Tag Archives: USA

Cosmic Order – Inner Temple; Mur – Cut the Rivers Vein (2022)

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Good afternoon! We’ve reached the middle of another week, and I don’t know about you but I’ve been feeling groggy as hell. Stupid allergies.

My to-do list tells me I’ve got two albums to share with you, which are very different from each other sound-wise, but which are both scheduled to come out this Friday. So let’s dive in.

Describing the advance single from their album, the first band said “The main idea was to suggest a dualism and a complementarity between Eros and Thanatos from the atomic perspective: is the narrator talking about cell fusion or nuclear fission? The radiant and bright chorus opposes and supports the abrasive and obscure verses. This dual osmosis is what everyone has in their own Inner Temple”

And then the second musical entity shared the following: “The vision for, and the writing process for this next Mur album has been an absurdist wind. Conquest and transformation. Plotting particle and light into wisdom and thought. Is there real knowledge in flowing water? Can intent organize the stars into action?”

One thing I can say for sure, I am not awake enough for this shit. But let’s give these a listen anyhow…

 

Cosmic Order – Inner Temple (Argonauta Records, 28 January 2022)

 

Mur – Cut the Rivers Vein (self-released, 28 January 2022)

 

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Bong-Ra – Antediluvian (2018-21); Murderbait – When the Sun Goes Down, It Goes Down Forever (2019-21)

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Moving right along — here are a couple albums that were each released a few years back, but caught my attention when they were given the vinyl reissue treatment in 2021.

One is a drone/doom/free-form jazz thing from the Netherlands and the other is a more goth-oriented troupe from Portlandia. Hopefully you’ll find one of these will be to your liking. Maybe both! Only one way to find out…

 

Bong-Ra – Antediluvian (digital/CD Svart Lava Records and cassette Tartarus Records, 23 October 2018; vinyl Tartarus Records, 25 June 2021)

 

Murderbait – When the Sun Goes Down, It Goes Down Forever (digital self-released 15 November 2019; vinyl Sentient Ruin, 15 October 2021)

 

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Bog Wizard – From the Mire (2020), Miasmic Purple Smoke (2021)

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Ok y’all, it’s Monday… time for some nerd shit.

Dungeons & Dragons has been called the most effective introduction to the occult in the history of Man.

It is a fantasy role-playing game that teaches demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex, perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, Satan worship, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination, and many other occultic themes… all in living color.

Ready to get started? Roll for initiative…

 

Bog Wizard – From the Mire (self-released, 03 July 2020)

 

Bog Wizard – Miasmic Purple Smoke (self-released, 03 December 2021)

 

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Stone Machine Electric – Inexplicable Vibrations (2020); Mud Spencer – Fuzz Soup (2022)

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Happy New Year! As promised, we’re finally starting to dive into some new releases that are coming out. Today I also wanted to catch up on a slightly older release that I missed writing about the first time around, because — well, because 2020. Time to get fuzzy…

 

Stone Machine Electric – The Inexplicable Vibrations of Frequencies Within the Cosmic Netherworld (Desert Records, 04 December 2020)

 

Mud Spencer – Fuzz Soup (Argonauta Records, 21 January 2022)

 

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Mordred – The Dark Parade (2021)

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Good morning, and here comes some more music for you all to start off your week with!

Don’t worry, I know how to operate a calendar, and I realize it’s Tuesday. But yesterday was a federal holiday here in the U.S., as well as a snow day, so we lazily decided to have ourselves a nice extended weekend.

But today we’re back on track, and I would like to call your attention to an album I particularly enjoyed when it came out last summer. Again, I assure you, I do know how calendars work, and I do realize we’re now into the third week of the new year. Within the next few days I promise the first review of a new 2022 release will be coming! But we’ve still got plenty of older ones to cover that you shouldn’t miss out on.

Like this one: the fourth album overall (and the first in 27 years!) by San Franciscan band Mordred — who, by the way, will be playing their first hometown show of the year this coming weekend, alongside fellow local thrashers Death Angel. Details on tickets (both in-person and live-stream) to be found below.

 

Mordred – The Dark Parade (M-Theory Audio, 23 July 2021)

 

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TOANWTS – Feral Blood (2019); ANTOAS – Dirges (2021)

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Hello there and Happy Friday to you all!

These albums, one nearly three years old and the other reaching its first birthday later this month, have practically nothing in common with each other besides the fact that both bands’ names are lengthy phrases about owls. But sometimes little things like that can randomly grab your attention, and then you accidentally discover that there’s some great music inside, too. I think you just might find this to be the case with either or both of these releases…

 

The Owls Are Not What They Seem – Feral Blood (Eleventh Key, 19 March 2019)

 

And Now the Owls Are Smiling – Dirges (Clobber Records, 29 January 2021)

 

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Oryx – Lamenting a Dead World; Melancholia – Static Church (2021)

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More 2021 goodness for you to bludgeon your ears with!

Herein, please find the fourth LP by Oryx (Denver CO) and the fourth EP by Melancholia (Bellingham WA).

 

Oryx – Lamenting a Dead World (Translation Loss Records, 30 April 2021)

 

Melancholia – Static Church (Brutal Panda, 04 June 2021)

 

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Kite – Currents; So Hideous – None But a Pure Heart Can Sing (2021)

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Good afternoon, friends; Happy Monday and Happy New Year to you all!

Now that my Top 21 of 2021 list is complete (it was published right as the clock struck midnight on New Years Eve, so, I’m proud to say, this has been the first time in quite a long time — maybe like nine years? — that the year-end list was ready AT the actual end of the year!), I’m setting my sights on checking out all the new 2022 releases that have been pouring in, so I can start sharing them with all you lovely people.

But as always, there’s still a bunch of cleanup to do, plenty of releases from last year (as well as from years past) that we’ve missed discussing, and I’d like to start today by offering two of those for your listening pleasure.

 

Kite – Currents (Majestic Mountain Records, 08 October 2021)

 

So Hideous – None But a Pure Heart Can Sing (Silent Pendulum Records, 03 December 2021)

 

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Devoid of Thought – Outer World Graves; Ad Infinitum – Hypnagogic Conveyance (2021)

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Hello out there, readers! Today our mission is to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly grab our headphones and listen to some cosmic death metal and cosmic black metal!

 

Devoid of Thought – Outer World Graves (Everlasting Spew Records, 27 August 2021)

 

Ad Infinitum – Hypnagogic Conveyance (self-released, 13 December 2021)

 

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Hellish Form – Remains (2021)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Happy Tuesday! As we muddle our way through this final week of 2021, I’ll continue to try getting as much stuff written as possible to wrap up the year, culminating with the revealing of my highly-anticipated Top 21 of 2021 list.

While the exact details of that list are currently secreted away in a locked vault in an undisclosed location, but one thing I can absolutely guarantee is that it will include THIS record, which answers the question, “What if Body Void but slower, and perhaps — just maybe — a bit more emotionally devastating?”

 

Hellish Form – Remains (Translation Lost Records, 25 June 2021)

 

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