STOP! You should totally check out THIS POST instead. Vesperia‘s entire The Swordsman demo is now available to download for free; the full details are included there.
Out Tomorrow: Embers – Shadows (2xLP Vinyl Release)
Embers – Shadows (Self-released, 29 March 2011 / vinyl by Iconoclast Records, 25 May 2012)
Californian blackened-crust band Embers released their debut LP Shadows to much critical acclaim early last year. At that time, it was made available as a free (or pay what you choose) download, and it’s still available that way (more details later), but the band recently announced that the album is finally being made available in a vinyl format for those fans who had been requesting that…
Tomorrow (Friday, 25 May) Embers will be kicking off a two-week European tour, starting in Bologna (see the end of this post for a list of dates). At the same time, they will be releasing Shadows as a 2xLP vinyl edition via the Bolognese label Iconoclast Records.
Get to Know: Injury Deepen (Review of Demo 2011 – FREE Download)
So the other day, I saw some exciting news on Facebook, that I just had to share with you, Readers. Indonesian brutal death metal band Injury Deepen posted, “Minggu ini Kami Siap Untuk Melangsungkan Proses Rekaman Untuk Debut Album Kami!!”
For those of us who don’t speak Indonesian, fortunately we have Google Translate to assist. It isn’t always perfect, and if any readers out there have a better translation for me I’d appreciate it, but as far as I can tell, it says, “This week, we are ready to establish the process of recording our debut album!!”
Anyway, like I said, I was pretty excited to see this; probably if you’d heard the band’s demo from last year, you’d feel the same way too.
I found the four-track Demo 2011 EP at the Death Metal Invasion blog, which is a wonderful resource for discovering new music, because several times a week they post another release (sometimes demos, EPs, or singles, sometimes full albums), and they are all 100% FREE to download — and 100% LEGAL because they only post stuff that comes directly from bands or record labels. As the name implies, they primarily cater to the death metal crowd, but the content spans the huge spectrum of sub-subgenres that fall under that umbrella: traditional, brutal, slamming, technical, melodic, etc., with bits of deathgrind or grindcore thrown in the mix as well.
So I end up downloading A LOT of stuff from DMI, across all those different styles, and from literally all over the world. As you might expect, there is also a wide range of quality in these releases — some I end up liking quite a bit, while others may not resonate so well with me.
Out of all that, Injury Deepen really caught my attention and ended up being one of the more memorable bands I’d heard on that site. So when I learned they’d be working on a new album, I decided to revisit their demo, and then share it with you! (Including, of course, where you can grab a copy for yourself, because they’re still offering it for free!)
Continue reading
Upcoming Shows: What To Do In Pittsburgh This Weekend (25 May 2012)
Hello there, Pittsburgh-area readers. Once again, it’s time for me to share my weekly digest of shows and events that are happening in town. As it turns out, I’ve got a few pretty interesting ones, and they’re all taking place Friday night (the 25th). Below you will find all the necessary information and details, and then YOU can decide which you want to attend!
And once again, I can only write about what I know about — so if you work for a local promotion company, a venue, or a band, please be sure to get in touch with me with anything you want to share.
Q: What Do TrollfesT and Madonna Have In Common?
A: They both want you to strike a pose!
STRIKE A POSE AND WIN A PRIZE WITH TROLLFEST
You may have seen the teaser photos we’ve been running recently on our Facebook page, so here is the story behind them and your chance to win a TROLLFEST prize.With the summer coming up, lots of you will be going on holiday, or attending festivals or doing whatever it is you do in summer, so we thought you might like to have even more fun by striking a Black Metal pose in front of a landmark, or not so much of a landmark even, and link the photo on the TROLLFEST Facebook page, which we will then upload onto the Strike A Pose album and people can vote for their favourite photo by liking it. The photos with the most likes will win a TROLLFEST prize, so get all your friends to like your photo or make them suffer horrible consequences if they don’t.
The guys in the band have put up a series of photos to demonstrate what they mean by “a Black Metal pose.” Apparently it mostly involves scowling and invisible oranges.
The example photos can be found in this Facebook album.
The closing date for photos will be 31 August, and then we will have another couple of weeks before announcing the winner to allow later photos to catch up. If you’re not going on holiday, don’t worry, just pose wherever you are. ONE PHOTO PER PERSON ONLY PLEASE.
What will be the prize you are asking yourselves? Well, we aren’t going to tell you just yet, but it will be something TROLLFEST and therefore it’s bound to be awesome.
So let’s have some fun, get striking and good luck everyone.
Thanks to Patricia Thomas Band Management for passing along the information about this competition. Some of the example pictures here are pretty interesting, and some are just plain silly. I look forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with!
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TrollfesT: website, Facebook, Myspace, Reverbnation, Soundcloud, webshop
Patricia Thomas Band Management: website, Facebook, Myspace, Reverbnation, Soundcloud, Youtube
Out Last Week: Pinkish Black – Self-Titled
Pinkish Black – Pinkish Black (Handmade Birds, 15 May 2012)
Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
The rest of his bandmates came back from wherever they’d been all day, and walked in to find a hellish nightmare: there lay his lifeless body, extinguished by his own hand while he’d been home alone.
It sounds like a tale from Until the Light Takes Us, I know, but this was the story of Tommy Atkins, bassist for Denton, Texas’s The Great Tyrant. Bandmates Daron Beck and Jon Teague reportedly discovered him in the bathroom. Having found their band reduced from a trio to a duo, they decided to continue on under a new name — in honor of the terrible scene they had come across, in which (they said) “the walls were pinkish black.”
With an origin such as this, it’s not at all surprising that the new musical project would seem inspired by and surrounded by death. Sometimes frightening, sometimes peaceful; sometimes horribly ugly, sometimes angelically beautiful; sometimes all of these at once. And dark. Such an intense darkness that it could almost blind anyone who gazes upon it.
Municipal Waste / Toxic Holocaust – Toxic Waste Split – PREORDER NOW!!!
Hello there, readers! I wanted to bring this to your attention as soon as I learned about it: pre-orders are now available for the Toxic Waste Split 12″ (Municipal Waste / Toxic Holocaust)! CLICK HERE!
**UPDATE 19 June 2012** Since the first pressing of this split sold out so quickly, Tankcrimes has just announced a second pressing! PLUS you can now download both sides of the release FOR FREE! Check out this newer post for all the relevant details!
This record is coming out on 12 June 2012 via Tankcrimes Records, and I’m predicting it’s gonna go fast. If you’re a thrash fan who’s been keeping up with the explosion of retro/revival bands over the past several years, then you already know that these are two of the biggest names in that movement. If you aren’t already familiar with these bands, I’ll give you a brief introduction to them later in this post (including a list of dates for each band’s upcoming world tours!), but first I want to talk about this incredible package — which I’m sure is going to be a HUGE hit with vinyl collectors all over the world…
Tracklisting:
- Trapped in the Sites (Municipal Waste)
- Mourning Sex (Municipal Waste)
- We Bring ‘Em Hell (Toxic Holocaust)
- Alter-ed States (Toxic Holocaust)
Two of the songs (one from each band) can be streamed if you head over to Decibel Magazine‘s website.
For the past several months, Scotty at Tankcrimes has often talked about working with various manufacturers and testing a number of different formulations to come up with just the perfect glow-in-the-dark vinyl to use for this release. That kind of dedication should give you an idea of just how important this collectors’ item is going to be…
The extremely limited “Die Hard” edition of the release is available in either the picture-disc (which, as you can see above, features the album’s cover art) or the special glow-in-the-dark vinyl. Either of those will also include a beer koozie and a poster of that cover art, too. Oh, and by the way, I don’t know if you noticed, but the “Toxic Waste” logo inside the glowing globe in the center of the artwork is made of the “T” from “Toxic Holocaust” and the “W” from “Municipal Waste” — sorry, it doesn’t take much to amuse me…
Anyway, for those fans who might not also be into collectible vinyl (or, more likely, for those who want to save the picture-disc or glow-in-the-dark edition in mint condition, but still want to listen to the record) it’s also available in regular boring black or blue vinyl. With any of these editions, you will be sent a link to download a digital copy on the release date, as well.
**UPDATE – 23 MAY** I told you that glow-in-the-dark vinyl was going to be a hot seller and that it would sell out… but I never predicted that they’d all be gone by the afternoon of the first pre-sale day! But, that’s what happened — as of yesterday, there are no more glowing Toxic Waste records left. If you missed out, sorry, it sucks to be you. Next time you need to listen to me when I tell you to jump on something quickly! I just wish I had some extra cash lying around this week, or else I might have grabbed up a dozen copies!
But anyway, all is not lost because that picture-disc edition is still available (although that one surely won’t be around too much longer, either!), as well as the black or blue versions. **
Once again, the link to pre-order the split is here.
The “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week: The “Where Are They Now?” Edition
Hey there, loyal and devoted Valley of Steel Readers! For the past four months I’ve been doing these little profiles every Monday about bands that I’ve discovered on the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website. Mostly they’ve been bands that have sent me messages seeking reviews of their music, but occasionally I’ll just randomly stumble across something good and then I end up writing about that. Either way, I’ve found some really cool stuff that I might not have known about otherwise! I hope the same has been true for you, readers — have you seen any bands profiled here that really resonated with you? Let me know in the comments section below; hearing that I’ve introduced a reader to some awesome new music (and also that I’ve given a band some much-deserved exposure to new fans) validates my existence and gives me a reason to get out of bed each morning.
Over the course of the past several weeks, I’ve tried to keep up with some of these exciting new discoveries — either by following their Facebook pages, or signing up for an email list, or possibly by watching for smoke signals. In any case, I’ve been hearing some things lately about some of these bands — in terms of new songs, new videos, or upcoming new releases — and so I decided to use this week’s post to reflect back on some of those previous posts and see what the bands have been up to since I wrote about them…
Upcoming Shows: The Gates of Slumber Kicking Off U.S. Tour
I haven’t really seen a lot of press about this, but fortunately I just happened to stumble upon a post by The Gates of Slumber on Facebook which referred to new tour dates… as it turns out, the Indianan colossi of epic doom metal are heading out across the country, beginning tonight (21 May) in Cleveland and tomorrow night (22 May) in Pittsburgh!
It’s been about a year now since the band released their latest album The Wretch (their fifth, not including a whole slew of EPs, splits, and demos), and the critical praise just keeps on pouring in. I’ve been a huge fan of these COTD-ers since 2008’s Conqueror, but haven’t yet had the chance to see them in a live setting. They’ve got such an enormously crushing sound on record, though, I can only imagine it would be a pretty monumental experience. Full dates listed below.
Get ’em While They’re Hot: Download a FREE Compilation of Australian Metal from Art as Catharsis
Drone from the Underside of the Earth is a FREE digital compilation featuring Australia’s best stoner, sludge, doom and drone bands.
It’s supposed to be released 21 May 2012 through Art As Catharsis, and I know that’s tomorrow, but it turns out that in addition to having winter when we have summer, and water going backwards down their drains, Australian people also live inside some crazy time warp thing where there it’s already tomorrow while here it’s still today. I’ll never understand all this complicated science stuff, but the good thing means, the compilation is available right now!
It features 26 songs by Adrift for Days, Arrowhead, Atolah, Battle Pope, Clagg, DEAD, Drowning Horse, Futility, Houdini, Hydromedusa, In Trenches, Law of the Tongue, Lint, Log, Looking Glass, Moth, Mother Eel, Mother Mars, No Anchor, Noûs, Shellfin, Sore, Space Bong, Summonus, Sons of the Ionian Sea, and The Slow Death. The compilation also includes that incredible artwork shown above, which was done by promoter/label head Lachlan R. Dale.
Lachlan also had the following message to share:
I’ve spent a lot of hours on this project this year. I really wanted to draw attention to some our country’s awesome fuzzy, droney, drug-addled groups, that perhaps don’t get the attention they deserve – especially outside of Australia – because the reality is we can boast some of the most unique and varied slow music of any country.
So I set off with intent to pull together some of my favourite artists in Australia’s stoner, sludge, doom and drone scenes in order to get more people to discover great Australian underground music. But I was a little naive of quite how long it would take me!
The hard work paid off in the end. Drone form the Underside of the Earth features a selection of 26 tracks. This is a rare, eye-opening peek into Australia’s rich underground music scene. At 3-and-a-half hours in length it’s quite a ride, but I sincerely hope that you at least discover a few new bands as a result of this work.
Listen to or download the compilation through Bandcamp…
Valley of Steel 