The Devil's Blood is No More

I've actually known about this for about a month. I wanted to write about it, however it really, really bummed me out. I started a post and never finished. When my friend Tori turned me on to this band it was late 2011, just after she'd seen them live opening for Ghost (now Ghost BC). I was supposed to go to that show but backed out at the last minute due to the ridiculously early waking time I have during the week (not sure why, but literally EVERY show I've wanted to see for the last two or three years has been during the week). Anyway, Tori said Ghost was great but she was really impressed with The Devil's Blood. She went out and found a copy of their most recent record The Thousandfold Epicentre and I made a copy. Within about a day I was hooked and listened to nothing but for about a month. The more I listened the more I became intrigued by the band. However, looking around online at the time there really wasn't much to go by. The only wikipedia article at the time was this one that I had to have google translate from German. Anyway, it's been a while since I've been on The Devil's Blood so hardcore, though it's not really ever left my musical vernacular for very long. Then a couple of weeks ago I fell back into their music pretty for a couple of days and during some down time at work googled them for the first time in probably over a year. This is what I found:

 The Devil’s Blood is no more. As of the 22nd of January 2013 The Devil´s Blood has returned into nothingness.It has been a while since the announcement of our disbanding was made and we feel now is the right time to convey our plans for the legacy that TDB will leave.Our music and artwork will remain available through both our own website and that of Ván Records as well as any other medium that will prove suitable.At the time of the group’s disbanding there were several projects ongoing, each in different evolutionary stages. These were the following: 


I'll stop there, but if you click on any of the text above - which I appropriated from the main page of the band's website - you can go there and read about the posthumous releases to follow. While I am most definitely excited about those, I'm really just still super bummed. I'm hoping guitarist/found SL or his sister, vocalist F. The Mouth of Satan will go on to do another project, but in the meantime I'm still in mourning.

Links from a better time:
 



And of course, one of the outstanding tracks from The Thousandfold Epicenter:

Hope Drone - Ambient Black Metal

Any time I see the words "Ambient" and "Black Metal" used in regards to the same band I take notice.

Hope Drone's bandcamp has their eponymous e.p. available at a "name your price" amount, so if you dig what you hear head on over and help support them.

Interestingly enough, "Hope Drone" was also the working title of  Godspeed You! Black Emperor's set-opener when my wife and I saw them at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall back in April of '12.

Alice in Chains - MTV Unplugged

As I come to the end of Mark Yarm's wonderful book Everybody Loves Our Town I find myself drawn once again back to my favorite band from that era, Alice in Chains. In that return I realized a major oversight in my record collection. I do not own the AIC unplugged.

Now, I know why I don't own it - its association with empty-v. However, Everybody Loves Our Town has made me re-think this.

The book is word of mouth - in other words it is comprised entirely of interview snippets conducted and arranged by Mr. Yarm and in the last chapters as those firsthand accounts address the death of Layne Staley there's a quote by AIC bassist Mike Inez that reads, "We discovered at that show that songs like "Sludge Factory" were even heavier acoustic. Layne that night was so haunting. His voice, especially his performance on "Down in a Hole," it still brings a tear to my eye. There was a couple times I had to pull my eyes off of Layne and remind myself, Hey, I'm at work. Instead of being a fan here, I better concentrate on my bass chords. He was just so mesmerizing."

I have a powerful relationship with Alice's music, and Staley's death was the first of two rock star deaths that have actually affected me (the other being Peter Steele's from Type O Negative). Staley reminded me of my best friend Jake, who died a looong time ago. Anyway, that quote from Mr. Inez made me really want to see/hear the performance in question so I went youtube.

Wow.

Nutshell, the second track off of 1993's Jar of Flies ep just kills me every time. But it's even more powerful here. All the tracks are fantastic, but that one and Sludge Factory - which since the first time I heard it has been one of my favorite Alice tracks - are just killer.

Yeah Yeah Yeah's Sacrilege - The Video

I kept thinking the 'video' I posted the other day for the Yeah Yeah Yeah's new song Sacrilege was a little... boring. But hey, I always figure, "who the hell am I to judge?" Anyway, thanks to Brooklyn Vegan I've realized I was indeed incorrect. The video is above, as I'm sure you've already gathered.

Jason Lescalleet - Friday Night in a Catholic Home

Believe it or not this makes me really want to hear the rest of this album. I love stuff like this - which Brooklyn Vegan posted earlier today.

MOOG SOUND LAB Season 3: Zola Jesus - In Your Nature

From Brooklyn Vegan.

Hammock - Departure Songs