OMM Anniversary & Updates

Obscure Media Monday celebrated its anniversary somewhere in the haze of November. There were around 32 entries of content in that year, slightly better than an every-other week average. To kick off year two, here are some updates on previously featured artists:


Abney Park has a new album, Aether Shanties, coming out Dec. 1^st. Captain Robert has posted a two of the tracks for download.


Tapping the Vein's second album, Another Day Down, is available from Amazon.com and is as solid as their first.

Die Warzau's excellent, Convenience, is currently available from Pulseback Records.

Nouvelle Vague's third album, Nouvelle Vague 3, was released in June in Europe and is now available in the States via Amazon.com.

Finally, if you missed it during its short theater run, The Hurt Locker will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray on Jan. 2^nd. OMM will cover another Kathryn Bigelow movie, Strange Days, in the near future.

Tapping the Vein

During the early to mid-90s, a confluence of musical factors produced a crop of alternative bands headed by female vocalists. Garbage might be considered the first and most notable, but the likes of Evanescence (and a slew of lesser known bands) predate Garbage's initial success. One of those "other" bands is Tapping the Vein.

Formed in 1995, the band's basis is drummer and programmer Eric Fisher and vocalist Heather Thompson. Though the name (and to some degree the lyrics) suggest "goth," Tapping the Veins sound is separate from the punk influences of early gothic rock and shuns the genre's later darkwave influences by keeping the musical elements to a minimum. Thompson's vocals are not unlike Trent Reznor's of Nine Inch Nails: she knows when the song needs to be delicate and when it needs a banshee.



Tapping the Vein's first album The Damage was released in 2002 on Nuclear Blast Records. It is currently available in CD form via Amazon.com and other merchants. According to the band's MySpace page, their second album Another Day Down is scheduled for release on March 10, 2009 through Dancing Ferret Discs and IsoTank Music and will be available through other online retailers.

Of particular personal note, the VOTS 2009 Spring League team Plastic Falls was named for the song "Sugar Falls":