For your listening enjoyment, a pair of recently-released EPs. One from the coastal swamplands of Florida, the other from the New Mexican deserts, and with sounds that match each location well.
Is it just me or has this week been dragging on way too long — like, excruciatingly, brain-deadeningly long? Just me? Ok. In any case, I feel like I need a break from anything that requires too much thinking. So I’m going to take a moment and share some music with you.
This is coming courtesy of old-school stoner/doom trio Eternal Black from Brooklyn. We’ll start with their self-titled debut EP from a few summers ago, and follow that with their first full-length which came out last year but just recently got pressed to vinyl for the first time (all via the band’s own Obsidian Sky label). Hope you enjoy it.
This weekend-long party in Sin City will feature some folks that you’ll recognize from previous mentions right here at Valley of Steel (Neurosis, Conan, Fister, Melvins, Hollow Leg, North, Ruby the Hatchet, Slomatics — just to name a few). Some other highlights will include Inter Arma, Black Anvil, Minsk, Goya, Manilla Road, Mouth of the Architect, Pelican, Vhöl, Year of the Cobra… YOB, Pentagram, Corrosion of Conformity, Sleep, Psychic TV… oh yeah, and King Diamond performing the whole Abigail album!
More details:
http://www.vivapsycho.com | http://www.facebook.com/events/1636267026703732/
Tickets:
3-day (Friday through Sunday) passes, and single-day tickets for Thursday Pre-Party, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday currently available at http://psycholv2017.eventbrite.com
Hey folks, HAPPY FRIDAY! As you’ve surely noticed, we’ve spent a lot of time this week talking about tours kicking off this weekend, and bands who are coming to Pittsburgh, but believe it or not I’ve got another announcement for you!
Starting TONIGHT (Friday, May 13th) instrumental legends Karma to Burn from West Virginia and long-running stoner trio The Atomic Bitchwax from New Jersey will be heading out on a month-long tour all across America, opening for The Obsessed (which was one of the earliest of Wino‘s plethora of bands).
The full list of dates for this tour (including a stop at Pittsburgh’s Altar Bar tomorrow night) will be listed down at the bottom of this page — in the comments. But first, lets take a closer look at a (relatively speaking) recent album from each of those two supporting bands …
Hello and good afternoon, longtime friends and first-time visitors. I hope your Monday has been, at minimum, tolerable. From this side, “Today I didn’t even have to strangle anyone with their own phone cord or throw my computer through the cubicle wall out of frustration / I got to say it was a good day.”
Anyway, whatever kind of day you’re having, get ready for some positive, uplifting vibes to be coming your way from the music I have here to share with you. Now, that music is going to start with Graves at Sea, and for those who’ve heard the full-length they put out earlier this month (reviewed here), you’ll be able to tell right away that last statement was at least partly sarcastic. (For those who haven’t heard it, what the hell are you waiting for? Go read that review, or even better, check them out in person during their tour that starts tonight in Atlanta!)
The remainder of this article will be about material — some of it a couple years old, some from just a few days ago — by the southern sludgery cesspit Sourvein; although it may not seem that way, this is (supposedly) where the positivity comes into the equation. Or at least truthfulness and realism. Off we go …
“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.
Atlanteans Order of the Owl and Volume IV are northwardly bound, on their way to the Eye of the Stoned Goat in New England next weekend. But along the way, they’re making a few pit stops — the “No Sleep Till Stoned Goat” mini-tour kicked off last night in Tennessee, and will be followed by jaunts through Pennsylvania and New York before hitting Massachusetts for Sunday’s festival. If you happen to live in the general proximity of any of these shows, I can’t recommend highly enough that you take advantage of your chance to check out both bands.
Folks, if you’ve had your ear to the ground over the past few months you might have noticed that there has been some rumbling coming out of the dark underworld of hardcore. There has been so much hype swirling around the crusty, grimy beast known as Meth Quarry lately, that the band has reached a nearly mythical status — without having played a single show yet!
But all of that is about to change, because these guys are finally ready to come crawling out of the dank cellar of Pittsburgh’s underground and expose the good people of the Steel City to their grim “dirge” hardcore style. Last weekend I met up with the quintet (guitarists Chris Smith and Kevin Hogue, bassist Aaron Kaczynski, vocalist Adam Joseph Bailey, and drummer Brandon “Fluffy” Baker) to talk about the story of the band’s formation and what sort of things they’ve got on the horizon — I joined them at one of their rehearsals, which took place in the basement of Kevin’s house, so when I say “crawling out of the cellar” I actually mean it literally…
Well, today is election day. But left or right, blue or red, fascism or anarchy… whatever, there’s one thing we can all agree on, which is that a kick-ass show with mind-numbingly loud music is just the right prescription for avoiding the endless analyzing and scrutinizing and prophesizing that will be happening on every tv station in the country this evening.
Unless you aren’t a Corrosion of Conformity fan for some crazy reason, in which case, fuck you for being unpatriotic and un-American.
Hello out there! It’s been quite a wet and wild week, but the end is finally in sight!
It’s Friday, and the weekend is nearly here — which of course brings with it plenty of opportunities to get out there and check out some shows, right? Of course it does.
And I’ve got some pretty good shit to share with you, happening tonight, right here in Pittsburgh! You might want to hold onto your hat…
Valley of Steel 