Once again, I will invoke the visual wizardry that emanates from Andrew Jones to spice up my drab corner of the internet. Trust me, I’m not a stalker, I simply admire the work that he does. I aspire to be as great at what I do as he is at what he does. First off is some album art Andrew did for the upcoming Soulfly album entitled Conquer coming out July 29th on Roadrunner Records.

This is just a snippet, so head over to the Concept Art Forum to see all of it’s glory. This artwork is just pretty enough to make me buy this album. I have Soulfly’s second album Primitive, and I like it a lot, but I haven’t gone out of my way to check out anything they’ve done since then. This’ll be a good excuse to jump back on the band wagon.

That’s right, Trent Reznor has done it again. I got an email in my inbox this morning announcing the release of yet another Nine Inch Nails album, The Slip. Like Ghosts I-IV before it, The Slip is available as a free download in a variety of high quality audio formats. According to the NIN website there will also hardcopies available for sale in the near future. Unlike Ghosts, The Slip is a more traditional NIN album—read: the inclusion of angst ridden lyrics. So, if you dug With Teeth and Year Zero then this will be right up your alley. I haven’t had a chance to hear the entire album yet, but my initial impressions are positive—big surprise there. I will probably have more to say in this regard once I’ve had a chance to listen to it a couple of times.

A band that I have been spinning pretty heavily this week is Crystal Castles, and their new self titled album. This Toronto based duo produces catchy chiptune electronica straight out of your favorite NES cartridge. The mastermind behind this project is Ethan Kath who uses modded keyboards to recreate the lo-tech blips that make the Nintendo generation feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Add to that the squelching vocals of Ms. Alice Glass and you get an enticing palette of aural experimentations. The album runs a pretty wide gamut of tempos, which is pretty well illustrated in the first two tracks.

This is a continuation of Monday’s post regarding the new NIne Inch Nails release Ghosts I-IV. I finally got around to ordering the album by 8p.m. Monday evening which is right around the time that the site went down. I managed to place my order and after getting my confirmation email and download link I selected my file format and when I hit download… Nothing, just a “can’t connect to server” message. After a few minutes This message popped up on the site:

Unfortunately, the Ghosts I-IV site is down for the next few hours for maintenance.

I just wanted to take a couple of minutes out of my busy day to let everyone know that Trent Reznor has delivered unto us a new Nine Inch Nails album entitled Ghosts I-IV. Ghosts is comprised of 36 individual tracks, unlike all other NIN albums this is entirely instrumental. So, if you are looking for angst ridden ranting you’ll have to look somewhere else. Out of complete lack of a better description, I will regurgitate Reznor’s own description of the project:

Instead of writing any honest to goodness reviews—which I’ve noticed tend to get long in the tooth and I really don’t have to time for at the moment—I decided to just let you in on what new(ish) and exciting things I’ve been spinning.

For the record, I think that it is still safe to call it “spinning” since, while not exactly a record, your hard drive does a considerable amount of twirling around to play your music.

While The Golden Foretaste of Heaven’s sound is nothing revolutionary it does mark a new direction for Alec Empire and the DHC gang. Along with the new sound also comes a new label to distribute it—Eat Your Heart Out. With a bubbly lettered logo and a DIY ethos, Alec and the gang are primed to set the world on fire… or something to that effect.

I have some more new release news for all of you kiddies.