Ripple Music announces the second annual Ripplefest, to be held next month in Cologne, Germany!
Featuring seven stoner/doom/retro-rock bands from four different countries, the all-day festival will also serve as an unofficial launch to the label’s tenth-anniversary celebrations…
As much as I hate to admit it, during the almost eight and a half years I’ve been administrating this website, I have amassed a list of literally hundreds of albums I’ve hoped to find time to write about and share with you folks. Realistically I know I won’t ever get through ALL of them, but at the moment I am striving to keep up with the new ones as well as I can so it doesn’t get any worse; and if I can knock off an older one here and there while I’m at it, wonderful.
So having said that, here’s a record that just came out within the past month, as well as one that’s been sitting on my to-do list far too long. Both are by Seattleite trio Rat King, released on their own label Within the Mind, and both were recorded by the legendary Mr. Tad Doyle — but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. As you will soon discover. Please to enjoy!
Hello there! Today we’re going to take a look at a split record that’s been generating a little bit of buzz since it came out last month, but not nearly as much as it should — considering the caliber of the two bands who released it (Californians Body Void and Keeper).
The first of those is surely familiar to even occasional readers of this website, as we’ve discussed their work multiple times before — and they’ve managed to land on our Top ## of 20## lists each of the past three years.
But I realize at this point that we have never mentioned Keeper previously, which is really a shame because they were involved with another fantastic split LP that came out about five years ago, along with Brightonian band Sea Bastard. Somehow we just never got around to covering it, so to rectify that error, let’s revisit that one today as well. So you can have a little “bonus review” as a treat.
Here in the Valley of Steel we don’t pay much attention to what’s trending or getting a bunch of recognition elsewhere; all we care about is listening to what we enjoy, and (sometimes) writing about it.
But having said that, sometimes it’s also nice to feel vindicated and validated, when something we identify as “good” achieves recognition from elsewhere.
Case in point: They Came with Sunlight, the debut offering from Oslo trio Sâver — which upon its release about eleven months ago made quite an impression upon this reviewer, later to become firmly entrenched in our selection of last year’s best records.
Well, just a few days ago the band announced that the album had been nominated for a Norwegian Grammy. In fact, it was one of four from 2019 recognized in the Metal category by the Spellemann committee, for the award officially known as the Spellemannprisen.
And so, if you haven’t already become enamored of They Came with Sunlight, here’s your opportunity to see what all the fuss is about!
Ok, first things first — isn’t that a fantastic title? Really sounds like it was lifted straight from some Woods of Ypres lyrics or something, doesn’t it?
Well technically, it was lifted from Ether Coven lyrics, as the phrase appears a few times in the opening track from the Floridian band’s second album, released exactly one month ago today, which we will be diving into starting right now…
Hello again! If you were here yesterday, you would have noticed we shared the news about the Shadow Frost Music & Arts Festival coming up later this month in central Maryland.
One of the acts scheduled to perform at that event is Yatra, doom-drenched trio from the extreme eastern part of that state, whose second album — just released last week — we will be studying today.
So you keep reading about the annual Shadow Woods Metal Fest, that huge outdoor festival held at a Maryland summer camp, and you’d love to attend except you’re completely averse to camping and summertime and anything outdoors. What a quandary!
But not to worry, the Shadow Woods folks have got you covered — with an indoor gathering in the relative luxury of a hotel’s ballroom, right in the dead of winter! Shadow Frost will feature a selection of bands from the local region as well as all over North America, plus art/music/craft vendors, and lots of games and activities, aiming for a similar vibe to a comic con or horror con type of event.
See below for lineup of bands; updated 16 February to include set times.
More details: website | Facebook event page | Twitter | Instagram
Tickets | Merch | Hotel Reservations
Hello there, readers. Was it just my imagination or did the first month of this year just totally fly by? Anyway, here we are a few days into February and finally this is the first time I’m getting around to writing about a 2020 release. I don’t feel great that it’s taken so long, but here we are. And, notwithstanding any change in the status of the creek, with regard to it rising or not, this should be the first of many.
This is also the first 2020 release from one of our favorite Canadian labels, Hypnotic Dirge. Those familiar with the record company will recall that many of their releases originate in or around the same frozen northern tundra of their homeland, and often (fittingly) fall within the umbrella of frostbitten atmospheric blackness — but today we’ll be focusing on something that strays ever-so-slightly outside of those stereotypes…
The abode of Kassad, as name-checked in their sophomore album’s title, is the capital of England (rather than the somewhat smaller city located on the Thames River in the province of Ontario); and while the record does still operate within the black metal milieu, the band has described its style as “urban” black metal.
So… longtime readers with very good memories may find the name Problem with Dragons sounds familiar, because in early 2016 we had discussed their 2015 debut full-length Starquake.
Well, this past August the New Englanders put together a follow-up LP called Ascendant. Somehow that fact had escaped my attention until nearly the end of the year, but I finally got my hands on a copy in December. Right while I was in the middle of putting together my “Top 19 of 2019” list, in fact, which turned out to be fortuitous timing: upon initial perusal it became immediately apparent that this high-quality record belonged among those ranks.
And at this very moment, PwD are engaged in a tour that will take them out to the American west coast and back, throughout most of February. In fact, the tour officially kicked off on Saturday the 1st with a show in their hometown of Easthampton (MA), and the westward push continues tonight (Monday the 3rd) in Kentucky.
Below we will delve into the new album itself, but below that you will find a list of engagements where folks may have the opportunity to witness the band performing live. And for those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to be near one of these scheduled stops (which includes practically the entire eastern time zone, plus of course all of you who live in other countries), at least there’s the option to listen to the recorded version of the band — and to follow them on various social media. Which is highly recommended, as they spend a lot of time sharing crazy science or space-related news, and also they frequently post about literal problems with literal draconianism. Get on board!
Well, here we are yet again: another year all wrapped up, another stressful holiday season all wrapped up, and all that’s left to do is to suffer the disheartening and depressing effects of the sun rising well after arriving at work and setting almost immediately after leaving for home.
Feels like an appropriate time to talk about some music that is also dark and chilling — as well as being based in (or at least, near) the land of the midnight sun: Finland’s Vesperith. Although not an actual word in English or Finnish (as far as I can tell), it would appear that this name (which is also the title used for this debut full-length album) bears a relation to the words for vespers, the evening star, or simply eveningtime itself.
Even more difficult to accurately put into words is a description of the music itself: distilled to its purest essence, this could be considered a single-member atmospheric black metal band (the only person credited on the album is Sariina Tani, identified as the primus motor), while often sounding far more atmospheric than metal.
Valley of Steel 