Hail Spirit Noir Sign with Agonia Records, New Album Coming Soon!

 

Here’s some news that just popped into the Valley of Steel inbox: Greek psychoexperimental black-ish-metal sextet (more on that later) Hail Spirit Noir have a new deal with Poland’s Agonia Records, with a new album planned in just a few months!

This is especially exciting considering that each of the band’s first three albums (Pneuma, Oi Magoi, and Mayhem in Blue) all found their way onto our best-of lists for 2012, 2014, and 2016 respectively. So needless to say, our expectations will be high for this new one…

 

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The Huge List of 2012 Year-End Lists!

Well, friends, here we find ourselves in the waning moments of 2012. It’s been an interesting, eventful year that’s had lots of high and low points — a ton of excellent new music has been released and quite a few brand-new bands have emerged that I’d fully expect to be making some serious waves in the near future.

One of the best things about 2012, for me personally, was that I found myself (and my wife) going to lots more shows than in recent years, and as a result I’ve been fortunate to meet a lot of new people — as well as starting to take a way more active role in the local music scene.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I had a suggestion from one of those people I’ve gotten to know in the past year (I won’t say who — he said he preferred not to be given credit for the idea, although I will say that it’s somebody who contributed to this). The idea was to collect top-ten lists from various folks in the Pittsburgh metal community.

So I put out an open invitation for any musicians or other people who are involved in the scene in some way — I was looking for anything, whether it was the traditional “Top Ten Albums” or something totally off-the-wall like someone’s ten favorite sandwiches they ate during the year. Really, the only rules were that it had to be a list, and involve something from 2012.

 
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