Tag Archives: Texas

Portrayal of Guilt – S/T (2017)

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Portrayal of Guilt – Portrayal of Guilt (Miss the Stars Records / Contrition Recordings, 02 May 2017)

 

Recently I got a message from this band called Portrayal of Guilt, with barely any information other than the fact that they had a brand-new EP out, and a link to their Bandcamp page. So, armed with that miniscule amount of knowledge, I went to check it out, as one does. There I learned that the band is from Austin, Texas; a bit more poking around revealed that they seem to be a relatively new group: all of their social media presence dates back no further than January of this year. Oh, and also I found that one of the keywords they use to describe themselves is “screamo.”

Now I don’t know about you, but that word tends to make me feel a bit trepidatious. After all, just like its predecessor “emo” and distant ancestor “hardcore,” what originated as a great concept became completely perverted and bastardized over the past few decades — to the point where, in modern usage, the term came to be applied to something completely unrecognizable when compared with its archetypal format. But I decided the EP was only three songs — barely more than six minutes altogether — so I might as well give it a shot. And to make a long story short, as you could infer from the fact that I’m writing about it now, that concern turned out to be completely unfounded.

 

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Goatcraft – All for Naught (2013), Yersinia Pestis (2016)

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Cover Art

Goatcraft – All for Naught (Forbidden Records, 20 March 2013)

 

IVR060 - GOATCRAFT - Yersinia Pestis

Goatcraft – Yersinia Pestis (I, Voidhanger Records, 15 July 2016)

 

The past few days, we’ve talked about a few different musical groups; while a few of them might be tangentially associated with some form of metal bands, generally these have all been of the non-metal variety, using traditional folk, classical, orchestral, baroque, or chamber ensemble instrumentations, and playing compositions that would be classified as neoclassical or neofolk. Today we close out the week by taking a look at a solo musician from San Antonio, who goes by the same Lonegoat, as the sole member of Goatcraft, whose piano-and-keyboard-only creations have prompted him to coin the term “necroclassical.”

 

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Giant of the Mountain – Moon Worship (2014), The Empty Quarter (2016)

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Giant of the Mountain – Moon Worship (self-released, 25 February 2014)

 

GOTM cover

Giant of the Mountain – The Empty Quarter (Burning Dogma Records, 27 May 2016)

 

Emerging from the Plano/Dallas region of northern Texas way back in 2008, the beast known as Giant of the Mountain was formed by guitarist/vocalist Cody Daniels along with Randi Matejowsky, who soon switched from guitar to drums. The pair worked with a series of different bassists as they unleashed a couple EPs and a full-length album over the next several years. By the band’s fifth anniversary in 2013, they had joined up with Alexander Salazar on bass and doubling as a second vocalist — and this is the line-up that remains intact to this day. This threesome recorded and released the album Moon Worship, a masterpiece of progressive-death insanity, a little over two years ago, and now they’re back with the brand-new EP The Empty Quarter which comes out at the end of this week. If you aren’t already on the GOTM bandwagon, keep on reading to find out what you’ve been missing!

 

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Barren Heir – Tired Turns, Stone Machine Electric – Sollicitus es Veritatem (2016)

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tiredturns

Barren Heir – Tired Turns (self-released, 03 May 2016)

 

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Stone Machine Electric – Sollicitus es Veritatem (self-released, 17 May 2016)

 

Hey people! Happy Cuatro de Mayo! I’ve got another pair of albums to share with you today, and I won’t waste any of your time getting to the part where we talk about them. Both are brand new (the first one came out yesterday, the second can be pre-ordered now and will be released in two weeks), both are self-released and self-promoted, and both are absolutely deserving of your attention. Oh, and each of them happens to be just five tracks long, but by serving up songs that average between nine and twelve minutes, both of these bands have quite considerately ensured that you get your money’s worth!

 

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The Sword: Details for New Album & Pre-Order Bundles On Sale Now

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Hey, here’s another bit of good news for you — since you’ve all been good boys and girls (as far as I know!)…

Texan stoner metal ensemble The Sword — who saw their career really take off with the inclusion of one of their early singles as part of the Guitar Hero II video game (at least, that’s when they first popped onto my radar screen) — are now just a few weeks away from releasing their fourth full-length album!

Apocryphon will hit store shelves (as well as the iTunes equivalent of shelves, whatever that may be) on Monday, the 22nd of October. And I’ve got the cover art and tracklisting right here, in addition to a whole plethora of pre-order bundles you can choose from! Also, there will be some tour dates further down, if you keep on reading.
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Out Last Week: Pinkish Black – Self-Titled

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Pinkish Black – Pinkish Black (Handmade Birds, 15 May 2012)

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

The rest of his bandmates came back from wherever they’d been all day, and walked in to find a hellish nightmare: there lay his lifeless body, extinguished by his own hand while he’d been home alone.

It sounds like a tale from Until the Light Takes Us, I know, but this was the story of Tommy Atkins, bassist for Denton, Texas’s The Great Tyrant. Bandmates Daron Beck and Jon Teague reportedly discovered him in the bathroom. Having found their band reduced from a trio to a duo, they decided to continue on under a new name — in honor of the terrible scene they had come across, in which (they said) “the walls were pinkish black.”

With an origin such as this, it’s not at all surprising that the new musical project would seem inspired by and surrounded by death. Sometimes frightening, sometimes peaceful; sometimes horribly ugly, sometimes angelically beautiful; sometimes all of these at once. And dark. Such an intense darkness that it could almost blind anyone who gazes upon it.

 
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Breaking Up is Easy to Do: Averse Sefira Have Officially Disbanded

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So you know that thing when you’re watching the news, and you hear that some famous person died — an actor or comedian or somebody — who was pretty old and whom you hadn’t heard anything about in years?  And you don’t want to be rude or anything, but your immediate reaction is to think, “Oh, I didn’t even realize he was still alive”?  Yeah, just like that.

Long-running Texan black metal band Averse Sefira have officially announced that after more than fifteen years, numerous tours across Europe and America, and four highly acclaimed albums (most recently, 2008’s Advent Parallax), they’ve decided to disband. 

The two remaining founding members of the band, vocalist/guitarist Sanguine Mapsama and bassist Wrath Sathariel Diabolus have both issued a formal farewell message on the band’s blog.

Their most recent two albums, the aforementioned as well as 2005’s Tetragrammatical Astygmata are both available for purchase as digital downloads, on CD, and (for Advent Parallax, on LP) from their Bandcamp page.

The official Averse Sefira website is here.

Out Tomorrow: Kruds/Rampant Decay – Split 7″

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Kruds/Rampant Decay – Split 7″ (3 February 2012, PATAC Records)

Particularly observant readers may have noticed a slight change to the layout of the blog this week.  For those of you who read the mobile version, or get updates by email or RSS, or those who have just discovered the Valley, I’ll give you a hint.  For the first time ever in the extensive (coming up on four months soon!) history of the VoS, I’ve added an advertisement to the sidebar of the page.  Now, before you all panic, or start writing me scathing emails about how I’ve sold out or whatever, let me explain.  First of all, in order to sell out, I’m pretty sure technically you have to be making some money — and I hardly have the volume of traffic where that would be very plausible.  No, I’ve basically just put in a link to PATAC Records because it’s good to support small, independant companies, and in particular I have a lot of respect for their business model.  Essentially, it works like this: all of their releases are available for you to listen to or download for free (or for whatever price you think they are worth), and when you find something you really like, you can buy it on CD or vinyl (or grab one of the bands’ t-shirts or whatever).  Simple, but effective.

So anyway, the point of all of this is basically just to introduce the new release I am listening to today.  This 9-minute, 6-track split between Kruds of San Antonio, TX, and Rampant Decay from Providence, RI, has been available for streaming or downloading since 17 August 2011, but PATAC has announced that it will be available to purchase on 7″ record starting tomorrow (3 February 2012).  See below for how to grab the free download, but this one’s already worth the purchase price of the physical copy just for that awesome cover art of a hippie getting scalped by a machete, amirite??

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