Death metal week (unofficial) continues here at Valley of Steel HQ with this EP that dropped last month from a band out of DFW, Texas, that’s been garnering some attention lately…
Creeping Death – The Edge of Existence (MNRK Heavy, 08 October 2021)
Tag Archives: Exhumed
Two New Splits From Tankcrimes!
Cannabis Corpse / Ghoul – Splatterhash (7 January 2014, Tankcrimes Records)
Exhumed / Iron Reagan – Split 12″ (7 January 2014, Tankcrimes Records)
*******
Tankcrimes Records has been known to put out some fairly unique and sought-after releases over the past few years. (For instance, who could forget 2012’s hugely successful Toxic Waste split featuring Toxic Holocaust and Municipal Waste?) Well yesterday, just barely a week into 2014, we find the label has issued not one but TWO more excellent split records to add to that impressive repertory.
Person or Persons Unknown: Six Questions with Steve and Aaron Kaczynski of Jericho Theory
Six Questions with Steve Kaczynski (guitar) and Aaron Kaczynski (vocals) of Jericho Theory
by Mrs. Valley of Steel
Here I am again, writing another Person or Persons Unknown about another Pittsburgh band member, but this time I decided to change things up a bit. This time I am focusing on two guys actually: Steve Kaczynski and his son Aaron.
While I have never really had too much interaction with Steve in the past, I have seen their joint band Jericho Theory and was impressed with the chemistry and talent they both posses. I must admit, doing this particular article was one of the main reasons for starting these interviews. In truth, I have known Aaron for a while now, and I’ve liked him from the first time I met him. He’s got an infectious enthusiasm that you couldn’t fake if you tried. I have gotten to know him better through this journey of Facebook messages, attending shows together, and also attending shows that his bands have played. I am not sure if I have ever met a more honest and caring person in our music scene. He is that guy that knows all your songs, and knows what shows you’re playing; he’s the kind of fan that makes playing in a band in Pittsburgh worth it. I don’t even think people realize what a positive and caring member of this circle he really is. He has a way of making shows I attend with him more fun — even with my weird habit of buying him a PBR at least once a show — it’s more a level of comfort and happiness when I know he’ll be attending a show. He’s kind of turned into an unofficial little brother for the husband and me, and listening to him tell me at least once during each show that this is his favorite band or his favorite song makes me happier then I could ever state — because his influence has actually made me want to be a better fan.
So with that, I figured that this kid with his infectious nature and love of music had to have an amazing musical role model just like I did. Now that I have the ability to figure that out, I was on a mission to do so — hence the reason for this interview, so I could see if my inkling about him was correct. I am very proud to call Aaron a friend, and I hope after reading this you’ll want to be friends with him and his dad too, and I hope it will make you want to see them in action this Saturday, March 30th, at the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern.
Person or Persons Unknown: Six Questions with Grisly Amputation/Vulture Guitarist Gene Fikhman
Six Questions with Grisly Amputation/Vulture Guitarist Gene Fikhman
by Mrs. Valley of Steel
My second Person or Persons Unknown is with Gene Fikhman, guitarist for Grisly Amputation and Vulture (one of my personal favorite bands EVER), horror and gore movie enthusiast, and all around cool and collected kind of guy. I must admit that I don’t know Gene very well, but in my personal interactions with him it has always seemed like he was the type of person who knew lots of information once you scratched the surface. I’ve had a lot of men in my life that are like this — in fact, I am married to one — and it’s been my personal experience that you are never disappointed when you get to know these kinds of guys. They are usually extremely intelligent, full of useless knowledge, helpful in all kinds of situations and hell to play trivia against. This is what made me want to interview him, not about just GrisAmp or Vulture, but about him personally so I could see if I was correct and I think you’ll see from this interview that I wasn’t disappointed. I hope you won’t be, either.
What To Do In Pittsburgh Tonight (13 August 2012)
Allure of the Earth Productions Presents:
Goatwhore, Exhumed, Cerebral Bore, Wrought Iron
at the 31st Street Pub
3101 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh (end of the Strip)
Monday 13 August 2012 | 10pm | $10 | 21+ only
Well, the Summer Slaughter Tour won’t be stopping in Pittsburgh this year — they’re going straight from yesterday’s Heavy TO Festival in Toronto to Cleveland’s House of Blues tomorrow (full list of dates here).
However, some of the bands associated with that tour — and, I might add, some of the ones that I’d be most interested in seeing! — have decided to take advantage of their downtime today, by putting on an abridged version of Summer Slaughter at the 31st Street Pub!
Tonight’s show will feature Goatwhore — whom some people neglect to take seriously on account of them having a sort of goofy name, but believe me, these New Orleanians are the real deal, blackened as a Cajun catfish. The tourmates accompanying them will be Californian goregrind legends Exhumed and Scottish female-fronted brutal deathcore band Cerebral Bore. To kick off the festivities, local support will be provided by Pittsburgh’s own blackened-grind miscreants, Wrought Iron.
Now Available for FREE: Basement Torture Killings – The First Cumming
Basement Torture Killings – The First Cumming (Self-released, Summer 2008)
London-based deathgrind/goregrind band Basement Torture Killings are also sometimes referred to by the acronym BTK — not coincidentally, the same initials used by serial killer Dennis Rader (in which case the letters stood for “Bind, Torture, Kill”). With this sort of pedigree, and with song titles such as “Drill Bit Erotica,” “Cut, Drained and Disposed,” and “Necrophiled and Cannibalised,” your first reaction might be — as mine was — to expect them to be one of those super-extreme-brutal-death-wacko bands. You know, where the whole thing sounds so muddled and the guitars and bass are both equalized so low that you can’t distinguish between them? And usually the vocals sound more like a handful of crickets tossed into a bunch of stomach acid inside a blender set to “puree”? I don’t know how people listen to that sort of thing, to be honest, and if you’re with me on that, then you’re in for a pleasant surprise just as I was when I first heard BTK’s music.
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Out Last Month: Mouth of the Serpent – Manifest
Mouth of the Serpent – Manifest (10 January 2012, Swimming with Sharks Records)
Good afternoon, Valley of Steel reader. Or depending on where you live (or when you come across this post), good morning or good evening. If whatever time of day it happens to be is perhaps not so good for you, just bear with me, it’ll get better. I’m going to introduce some more music to you, and I’ve got a feeling pretty soon everything will be just fine.
For starters, just look at that cover art up there! Now that’s some cool shit, huh? It was created by Tony Koehl, who has been responsible for quite a few other album covers (check out this gallery), probably the most high-profile of which was Black Dahlia Murder‘s 2009 album Deflorate (as seen here).
Anyway, back to this present work of art. People say you shouldn’t judge what’s inside
a book or album or whatever, just based on the cover. Good advice, but not very practical in real life — after all, isn’t that why there is a cover in the first place? To give you an idea what you will expect from the contents, and to get you started in your decision whether you think you will like it or not?
Well in this case, the artwork definitely catches your eye, and that odd juxtaposition of themes could possibly confuse the viewer, but in a way that should leave you feeling curious about what lies within. ARE you curious, Dear Reader? I can’t quite tell what that giant swamp monster thing is doing, but it might be inhaling a tree — definitely it looks like it’s causing some sort of massive destruction. The creature itself looks pretty grim and brutal, like you might expect to find on the cover of some pretty brutal death metal, right? Then in the background, the scene is all outer-spacey and there’s like a transdimensional portal or something, exactly the sort of imagery that would be well-suited to some experimental tech-death music, wouldn’t you say?
I think you can probably guess what this is leading up to, and you’d be right: the material found on Manifest, the recently-released EP by Los Angeles’ Mouth of the Serpent, turns out to be an interesting amalgamation of all of the above — and much more!
Valley of Steel 