Riddle of Steel CD Release Show

St. Louis' very own and very-rocking Riddle of Steel is celebrating the release of their third full-length album, 1985, with a show at The Bluebird tomorrow night. Also on the bill will be faux-metal-gods Thor Axe. 1985 gets quite a bad rap for being a horrible year or music (see: Phil Collins' No Jacket Required, Paul Young's The Secret Of Association, DeBarge's Rhythm of the Night, Kiss' Asylum, Journey's Dream After Dream), but by a whole different set of criteria, it was a GREAT year for music (The Replacements' Tim, Husker Du's Flip Your Wig, REM's Fables of the Reconstruction, Minutemen's 3-Way Tie (For Last), and Meat Puppets' Up On The Sun), so there's really no telling what the reference means, from a histori-musical perspective. One thing you can definitely count on, though, is that the album will R.O.C.K. (A-HA! That's it - it's in reference to John Cougar Mellencamp's 1985 hit Scarecrow; riddle solved). The music is quintessential, Riddle of Steel.

I saw them perform some of these new songs at The Bluebird a few months ago, and they are easily some of the best songs the band has penned yet, even if the song titles do make you suspect that they've been hanging out with Minus the Bear a little too much ("Who's the Fella Owns This Shithole?", "This Van Burns Love"). I have included an mp3 of one of the new songs, "Quiet Now", below.

Read a great interview that Annie Z did with the band for The Riverfront Times here.

MP3s:
Riddle of Steel - Quiet Now
Riddle of Steel - Ass Kicker #1

Here are some live videos of Riddle of Steel performing some of the new songs:

Riddle of Steel - "Quiet Now" (live):


Riddle of Steel - "Who's the Fellow Owns This Shithole?" (live):


Riddle of Steel - "This Van Burns Love" (live):


Riddle of Steel - "Loose Talk" (live):


...and here's an old one for good measure:

Riddle of Steel - "Our Guitars Are Haunted" (live):