Tag Archives: Canada

Orme – No Serpents, No Saviours; The Weir – Grasping (2024/2025)

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Just announced: This Friday is Bandcamp Friday for the first time in 2025. So if you have been planning to make any music purchases, tomorrow would be a great time to do it, because 100% of the funds end up in the pocket of the band or record label (and not the corporate overlords who own Bandcamp).

However, if you have dollars (or euros, francs, dinars, whatever) burning a hole in your pocket and you don’t have anything in particular to spend it on — please feel free to browse the archives here at Valley of Steel for recommendations. And here are two more worth checking out, each a lengthy chunk of heavy doom, each originally released by the respective band last year, and each recently re-released as cassette tapes by our Dutch friends at Breathe Plastic Records.

 

Orme – No Serpents, No Saviours (self-released 23 August 2024 / cassette reissue by Breathe Plastic, 31 January 2025)

 

The Weir – Grasping (self-released 04 October 2024 / cassette reissue by Breathe Plastic, 31 January 2025)

 

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Raphael Weinroth-Browne – Worlds Within Live (2021); Jason Blake feat. RWB – Candles Burn (2024)

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Good afternoon, y’all. Last time, we talked about the most recent release by Canadian neofolk trio Musk Ox and the news that their music was being featured in the CBS medical/mystery drama Watson. (In case you missed it, episode 2, which broadcast about two weeks ago, set their song “Weightless” against a montage wrapping up the various storylines near the end of the show.)

Anyway, at that time I had promised more music from Musk Ox members would be forthcoming, and so here we are. The group’s cellist (and co-writer/arranger) Raphael Weinroth-Browne put out his first solo record back in 2020, which at the time was met with plenty of acclaim on this website. But the following year, he released a brand new version of the whole thing re-recorded live, which we’ll take a look at here. And to cap things off, we’ll also check out an EP the cellist created in collaboration with Chicago-based Warr guitarist Jason Blake, just about eleven months ago.

 

Raphael Weinroth-Browne – Worlds Within Live (self-released, 02 July 2021)

 

Jason Blake featuring Raphael Weinroth-Browne – Candles Burn (7d Media, 05 April 2024)

 

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Musk Ox – Inheritance (2021); Nathanael Larochette – Old Growth (2023)

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Good afternoon! If you’ve been a longtime visitor around these parts, you’ll remember Musk Ox, from all the times we’ve previously discussed that Canadian folk trio as well as some of its members’ numerous other musical pursuits.

Well, yesterday I received an interesting bit of news from the group:

 

Hi Everyone!

We hope you are all well, safe, thriving and taking time to nurture whatever endeavours bring you fulfillment.

We just wanted to share some exciting news. After years of people telling us that our music would be great for tv/film we are thrilled to announce that several of our songs will appear in the new medical/mystery series Watson on CBS! The second episode airs tonight (Sun Feb 16th) at 9pm EST and features our song “Weightless.” We’re honoured to have been asked to provide songs for this series and are grateful for the opportunity to reach new audiences with our music. If you happen to catch the episode tonight, take a video while our song plays and tag us @muskoxofficial.

 

Musk Ox – Inheritance (self-released, 09 July 2021)

 

Nathanael Larochette – Old Growth (self-released, 21 July 2023)

 

For the uninitiated, Watson is a brand-new show (the pilot episode premiered on CBS and Paramount+ last month, with regular weekly episodes scheduled to begin as of last night) which stars Morris Chestnut as the titular doctor. In this modernized adaptation, Watson is moving on from the canonical death of his former partner in crime-solving, Sherlock Holmes, whereupon he has started a medical facility — a fictional foundation set right here in Pittsburgh, PA — that appears (based on the one episode that has aired thus far) to specialize in rare and unusual ailments, thus calling upon the doctor’s famed investigative skills.

While I don’t usually find myself drawn toward medical dramas, I’ve always been a connoisseur of all things Holmes-related, so I decided to investigate that pilot when it aired and have been looking forward to the continuation of the story for these past couple weeks. The series can be found streaming here, where I was already planning to check out the second episode tonight, but now I’ll also have my ears attuned to catch the inclusion of the Musk Ox material mentioned above.

As I’ll be stuck at work for another few hours still, in the meantime it seemed like a perfect time to revisit the 2021 album on which the song in question was originally released. And while we’re at it, it never hurts to pop in to see what else these musicians have been up to lately, so I’ll toss in one member’s solo album as a bonus in this article, and then spend some time with another member’s output shortly thereafter.

 

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Syrup Moose Records: V (2024 Compilation)

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ICYMI: at some point in the latter half of 2024, Syrup Moose Records officially announced that they were taking a well-deserved break during 2025. After averaging at least one release (digital and/or cassette, sometimes CD and/or vinyl too) for their first 2-1/4 years in existence, they have hit the pause button on anything new over the course of this whole year.

Honestly, I think this is a brilliant idea and more people should follow suit. It might give me a slight fighting chance to eventually one day dig myself out of the pile of stuff on my to-do list I have been compiling over the past dozen or so years, stuff I’ve heard and enjoyed enough to write something about to share with the folks who come here to read these words, but which I’ve failed to find the time and energy to do so (yet).

Anyway, because they’ve never half-assed anything, Syrup Moose closed out last year with one hell of a bang: their latest and greatest compilation V — the fifth in a series (not including their first anniversary Year of the Moose) — which tips the scales at a whopping 108 tracks (yes, you read that right, one hundred eight), totaling roughly EIGHT HOURS of material as varied as the label’s first two years of releases have been.

 

Various Artists – V (Syrup Moose Records, 27 December 2024)

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Syrup Moose Summer Sale

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Syrup Moose Records Summer Sale

 

Hey folks. We’ve talked about our “woke, broke” Canadian friends at Syrup Moose Records a few times over the past couple of years, and if real-life bullshit wasn’t such overwhelmingly real-life bullshit every day, and if I had more time to spend writing about music and sharing it with all you nice people, I can guarantee we’d be talking about our favorite sticky cervids far more often.

But I wanted to let you all know that this week only, they’re running a special summer sale on nearly all the physical releases currently available in their store, also including pre-orders. Better hurry, though – the sale only lasts through this weekend!

 

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The Great Sabatini – Dog Years (2014), Goodbye Audio (2018); Greber – Cemetery Preston (2018)

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Today’s Célébration Canadienne continues! Catch up here if you missed the first part, otherwise feel free to keep on reading…

 

The Great Sabatini – Dog Years (Solar Flare Records / No Why Records / Sludge Hummer, 02 June 2014)

 

The Great Sabatini – Goodbye Audio (No Why Records / Ancient Temple Recordings / No List Records / Pink Lemonade Records, 16 November 2018)

 

Greber – Cemetery Preston (No Why Records / Ancient Temple Recordings / D7i Records / Hibernation Release / Pink Lemonade Records, 02 February 2018)

 

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Swarm of Spheres – Invest in Your Death (2013), Brother Take Five (2021); Cell Press – S/T (2020)

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It’s Friday, and we’re firing up the way-back machine. Got a lot of ground to cover, so there’s no time to waste… Here we go!

 

Swarm of Spheres – Invest in Your Death (self-released, 18 October 2013)

 

Swarm of Spheres – Brother, Take Five (No Why Records, 15 October 2021)

 

Cell Press – Cell Press (Ancient Temple Recordings / No Funeral, 27 November 2020)

 

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Natalie Zina Walschots – Hench: A Novel (2020/21)

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Hello out there! Time once again for a quick excursion outside the music world and into the realm of the written word.

That’s right, we’re doing another book report…

 

 

Natalie Zina Walschots – Hench: A Novel (William Morrow / Harper Collins; hardcover and digital 22 September 2020; paperback 09 November 2021)

 

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Mors Verum – The Living (2021)

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Hey gang — it’s Bandcamp Friday! Let’s talk about death metal! Again!

Mors Verum – The Living (Total Dissonance Worship, 05 November 2021)

 

 

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Wolf King – The Path of Wrath; Discarded Self – S/T (2021)

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Wolf King – The Path of Wrath (Prosthetic Records, 05 March 2021)

 

Discarded Self – Discarded Self (Sarcophagus Recordings, 30 April 2021)

 

Hello again, readers! Hard to believe how quickly another month has flown by…

I’ve got another pair of albums to share with you today, each filled with darkness and nastiness, from two groups who both reside somewhere out west. Let’s dive right in!

 

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