Tag Archives: Groningen

Armed for Apocalypse – The Earth is Breathing Beneath Me (2026); Swerve – S/T (2025)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Friends, in a conversation with some fellow music appreciators-slash-journalists about recent new releases, I offered the opinion that 2026 has thus far been one hell of a year for sludge metal.

As further evidence, I’d like to present you with this, the fourth album of filty, dirty sludgecore by Portland (Oregon)’s Armed for Apocalypse, which just came out today. As the band describe themselves: “They just play crushing songs that go from slow to slower, from muck to mire, from mosh to circle-pit. And sometimes they’ll make a left turn and end up at epic. Simply put, it’s rock ‘n’ roll music tuned way down and pissed way off.”

For an added bonus, today we’re also going to check out the debut EP, which came out almost exactly one year ago, by Dutch sludge/post-hardcore/noise duo Swerve. Their bio is far more succinct, but no less accurate: “Two guys, big noise.”

 

Armed for Apocalypse – The Earth is Breathing Beneath Me (Church Road Records, 24 April 2026)

 

Swerve – S/T (Tartarus Records, 25 April 2025)

 

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Menhir – Hiding in Light, Sunwølf – Eve (2016)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

MENHIR - Hiding in Light - cover

Menhir – Hiding in Light (Tartarus Records, 17 April 2016)

 

Sunwølf - Eve [cover art]

Sunwølf – Eve (self-released, 18 April 2016)

 

Good afternoon, and a very happy Friday to you all. I don’t know about you, but for me this week just couldn’t end soon enough. It’s been kind of rough around here. Of course, for those of you reading this in Europe, it’s already late Friday evening and your work week has probably been over for several hours by now. And for those who are way on the other side of the world, it’s already Saturday morning and maybe you’re hungover by this point and already totally forgot about this week. I don’t know. But for me, the day is just about over and I’m totally ready to head home. Before I do, I’d like to share a bit of music with you, though. After all, that’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it?

After yesterday’s whopper of a review, I figured it might be nice to scale it back a little today, and only focus on two releases. The two that I’ve chosen to write about actually have very little in common with each other apart from the fact that they’re both scheduled to come out within the next few days. But I found them both quite enjoyable, and I suspect several of you might also like each of these — or at the very least one or the other just may be your cup of tea …

 

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