Gallery of Skewered Swine was released on November 5, 2022. This second full-length album release finds musicians Pit Lord in their Davenport stronghold: a forbidding, unwelcoming, cyclopean structure looming over the industrial stench of the West End. They glare from their thrones, two heads of a table gouged with countless blade and stained by sauces unknown.

Another calendar page has turned with the season, bringing with it a loaded month for live music in the Quad Cities. Looming large among the many shows scheduled for October is Judas Priest's October 29 appearance at the Vibrant Arena at the MARK, with Queensrÿche in tow. While most rockers and metalheads in the area are no doubt aware of the metal gods' imminent arrival, there are several other smaller shows happening this month -- including on October 21 and 22 -- that are equally worthy of consideration. Whether or not you have tickets for Priest, these displays of heavy metal thunder will make October 2022 a heavy and memorable month.

Ryan Werner, Beverly Beverly Beverly. This 21-minute micro-masterpiece is loaded with more hooks, riffs and guitar harmonies than most albums twice its length. 13 rock songs shrunk down in a microwave for mass consumption, bubblegum hooks written by a literary-minded metal-head clever enough to drop lines about “circumstantial feasts.” There's more emotion here than meets the ear; repeated listening is mandatory.

Late in 2019, Iowa City's ZUUL dragged a large pile of small amps into a warehouse in Washington, Iowa. Even with a half-dozen amplifiers, an organ, drums, and sundry recording equipment, the three-piece barely took up more than a corner. The intention: to capture the minimalist intensity of their howling noise rock in a cavernous empty space, with microphones placed at intervals near and far to catch it all.