About the Valley of Steel (the Blog)

“Why the hell,” you might be asking, “do we need another metal blog? Aren’t there already more than enough out there?” In response to your hypothetical query, I tip my hypothetical cap at your hypothetically astute powers of observation. No, you do not need another metal blog, and there are absolutely plenty already in existence. In fact, there are barely enough hours in a day for me to keep track of all the ones I read religiously, peruse regularly, or skim occasionally, on top of scanning through all the updates in my Facebook news feed.

But, therein lies a key to my conundrum. I have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bands and record labels and distros and PR firms and etc. among the things that I “like”. I often comment on things I read, and sometimes share updates or news or make snide remarks on my personal wall. Well, one day recently, disaster struck in the form of some genius who thought it would be really nice to teach Grandma how to use the Facebook. Awesome, because now she can communicate with all the family members in the same place and share baby pictures and crap like that. Not so awesome though, because now it becomes impossible to say things like, “Just got done listening to the Carnal Befoulment demo Cunt Struck, and it was fucking brutal; I especially liked their use of the sample from the Machete movie before the title track – the part where the nurse says, ‘I can feel your eyeballs in my uterus.’” I’ve known my Grandma a long time and have grown fond of her over the years; I would rather not be responsible for giving her a heart attack and/or stroke.

So coming back to my original point, it may be true that you don’t need this blog. Well, I do. After all, isn’t that really the purpose of a blog in the first place? Just an outlet for personal expression, somewhere where I can inject my own sarcastic and snarky responses to the things I see and hear? Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that question, because I don’t know who invented blogs so I can’t really determine what their actual motivation was. If I ever do meet that person, though, I’ll likely punch him in the face, because “blog” is such a fucking stupid word.

Anyway, that’s how I plan on running things here. Don’t expect daily updates or any features to appear with any semblance of regularity. I will have album reviews, show reviews, reactions to new songs or other things in the news, whenever I feel like it. If you see something you like or something you hate, leave me a comment. Feel free to “follow” this blog on WordPress, because like I said, updates will be very irregular and sporadic. Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
A Denizen of the Valley