it can be good for the bands as well. That is, maybe they won’t be picked up by Roadrunner, but maybe putting their songs out there will help attract some sort of attention anyway, and get a little bit of publicity for themselves. That’s how I intend to use it, at least; I’ll be digging through the Signmeto archives for some hidden gems, and then sharing them with you, dear reader.

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The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: Golah

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Hello, and welcome to a brand new feature here on Valley of Steel! As you may have gathered from the title, this is intended to turn into a weekly profile of a little-known unsigned band for you to check out. As you might expect, the material here will be of varying quality, but in every case you’ll have the opportunity to listen to whatever music the band has available at this point in their career; my hope is, maybe you’ll find something you really dig, which you might not have heard otherwise. Then, when they explode in popularity and sell a million records, you can scoff at all the bandwagon-jumpers, saying you’ve been a fan since their first demo recording or whatever.

Now, about the rest of the title, in case you weren’t aware, “Signmeto” is a division of the Roadrunner Records website, where unsigned bands get the chance to upload their recordings for other users to hear and rate, as well as (hopefully) to catch the ear of a label representative (hence, “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records”). I don’t know if anyone who uses that website has ever gotten a record deal out of it, so I don’t have any idea how useful it is from that perspective. However, as a music fan, it can be a good resource for seeking out new things to listen to, and perhaps in that way it can be good for the bands as well. That is, maybe they won’t be picked up by Roadrunner, but maybe putting their songs out there will help attract some sort of attention anyway, and get a little bit of publicity for themselves. That’s how I intend to use it, at least; I’ll be digging through the Signmeto archives for some hidden gems, and then sharing them with you, dear reader.

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Dear Mr. Iommi

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Almost four years ago, I got married.  Instead of the usual “Here Comes the Bride” melody, my wife and her father walked up the aisle to this song.  It was my suggestion.  I sat at the computer and painstakingly edited a waveform of that song to loop it, just so I could be sure it was long enough, then stuck it on a CD and gave it to the DJ to play at the ceremony.

That might give you some small idea how important your music has been in my life, but nothing could truly describe the significance of its impact – both directly (through your own band’s albums) and indirectly (through the entire genres of music that trace their genesis straight back to the notes you wrote and played).

I just want to say, I’m sincerely wishing you all the best for a full and speedy recovery.  And, thank you.