Ripple Music – The Second Coming of Heavy, Chapter One (2015) and Chapter Two (2016)

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The Second Coming of Heavy, Chapter One – Geezer / Borracho (Ripple Music, 26 July 2015)

 

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The Second Coming of Heavy, Chapter Two – Supervoid / Red Desert (Ripple Music, 27 February 2016)

 

“Now it’s time for YOUR Classic Rock” says the title at the top of Ripple Music‘s website, and the slogan is fitting: since its formation back in 2010, the label has made a name for itself as one of the premier sources for stoner rock and metal, psychedelic rock, and all things fuzz-laden. We’ve talked about some of their releases in the past, for example here and also here, but more generally, the label has come to be known for putting out music of consistent quality, within the circles of those styles. And now (starting last summer), they have begun a brand-new series of 12″ splits called The Second Coming of Heavy, which so far has featured some pretty serious heavy hitters, with plenty more on the way. Today we’re going to take a look at the first two of these, Chapter One which came out nearly eight months ago, and Chapter Two which hit the streets at the end of February.

 

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Thy Art Is Murder Coming to Pittsburgh — Win FREE Tickets!!

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Opus One Productions Presents:

The Coffin Dragger Tour – Featuring:

Thy Art Is Murder, Rings of Saturn, Fit for an Autopsy, Dark Sermon

Saturday 07 May 2016

at Mr. Smalls Theatre, 400 Lincoln Ave. Pittsburgh (Millvale) PA 15209

ALL AGES, 6:30 show / 6:00 doors, $16 in advance / $19 day of show

 

Tickets are on sale NOW at Ticketweb… OR you can WIN a pair of tickets FREE, courtesy of Opus One Productions and Valley of Steel! Keep on reading to find out how…

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Acid Mothers Temple Coming to Pittsburgh — Win FREE Tickets!!

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Opus One Productions Presents:

Acid Mothers Temple with special guest Mounds

Thursday 31 March 2016

at Club Cafe, 56-58 12th St. Pittsburgh (South Side) PA 15203

21+ only, 8pm show / 7pm doors, $12

 

Tickets are on sale NOW at Ticketweb, Dave’s Music Mine, or the Club Cafe box office… OR you can WIN a pair of tickets FREE, courtesy of Opus One Productions and Valley of Steel! Keep on reading to find out how…

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Bardus – Solus (2014), Stella Porta (2016); Grizzlor / Barren Womb – Split (2015)

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Bardus – Solus (Wolf Beach Tapes, 21 October 2014)

 

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Bardus – Stella Porta (Solar Flare Records, 01 April 2016)

 

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Grizzlor / Barren Womb – Split (Riotous Outburst Records, 17 March 2015)

 

Hello, and Happy Friday to everyone out there! I hope you’ve had an okay week — and if not, then I hope you have a great weekend to make up for it. Before then, though, I’d like to throw something at you real quick.

At this very moment, there’s somewhat of a mini-tour going on — a handful of regional dates featuring a couple of bands, Philadelphia’s Bardus and New Haven’s Grizzlor, and it just happens that each of them have released something over the past year and a half that I’ve got in my to-do list for sharing with you readers. So it seems like a pretty convenient time to share both of those with you now, and even more so considering the fact that one of them also will have a brand-new album coming out next month — I’ll talk a little about that one, too.

I’ll try to keep this one kind of short (I know I say that a lot and it doesn’t always work out that way, but I promise I’ll try!) because I’m sure all of you are as anxious as I am to get started on those weekend plans. But scroll down to the comments section because I’ll also throw in the remaining tour dates for these two bands — which happens to include a stop in Pittsburgh this Saturday!

 

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Clouds Taste Satanic – To Sleep Beyond the Earth (2014), Your Doom has Come (2015)

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Clouds Taste Satanic – To Sleep Beyond the Earth (Kinda Like Music, 01 May 2014)

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Clouds Taste Satanic – Your Doom has Come (Kinda Like Music, 01 September 2015)

 

Well as I had predicted, I didn’t manage to get any writing done yesterday. I still don’t know if I’m fully recovered from the night before last, but in any case, here we are. I will just say this: it was totally a surreal experience, and if you happen to live near any of this tour‘s few remaining stops, or if either of these bands should come anywhere near you in the future, DO NOT miss the opportunity. Seriously.

So anyway, speaking of things that are surreal, today I’d like to talk to you about a pair of albums that have been released over the past two years by my all-time favorite band-whose-name-was-adapted-from-the-title-of-my-second-all-time-favorite-Flaming-Lips-album, namely, Brooklynite instrumental doom ensemble Clouds Taste Satanic.

 

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Endlichkeit – Endlichkeit IX (2015)

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Endlichkeit – Endlichkeit IX (self released, 18 May 2015)

 

Good morning! Gonna make this a short and sweet one, because it’s going to be a busy day for me. Headed out to a show tonight — something I’d almost never do on a weeknight, but there’s just no way I could miss a show like this one. But of course that means tomorrow I will be absolutely dead to the world and so I’ll probably be extremely unproductive (you probably shouldn’t expect any new posts here, either), which means I’ll need to be extra busy today to make up for it. But I’ll take the time to share something with you real quick, a track that you can download for free, that was released on Bandcamp by the band Endlichkeit last spring. Think of this as sort of a bonus track to yesterday’s review, since this one fits together nicely with that album — not only alphabetically, but stylistically as well.

 

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Earth and Pillars – Earth I (2014/2016)

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Earth and Pillars – Earth I (CD/digital via Avantgarde Music 25 November 2014; vinyl via Fallen Empire Records/Eisenwald, 21 February 2016)

 

Hey! Hope you’re having a good afternoon, everyone. Or at least, as good as can be expected on a Monday. As usual, I feel like I’ve been pretty much sleepwalking through work all day. I’m about to go grab another cup of coffee, then I’d like to tell you about this amazing album of transcendent, otherworldly black metal — Earth I, the debut by Italy’s Earth and Pillars. It’s got a lot of nuance and detail buried inside, and on repeated listens you can really dig deep and get lost in there. But if that’s not the sort of mood you’re in, you can just as easily just unfocus and let the overpowering waves of sound just rush over you. Either way, just don’t miss this record!

 

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Beehoover – The Devil and His Footmen (2013), Primitive Powers (2016)

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Beehoover – The Devil and His Footmen (Exile on Mainstream, 30 September 2013)

 

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Beehoover – Primitive Powers (UnUnDeux, 26 February 2016)

 

Hey, good afternoon, music fans! Did you know that this website is now in its fifth year of existence? Technically its fifth birthday will be coming up later this year, but I just thought it was interesting to think about that. That might be partly why I’ve been covering quite a few older releases over the past weeks, trying to get some stuff written about and shared with you that I’ve been listening to and meaning to write about for a long time: reaching (or approaching) that sort of milestone can make you do a lot of reflecting back, while also trying to stay on top of what’s happening currently and looking ahead to what’s next.

Anyway, that’s kind of a roundabout way of introducing today’s topic, which will be hitting a bit of each of those things, since I’ll be covering a pair of albums by German bass/drums/vocals duo Beehoover — one which came out in late 2013 (and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying, and intending to get a chance to write about, since around that time), and a brand-new one (that I feel confident you’ll enjoy just as much) which will officially hit the store shelves (metaphorically speaking) tomorrow!

 

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Altarage – MMXV Demo (2015)

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Altarage – MMXV Demo (Sentient Ruin Laboratories / Sol Y Nieve, 27 September 2015)

 

Well. Yesterday was pretty much a crap day. I’m not going to go into details because I don’t want to waste time dwelling on it (and you don’t care anyway) but from beginning to end, it was just one of those, like okay what else can go wrong next and why did I even get out of bed today, kind of days.

But today is going to be better, I’m sure of that. It’s still early in the morning and I still feel like I’m sleepwalking, but I’m starting the day off right — filling my ears with angry, aggressive sounds that I’ll gladly share with all of you. We all have a bad day now and then, and could probably use some help coping with it.

So I offer you: Altarage, a mysterious death metal band from Bilbao, in the Basque region of northern Spain. A few months ago the good folks at California’s Sentient Ruin let me know about this band’s two-song demo entitled MMXV, which is very dark and twisted and everything you need to turn that frown upside-down (and then contort it into a kind of devilish scowl)…

 

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Wrekmeister Harmonies – Night of Your Ascension (2015)

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Wrekmeister Harmonies – Night of Your Ascension (Thrill Jockey, 13 November 2015)

 

Well… here we are at the end of a dull, dreary Monday — looks like we’ve survived another one. And it’s a good thing, too, because I’ve got something pretty extraordinary to share with you this afternoon. It’s not often that you come across something that seems immediately transcendent — so otherworldly that it fully envelops the listener and transports you away from the surface level of consciousness — but that’s the case with Night of Your Ascension, the third album released by the American “pastoral doom” conglomerate known as Wrekmeister Harmonies. A late-year discovery for me (it just came out at the end of November), this LP nevertheless had such an instantaneous impact that I just had to include it among my list of 2015’s top releases.

This isn’t necessarily the type of material that really benefits from being written about, being described in words, so I’ll keep that part as brief as possible. Further down, you’ll have the opportunity to listen for yourself and get the full experience, and then you’ll understand. And even further down (in the comments section), I’ll be including the details of the group’s current North American tour with Bell Witch, so stay tuned for that!

 

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