Tag Archives: USA

Ion Vein: Another Digital Release is in Progress

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Hello again, good people who have subscribed to this blog or like it on Facebook and read my rambly words sometimes! I hope you all are having a pleasant Monday — except for whoever the fucker was that unliked my page today! That person probably won’t ever see this, but still, I hope they have the worst day ever, and then keep re-living it Groundhog Day style!

Haha, but not YOU, dear faithful reader who is currently reading this! In fact, to show my appreciation, I’ll let you in on a secret — for the second time today, I’ve got some information about a band we’ve talked about in the past, who plans on having some new material for us soon!

 
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What To Do In Pittsburgh TONIGHT (7 October, 2012)

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Hey sports fans! Here’s a real quick update, while it’s halftime, to let you know what’s going on out there after the football game ends…

Celebrate a Steelers victory by heading out to Garfield Artworks to enjoy an evening of live music — since this weekend has been sort of less eventful in Pittsburgh than most.

 
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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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The Fat Dukes of Fuck – Honey from the Lips of an Angel

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The Fat Dukes of Fuck – Honey from the Lips of an Angel (self-released, 25 September 2012)

 
Hey there, fellow music afficianados.  I don’t know if you noticed, but it feels like all of a sudden, there have been all kinds of huge releases over the past couple of weeks!  Not in the sense that they’re bands who’ll appear on the cover of major magazines, or will hit the mainstream radio airwaves or anything like that, but significant to me, because I’d been looking forward to them for a long, long time!

Well, in any case, there have been a few that I’ve been excited about, and I’ve been listening to them and I definitely plan on publishing reviews for some of those in the very near future.  Don’t worry, we’ll get there.

Today, though, I feel compelled to share something with you, which was not one of those highly anticipated albums. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, I don’t want to give you that impression — but simply due to the fact that I’d never heard of this band before their new album came out last week, so obviously I wouldn’t have been able to look forward to it!

Yeah, the Las Vegas-based group called The Fat Dukes of Fuck, and their brand-new album Honey from the Lips of an Angel caught me completely by surprise. But I have to be honest, as soon as I heard the band’s name, I felt overcome by curiosity, and immediately knew this was something I needed to check out…

 

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Incantation Reveals: a New Album is Coming Soon!

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After more than two decades, American death metal pioneers Incantation just keep going and going, showing neither any signs of slowing down nor any inclination to follow the latest fad or change their style… despite the fact that sole original member John McEntee is now working with (if my counting abilities are accurate) the three-hundred-eighty-seventh different line-up of the band since its inception in 1989.

In the years since then, Incantation has made its mark as one of the very first bands signed to Relapse Records (growing alongside that label during their decade-long relationship), and as one of the originators of the New York Death Militia sound (remaining very close to former labelmates Mortician, and even sharing bandmembers with their NYDM brethren from time to time). In addition to having an ever-shifting cast of characters, the band has also called various locations its home — New York, Ohio, and Johnstown, PA.

Throughout this history, Incantation has put out numerous demos and EPs, participated in countless splits and compilations, and released a total of eight LPs. After a trek through Brazil earlier this year and several stops at European festivals during the summer, the guys have returned home to the States and announced that album number nine would be arriving sometime next month via the label that has handled their past few releases, Listenable Records.

 
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VOS Interview: Dethlehem!!

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Good evening, readers! As I mentioned earlier today, local RPG-nerd-metal band Dethlehem are headlining The Pittsburgh Scene‘s second birthday extravaganza at Stage AE tomorrow evening.

Preparations have been underway for this show for quite some time — the Dethlehem guys have been sharpening their swords and patching their chain mail, as well as rehearsing their music. But during a recent practice, they were kind enough to allow me exclusive access to their underground lair to sit down and chat, and to find out what’s been happening with the band.

 
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What To Do In Pittsburgh This Week: Part 2 (26-27 September 2012)

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Hello again, readers. As promised yesterday, here’s your to-do list for the remainder of this week (covering Wednesday the 26th and Thursday the 27th). Read on, and then party on. Or something like that.

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What To Do In Pittsburgh This Week: Part 1 (24-25 September 2012)

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Wow, sometimes it feels like all I ever do anymore is write these “What To Do In Pittsburgh” posts. It might look that way, but don’t worry — there’s some cool stuff brewing behind the scenes around here, some big changes and announcements will be coming shortly. In the meantime…

Usually I end up covering a weekend’s worth of events with these things, but it seems like this week there’s an extraordinary amount of stuff going on in between the weekends. So that’s why I’m throwing together this special two-part weekday edition — there’s some stuff to keep you busy each evening from Monday through Thursday this week! This post will cover tonight and tomorrow night (Monday the 24th and Tuesday the 25th) and stay tuned for the rest to be posted tomorrow…

 

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What To Do In Pittsburgh This Weekend (22-23 September 2012)

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Happy Friday everyone!

Isn’t it so weird how time works? Or, our perception of time, anyway…

I mean, it feels like this week has been dragging on forever — like it seemed that the weekend would never get here (and now it’s just a few hours away!) But then, looking at the bigger picture, it feels like this year has been flying by. Like, it doesn’t seem like it should be September already, and here we are approaching the END of September!

And as of tomorrow, it’ll officially turn from summer to fall — which is fine with me, because I’m so sick of hot weather anyway, but my point is, time just seems to keep slipping away so fast… unless you’re stuck at work, that is.

Anyway, since summer’s basically over now, the schedule of local shows seems to have gotten a little bit lighter — but there’s still plenty of chances to get out there and rock out! (Or, to thieve the slogan from local printers Commonwealth Press on their new NHL-related tees, “Rock aht with your lock aht”!)

 
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Drones for Queens Hitting the Road This Weekend / Free EP Download!

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When I heard the name Drones for Queens, my immediate thought was that there are two different directions this band might be taking. On one hand, they could specialize in slow, drawn-out, ambient, meditative music that’s specifically targeted to homosexuals. The other possibility is that the name refers to worker bees who devote their entire lives to serving those at the top of the social hierarchy — perhaps using this concept as a metaphor for the conflict between the proletariat and bourgeoisie classes in human society.

Then, a quick peek at the cover art from their recent EP Health (see above) led me to believe that perhaps the second case was more likely.

But you can hear for yourself — in person, if you happen to live near the spots in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia where the band will be making appearances over the next few days (starting with a hometown show in Philadelphia tonight) — or if it turns out you aren’t able to make it to any of these, you can still download your very own copy of Health for any amount you choose to pay!

 
First, here’s some more information on these guys, courtesy of Catharsis PR:

The two-man outfit is comprised of brothers Shane and Evan Madden (also of Rifflifter Touring) who spent years exploring the realms of doom and black metal in bands like Woods of Ypres, Woe, and The Green Evening Requiem before succumbing to a mutual desire to make raw, real, pissed off music. The result? Four tracks of virulent, noisy, thrashy grindcore, spat out with DIY fury but backed by label-hardened savvy; Health is fast, furious, and fucking intense. Recorded and mixed by Brian McKay at Audiolux in Philadelphia and Audiolab in Millville, New Jersey and mastered by Dan O’Hare, Health is a shotgun blast echoing out into a stale scene.

 
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