Tag Archives: Fister

The Lion’s Daughter & Indian Blanket – A Black Sea (2013)

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The Lion’s Daughter & Indian Blanket – A Black Sea (Good Die Young Music, 12 November 2013)

 

Hello out there, hope you all are having a good afternoon! If you caught the article I wrote yesterday, you would have been treated to an unsettling combination of folksy Americana (Bask) and grimy, noisy metal (American Heritage). Writing about those two bands together reminded me of another incredible album — one which actually combines an American folk band with a heavy, sludgy metal band (Indian Blanket and The Lion’s Daughter, respectively), both of whom are from Saint Louis. This album was released nearly two years ago, and I’ve been in love with it ever since, but somehow never got around to writing about it.

I was actually excited about this album from the first time I heard that it was being made — before I ever heard any of the music on it — because I was already familiar with one of the bands involved. The Lion’s Daughter had been on tour with another band from St. Louis, the amazing Fister, when I wrote about that band’s album Gemini on the day that they both came here to Pittsburgh — which, by some remarkable coincidence, was exactly two years ago today! It may have been because I’d listened to Fister a lot prior to the show but hadn’t really known anything about their tourmates at the time, so I didn’t really have any particular expectations before seeing them, but The Lion’s Daughter completely blew me away that evening. I feel like both bands managed to bring equal amounts of intensity and sheer volume (and for those of you who’ve seen Fister, you’ll know that is no easy task!)

Anyway, several months later a collaborative effort with their friendly neighborhood folk band came to fruition, and it was every bit as cool as I had hoped for — in fact, it has seemed to grow on me even more with repeated listens, to the point where I ended up including it among my favorite albums of 2013. Check out A Black Sea for yourself, and I think you’ll see why.

 

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Black Tar Prophet – Deafen (2014)

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Black Tar Prophet – Deafen (Domestic Genocide Records, 22 April 2014)

 

Hey, folks. How’s it going? I’ve got some more music here I’d like to share with you. I think you’re going to like it.

A lot of times when I write about a band, you may have noticed I will include some kind of anecdote about how I first heard about them — whether I’d seen them perform live at some point, or sometimes it’s someone I get introduced to through another website or another band. But the vast majority of the stuff I have here to write about came to me as the result of being contacted by either the band themselves, or their record label, or the PR person who represents the band or label. I get a TON of stuff emailed to me — seriously — and it can sometimes be a bit taxing to sort through it all. But in the end it’s completely worth it, because I’ve discovered some amazing stuff this way that might not have come to my attention otherwise. In fact, some of the bands I would consider to be among my favorites to listen to (not even exaggerating) were ones I had never heard of until I’d been contacted by their label or PR company.

For this reason, I make it a point to listen to absolutely everything that anyone sends me. Because there’s no way of knowing whether something might end up surprising me and being awesome. In fact, I go into every new album with as little knowledge as possible, and with the hopes that it’ll be something that completely blows me away. Of course, this leaves me feeling pretty disappointed much of the time, but occasionally I come across some real gems. When I do, that’s when I generally will go back to the original email (and then Facebook or Bandcamp or the band’s own website, wherever they have some sort of online presence) to learn more about the band — such as where they’re from and a whatever history I can learn about them.

This is sort of what happened when I first heard Black Tar Prophet‘s new album Deafen, which came out earlier this year. When I started listening, I knew nothing about the band other than their name, but before I reached the end of the first song, I was already rushing back to find that email, to see where these guys were located — and not just from curiosity. This time, I needed to know how close to here (Pittsburgh) they lived, so I could gauge the chances of them ever playing in this area. Once I found out they were from relatively nearby (Tennessee, which is just three states away, or about 8-9 hours driving), I immediately started considering the possibility that they could someday be on tour somewhere in this direction, and furthermore I decided that if this happened, I needed to get them a show here in town, and that my own band Last should open for them.

Well… I’m very excited to tell you that in just a couple of weeks, both of those things will be coming true! This instrumental heavy sludge/noise duo will be hitting the road in October, and I’ll include all the details about that right after I’ve told you some more about this album that had piqued my interest so much when I first heard it…

 

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The List of 2013 Year-End Lists

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Photo Collage - 2013 Shows - by Mrs. Valley of Steel

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Hey folks — a very Happy (Belated) New Year to all of you! 2013 definitely turned out to be an interesting year for me, with lots of big changes, new projects, new responsibilities, etc., but an unfortunate side-effect of some of that was (as you’ve surely noticed) that the amount of time I’d been spending writing really tapered off as the year went on, to the point where I didn’t post
anything here for the last few months! Well, as you may have seen, I’ve started writing reviews of some new 2014 releases — and as time allows I promise I will also be sharing plenty of older stuff I’ve missed writing about, because believe me there has been a TON worth sharing!

But more on that later. As I started doing last year, I’ve once again put together a collection of various people’s “best of” lists from 2013. Admittedly I sort of got a late start on this (I didn’t even put out the open invitation until after most websites had already finished with publishing all their year-end stuff), but several people have answered the call and contributed some really interesting lists that you’ll want to check out…

 

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Fister – Gemini

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gemini-cover

 

Fister – Gemini (self-released, 19 March 2013)

 
Lately, a close personal friend of this website, Mr. Jason Cantu (read more about him here, as part of my wife’s ongoing interview series), has been all atwitter about this sludge/doom band from Saint Louis called Fister. Now, I’ve always had a lot of respect for his judgement about things, because anytime he’s recommended something it’s always been a winner: he seems to really pay attention to what people listen to, and so if he says “You’ll like this,” chances are you will.

But you don’t just have to take my word for it. Jason’s opinions have just gained a whole new level of credibility, as he has recently joined the ranks of The Sludgelord as a contributing writer. So you know that’s no B.S., since that site is world-renowned as a leading authority on heavy music.

So anyway, Fister. The first time I heard of these guys was last year, when one of their songs was included on the Doommantia benefit comp. That song was very slow and heavy, raw and noisy. All things that I would later discover to be part of this band’s signature style.

Fast forward to the present day; Fister are currently in the midst of an excursion across the Midwest and the northeast, which includes a stop in Pittsburgh tonight! All the members of Cantu‘s band Slaves BC have been talking about how excited they are to be part of this show, so I figured it was about time for me to do some investigating.

As it turns out, Fister has quite a lot of material available on their Bandcamp page, so I decided to tackle their most recent album, Gemini (released earlier this year), which is their second full-length. Here’s what I discovered…

 
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FOR A GOOD CAUSE: Doommantia Vol. 1 Compilation

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Various Artists – Doommantia Vol. 1 (23 October 2012)

 
Hey folks. We’ve already talked about Ed Barnard, who operates the Doommantia website, but in case you’ve forgotten, this is the guy who has dealt with being bankrupted by astronomical medical bills, eventually resulting in being evicted from his home. More information on the situation is available elsewhere, if you care to look.

Anyway, it’s a pretty terrible story, but the brotherhood (and sisterhood — or, let’s just say, siblinghood) of Doom Metal has been quick to respond. The Doommantia website itself has been collecting funds via a Paypal button; earlier this month, Maryland-based War Injun put together a benefit concert.

And now, an enormous (39 tracks! Over four hours long!) compilation of songs from all kinds of amazing bands has been put together by members of South Carolina’s Compel. Downloads are available for purchase from Bandcamp; the minimum price is only seven bucks, but naturally you have the option to decide to donate any amount you wish.

 
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