Way back in 2010, Philly alt-punk trio Ghosts in the Valley released their first full length album titled Subtle as a Brick. It was only available on CD. This was the dawn of the streaming era and nobody knew what the hell they were doing. (Not much has changed in that regard.) A couple years later, the band released their second full length album Clockpunchers. This time there was a digital release, plus a limited run of hand-stamped CDs. The band did a digital release of Subtle as Brick around that time as well. However, in those days digital distributors gouged the hell out of artists. You had to pay a hefty fee, per album, per year to keep your music up on websites. So after a couple years, the band stopped paying the fees for the early album, and thus it disappeared from the digital domain. Even hosting one album the band was losing money. The way the fee structure was in 2012, you needed each album getting 20,000 streams a year just to break even.
Fast forward 10 years, and now you have distributors charging much more reasonable fees. Sadly, the billion dollar streaming services are still only paying microscopic royalties to artists, so you still can’t earn any real money with your music, but at least bands are no longer hemorrhaging money just keeping their songs available to the public. Which is why Ghosts in the Valley and 3am Cynic are re-releasing the orphaned first album in 2023.
Starting on July 27, 2023, Subtle as Brick will be available to stream on all your favorite services: Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, etc., etc. If you want to download your own copy to have forever, and ever, and not have to be at the mercy of the corporate streaming overlords, it is, and has always been available on BANDCAMP for the low, low price of only 3 bucks. You can even download the album art from Bandcamp or right click and save the images below.
Later this year the band also plans to release their long lost finished-but-never-released album, aptly titled What Went Wrong. So stay tuned for that. AND… you can see Ghosts in the Valley LIVE for the first time in 10 years. They will be appearing as part of the “Rock the Block Party” Aug 26th at Rock God Brewing in Danville, PA. Good things come to those who wait.
SUBTLE AS A BRICK ALBUM ART…
3am Cynic 