Cleveland heavy rockers Threefold Law have announced a program that will automatically update listeners with new material. Pay once, get everything, and apparently get it for more than one lifetime. The “Lifetimes Membership” costs $19.95, which seems like a lot until you consider you get the band’s entire catalog, plus everything they might ever put out. It’s an interesting idea, and consistent with Threefold Law‘s penchant for interesting modes of delivery, whether it’s selling USB sticks with mp3s or packaging CD releases with books put together by frontman J. Thorn.

They’ve already released a new single, and have another one in the works for next month, as the PR wire explains:

CLEVELAND BAND THREEFOLD LAW CREATES NEW DELIVERY CHANNEL

Lifetimes Membership – No downloads. No updates. No hassle. For eternity.

Threefold Law today introduced a new delivery channel, “Lifetimes Membership”. Without the need to download or install, fans of heavy music get instant access to the entire Threefold Law catalog, for eternity. The songs stream directly to any device connected to the internet including computers, laptops, tablets, iPads, iPhones, Android phones, and more. In addition, new songs by Threefold Law will automatically appear in the player as soon as the band publishes them with no action required by the listener. Priced at just $19.95, the revolutionary delivery channel is competitive with most digital music purchases with nothing else to buy, ever.

“Listening trends continue to show a desire for immediate, streaming content from any device,” says J. Thorn, lead singer of Threefold Law. “The lifetimes membership delivery channel creates a new way for us to deliver music to our fans instantly and as soon as it’s available. We’ll still release our material on traditional CDs, but we’ve also got our eye on the future of the music industry.”

“Lifetimes Membership” can be purchased directly from Threefold Law via PayPal or credit card and comes loaded with the brand new song, “Birth to Death” with another new song, “Khan” coming in December of 2013.

http://www.threefoldlaw.com/demo
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I can barely figure out how to work a WordPress back end, but — ever ones for innovative releasing techniques — Ohioan rockers Threefold Law have just announced a new app for their latest album, Revenant (review here, interview here), that features the music of the band, the written story from guitarist/vocalist J. Thorn, and probably a dozen or so other technological wonders my luddite ass will never understand. Way to go.

In addition, they’ve got (what I’ve just learned is called) a QR code, which you can scan with your fancy phone and go to a special version of their website with exclusive clips and more. Check it out:

Threefold Law, Cleveland’s doom pioneers, announce the launch of their new mobile website and Revenant app for the Droid. Go to http://www.threefoldlaw.com or scan the QR code from any mobile device and get automatically routed to a customized version of the full website with streaming music, live performances, and album reviews.

In addition, Threefold Law present the Revenant app for Droid users. With an intuitive interface and clean design, stream the entire album, read the story, and more. Users of the iPhone, Blackberry, or any handheld device can access Revenant through the mobile site.

Enjoy all of the enhancements, free of charge.

It’s hard to get a handle on Cleveland doom rockers Threefold Law. Embroiled in a curious mysticism, and not exactly forthcoming in the totality of their thematics, the four-piece seem old school in more than just their sound, working to restore some of the mystique to bands that social networking and immediate accessibility have undone. Their latest (and recently-reviewed) release, Revenant, went so far away from today’s lack of emphasis on physical product as to include a printed novella by guitarist/vocalist J. Thorn.

But there’s more to Threefold Law than just reaction against trend and interesting packaging. The music of Revenant, broken up into five tracks named for the classic elements (earth, air, fire, water) with an interlude splitting the middle, follows a surprisingly varied course. Their shifts in sound are subtle, but Thorn and his cohorts — none of whose names are a matter of public record — unfold a gradual growth in complexity so that, by the end of the album, the beginning is far less recognizable.

There’s a lot to ask an outfit like Threefold Law, about why they do what they do and why they do it how they do — or even just who they are — but I figured this would be a good place to start. J. Thorn was more than accommodating, as you can see, and I hope you enjoy the following six dumb questions.

1. Tell me about how you were exposed to the concepts behind Threefold Law? What is your relationship to wicca? Did the band come together around those ideas, or were you playing first and the themes came later?

We relate to many Wiccan themes, such as the Rule of Three. It basically says that whatever you do comes back to you three times over, a variation on the “Golden Rule.” The idea that we’re accountable for our actions, good and bad, is really a universal concept. Wiccans recognize it as a rule of the universe, sort of like gravity.

2. What inspired the story for Revenant? Do you do a lot of fiction writing? How do you feel the story complements the music and vice versa?

A relative of mine passed away last year and we were cleaning out his attic when I came across a dusty copy of Omar Khayyam’s The Rubaiyat. I could tell the book was pretty old and saw that someone scribbled “1904” on the inside cover. I sat on the floor and read it from start to finish. Edward Fitzgerald translated the poem in Victorian England and it has this flowery, epic tone that really drew me in. I immediately began formulating a concept around the piece, which in turn inspired the music. When I brought the idea to the band, they ran with it. At that point, Revenant took on a life of its own. The story and the music are intricately tied together. The vision was to have our fans read the story while listening to the album, from start to finish. It’s a throwback to the days when bands tried hard to create a piece of art instead of a single for iTunes. If you remember reading liner notes while listening to a band’s new record, you’ll appreciate Revenant. We’ve included the entire album and story on our website which is free to listen and read. You can purchase it from our merch page.

In addition to Threefold Law, I write novels. I currently have one novel on Amazon.com in their Kindle store titled The Seventh Seal. I have five more that I’m in the process of formatting for the ebook readers. My writing tends to fall into two general genres. The Seventh Seal and my new novel, Preta’s Realm (coming Fall 2011) are both contemporary horror/suspense stories in the style of Stephen King or Richard Laymon. My other novels are epic fantasy (three of which are a series) that have the same vibe as Revenant.

Like music, I’m a compulsive writer. An addict. After sending dozens of queries to agents with the hopes of having a publisher pick up one of my novels, I abandoned the idea. Agents and publishers want mass appeal. I write what I love to read, and that’s a highly specific target audience and it ain’t soccer moms or beach paperbacks. With the demise of booksellers (Borders just announced it’s closing all stores), I felt it was time to embrace the future and prepare to sell my novels directly to readers in an electronic format. I know who they are and I don’t need a publicist or an agent to find them.

3. Between the CD/book combo and the double-EP collection/USB key, you’re building quite a catalog of special editions. What’s the appeal of that for you? Are you a collector yourself?

We’re really thoughtful about everything we do. The blessing of the mp3 age is that anyone can get music directly to fans. That’s also the curse. There is no question that the music is the priority, and it has to be killer. But there are a lot of bands making killer music. We want to create an experience for our listener, something that will resonate, something that connects. By offering releases that are all “special editions” we’re providing a unique product in an otherwise oversaturated market.

I own over 1,500 CD’s, cassettes, and albums. I’m a collector and purchasing the “special editions” has always been a blast. I remember searching record stores for import versions of my favorite albums, just for that bonus track or different artwork. One of my favorite release mediums was the “box set.” I own the first edition Led Zeppelin box set and the original Live Shit: Binge and Purge released by Metallica in the early ‘90s. Even though it was shitty Black Album-era Metallica, the box set has live performances of early Metallica and tons of cool extras in it.

4. What was behind structuring Revenant with the titles of the four elements? How did that play thematically into the story (acknowledging that the story was also broken into chapters that way), and how closely related were the lyrics of the songs to those elements?

Again, the Rubaiyat gave us a loose structure for Revenant, but we created our unique take on it. There isn’t anything directly connected to the elements in Khayyam’s work, but we felt it lent a signature vibe to each track. “Earth” and “Fire” are heavier, more grounded tunes while “Air” and “Water” have a lighter, more fluid feel. “Interlude” gives the listener context and something very different from everything else we’ve recorded. We care greatly about dynamics. I get fatigued by a recording that is 10 tracks of double-bass drum at 180 bpm. The elements in the story, as chapters, help to push the themes through different written dynamics as well.

5. Any chance you’ll reveal the identities of the rest of the band? Is there a philosophy behind keeping proper names out of it?

No. Yes.

6. What’s next for the band? Any more recordings this year or anything else you want to mention?

We’ve been writing material for our next record, which we’d like to have done by the end of 2011. We have a concept, but we haven’t fully developed it yet. We’re also in the process of scoping out studios in Cleveland. Chances are we’ll track the next record in a commercial studio.

As your readers are probably aware, we won the Soda Shop/Heavy Planet March Bandness contest this past spring. “Earth” is featured on the second Soda Shop Compilation coming out soon. We’ve just struck a deal with a Swedish distributor who is getting our product into over 1,400 record shops in Europe, and we’ve had interest from one of Cleveland’s finest metal bands to collaborate on a project in the near future. This fall we’re considering a regional tour with another killer Cleveland band that could take us through Chicago, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Eventually we’d love to head east through Pennsylvania and into the New Jersey/New York metro area. I used to live in your neck of the woods and know there is an appreciation for heavy music in the Garden State.

Threefold Law is keeping us very busy.

Threefold Law’s website

Threefold Law on Thee Facebooks

When last heard from, Cleveland, Ohio, double-guitar four-piece Threefold Law released their EP compilation, MMX, on CD and USB key (review here), effectively bridging the gap between the desire for physical media and the movement forward into the digital era. MMX, for all its innovation, was roughly produced in the manner of digital recordings – everything clear, but flatly mixed – and the same could be said of the outfit’s follow-up effort, Revenant. Like MMX, Revenant is self-released, and also like its predecessor, it is available either on disc or USB. Where the two find their major difference is that the special edition of Revenant also includes a professionally-bound short story by Threefold Law frontman J. Thorn – essentially a pocket-sized book with a glossy cover – as well as the CD version of the five-track Revenant release.

The story is set in ancient Persia and tells the story of an unnamed traveler (appropriate enough, since Thorn is the only one whose name the band makes public) dying of thirst who, after smoking hashish, meets the ghost of a sultan and discusses the afterlife he’s soon to see. Thorn’s writing is rife with description and epically-toned language – on page 17 we get, “The man’s sunburnt face spread into a reluctant smile,” and on 30, the sultan declares, “You will now hear of my journey and of the circumstances that brought us together.” It’s a tone fitting of the tale, but as the dialogue of gods and kings wears on, it feels weighted by the extraneous language. Still, the most powerful moment in the story is reserved for the ending, and as the written piece is broken, like the Revenant disc proper, into sections surrounding the four classicist elements – “Earth,” “Air,” “Fire” and “Water” (on the album, an interlude splits the middle between “Air” and “Fire”) – it only speaks further to the band’s highly conceptual nature. Threefold Law, it seems, don’t do anything without a big idea behind it.

That’s admirable enough in itself, but where Revenant most succeeds is in translating those ideas into the music of the five audio tracks. For the most part, it’s a similar blend of influences as heard on MMX – the classic doom of Trouble and Black Sabbath filtered through a modern dual-guitar approach – but Threefold Law also inject Eastern influences into Revenant to match their stated theme. “Interlude” introduces raga percussion and Eastern scales, but even before that, “Air” has an open feel to its riffing, and Thorn offers a gentler touch on his vocals than on the gruff, chugging opener “Earth,” reminding a bit of a more doomed-sounding Against Nature in the process. “Earth” establishes the course of Revenant nicely, reaching well over eight minutes with an extended intro and solo work that hints at the scope of the Persian concept. There are several solos on “Earth,” and room for them in the song’s runtime, but the variance in atmosphere between “Earth” and the more spacious “Air” is remarkable. Listening to Revenant, it sounds like Thorn and Threefold Law are really trying to embody the titular elements while also telling the story.

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On Friday, March 18, while most of us are nursing our post-St. Pat’s hangovers, by, uh, drinking more, doomly Cleveland rockers Threefold Law will be hitting the radio at local college station WJCU for an interview and to premiere music from their upcoming new album, Revenant.

If that seems really quick since their last release, it is. Their double-EP USB The Rede and The Burning Time was reviewed back in January. If I was Bill Peters of the show Metal on Metal, I’d ask them how the hell they managed to turn around new material so quickly.

Here’s the info, direct from the band:

Tune into WJCU 88.7 FM this Friday to hear Threefold Law in the studio with Bill Peters on Metal on Metal in advance of their show at the Grog Shop on Saturday night with Ohio Sky and Mechanics of Things.

For those outside of the Cleveland area, listen to a live stream of Metal on Metal at http://www.wjcu.org/. Angus and J. will talk with Bill on the air and debut a new song from Threefold Law, the first cut off of the new album, Revenant, due to release in late April. The band plans to present a token of appreciation to fans listening on Friday.

In an age where the dominant question concerning media is whether or not physical product is necessary anymore – i.e. CDs/vinyl vs. mp3 and other common formats – Cleveland, Ohio, metallers Threefold Law have pulled off a rare feat and found a happy medium with their new double-EP release, MMX. For curmudgeonly CD collectors like myself who just can’t let go of the little plastic discs, MMX is presented over the course of two component EPs, The Rede and The Burning Time, each in its own jewel case with separate and complete artwork (you also get downloadable versions of the tracks when you buy from the band). The digital version of MMX comes on a custom-designed USB key and features a host of bonus material, from video clips and WAV files to an actual Threefold Law tarot card and embedded artwork. Maybe it’s not so much a compromise between the two sides of the issue as much as it’s Threefold Law covering their bases, but it’s interesting in that either way you tackle MMX, the band has managed to maintain some semblance of control over how you hear their material.

For me, I have to put on a separate disc to switch from The Rede to The Burning Time, but even if I loaded all the files into my iTunes or some equivalent clunker of a media player, I’d still have two separate covers and contexts to tackle with MMX. I’m not sure why Threefold Law would want to put out their material this way – though I’ll admit there are thematic differences between the two EPs that make it easy to read in a few reasons – but they’ve done a good job of it nonetheless. And the music, which is ultimately what matters on this or any other release, is quality traditional doom with nods to Trouble and a C.O.C.-type tone in the double guitars that only adds to the already-satisfying low end. Each EP has an appeal of its own. The Rede closes with “Old Dominion,” a heady jammer with Threefold Law’s best bass performance (though “The Serpent King” from The Burning Time offers stiff competition), where The Burning Time has the memorable cuts “Rankin” and “Killer of the Sultan.” What unites the two EPs and ultimately draws MMX together is the riffing and the consistent vocals, which lead almost exclusively throughout the tracks. There are a few excellent guitar solos – they feature in layers on the title cut from The Burning Time — and overall the material should sit well with fans of American traditional doom and/or the darker, heathen side of stoner metal.

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Doom grooves and stoner vibes: You can’t beat ’em, so don’t even try. Hailing from the post-industrial wasteland known as Cleveland, Ohio, the four-piece Threefold Law (you’d expect a trio, but no dice) combine what’s best about the genre of stone with a love of classic doom acts like Trouble and Cathedral. On their MySpace, you can hear the song “The Burning Time,” which tops out at over eight minutes and was included on Stoner Rock Ohio‘s Blowin’ Smoke compilation.

“The Burning Time” is aptly named just about any way you want to take it. Threefold Law go where the riffs take them, making the most of young Pepper Keenan-style vocals and bass lines I’d love to hear in better-than-MySpace quality. The track has plenty of space to develop, and if anything, sounds like it could have been even longer, since it fades away in the middle of a jam. Playing till the tape runs out? Maybe. Threefold Law seem to have both ends covered — the rocking and the rolling — so it wouldn’t surprise me to hear them push a groove into temporal overdrive.

They aren’t exactly what you’d call “experimental” when it comes to originality, but Threefold Law do well enough to take what’s already established and make it their own. Their only release to date, a 2009 EP called Killer of the Sultan seems to be sold out (I can’t find it on their website), but maybe we’ll get lucky and hear more from these dudes soon. For now, eight minutes of “The Burning Time” will have to do.