Tag Archives: Metal Bandcamp Gift Club

Laden – Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (2026); Wren – Black Rain Falls (2025)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Hey there, friends. Hope you’re having a good Friday.

Nah, wait, Good Friday was last week. Hope you’re having a GREAT Friday!

I’d like to share something with you that’s just being released today — an album by single-member band Seattleite Laden which I recently discovered through the Metal Bandcamp Gift Club.

For those who may not be familiar, MBGC is essentially a mailing list — which has gone through various incarnations over the years but currently hosted on Substack — where you can share your birthday and your Bandcamp wish list, and every day (well, most days) a message goes out to let everyone know whose birthday it is that day, and a link to their wish list.

It’s a great way to give and receive the gift of music, to support independent artists, and also a great way to discover new suggested stuff to listen to: if you see someone’s list and you think, hey I like a bunch of these bands, chances are you may want to check out some of the other stuff on their list.

Speaking of which, I thought it would be fun to discuss this brand-new album alongside the most recent release from a band of Londoners who Laden have cited as one of their influences: Wren — an album which happened to sneak its way into my list of favorites from last year.

 

Laden – Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (self-released, 10 April 2026)

 

Wren – Black Rain Falls (Church Road Records, 21 February 2025)

 

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The Human Veil – Compilation (2022)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Hello and Happy Monday, everyone!

For those not actively involved with (or even lurking in the fringes of) the Metal Bandcamp Gift Club community … first of all, you really should check it out! It’s a bunch of kind souls who will buy you stuff from your Bandcamp wishlist on your birthday. All they ask in return is for you to do the same for other folks on the mailing list if you’re able to do so. Club members get great new music to add to their collections, artists make some extra sales, and everyone wins.

Anyway, the social interactions within the Gift Club frequently (and understandably) revolve around sharing music recommendations, and somewhere along the way this thing called “No Metal Monday” evolved. As the title suggests, this is an opportunity to focus on music of non-metallic varieties. And in that spirit, I’d like to share a collection of metal-free tracks with you fine folks on this fine, dreary Monday afternoon.

 

The Human Veil – Compilation (self-released, 25 October 2022)

 

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