Today’s articles come from Losing Today and Crimea regulars Room Thirteen who both have the usual news + gig dates.

The blog of author Warren Ellis contains the news, a hint of a review, and a preview MP3 for your listening pleasure.

And today’s foreign articles are slightly larger than usual. The Danish Urban site features a long article on what looks like the album release story, with a White Stripes twist. And German magazine Neon’s website contains what appears to be a fan’s explanation of each album track, though Google’s translation was less than helpful.

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Today I have something vaguely different for you - a SOTWH release article from the Hey Charlie! blog which focuses on the band’s history over the years and has a couple of preview MP3s from their past.

Also slightly interesting is this forum discusion at Glosunit which features an email from a university lecturer who wants his students to follow the Crimea’s album giveaway story.

More of the usual from PC World New Zealand and Darkpaw who both mention the release, as does Molly O’Poverty though she’s not quite as impressed with the album as the first two.

And the two foreign sites for today are Italy’s NovaMusica with a large review of the album (Google translation here), and Israel’s Ynet with an even bigger article on the release though all the right to left stuff confuses my PC.

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The release / delivery of the physical Secrets Of The Witching Hour CD album has been put back to the end of this month due to production problems. The band are real sorry for the delay, though please remember that they’re getting this whole thing done themselves with their own money, there’s no major lable behind them to whip up a few CDs.

Anyone who’s already pre-ordered the CD will still recieve it as soon as the CD are pressed and packed up. That said, if you don’t want to wait any longer and would like a refund, contact owen@thecrimea.net and they’ll sort it out for you.

For the rest of you, you can still pre-order the CD on the official web store (and delivered within the next few weeks) or just download the whole album, for free, from the band’s official website.

Read more to see the official word from Owen that was sent to all current CD pre-order customers.

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Clearly showing no signs of slowing down, here’s the the web’s latest Secrets Of The Witching Hour news.

Todays only review comes from the Dorset Echo who say “It’s just beautiful - invigoratingly strange, limitlessly imaginative and powerfully atmospheric”.

Biggest article of the day goes to the Wall Street Journal who mention the current download total (now up to about 28,000). The other big publication giving the release a nod is the Wired tech blog.

A smaller mention comes from the Exitfare blog by someone who’s clearly not just a fan of the music. The Corporate Anthems blog adds more fuel the “he’s Elvis Costello’s son” rumour which I’ve seen far too much of already. Newsday.com give the release a very quick mention while AOL add a new pic to their paragraph.

If you’re frankly fed up of all this Crimea news and just wanna vent your anger, here’s the perfect opportunity at the Oh No They Didn’t celeb news blog, who have the strangest idea that the album ain’t so great to them. Oh well, can’t win em all, but numerous readers their did at least download it, which is frankly the whole point of the release.

And where would you be without an article you couldn’t understand? No, it’s not more of the above critics, it’s the German MusicChannel site with… erm… a bio I think.. it has album news anyway.

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On the eve of the official album release date, here’s a few more reviews of the thing to persuade anyone who hasn’t downloaded it yet.

Chip Adams from The Tripwire says “For a self-produced and self-mixed effort, these lads have done a mighty exceptional job”.

Giving the album 4/5 is Entertainment Manchester, who also compare it to Davey’s former band’s first album.

Meanwhile, John Siwicki at Comfort Comes gives the thing 8.3 / 10, saying “the album will not disappoint”, while a review at the Free Albums Galore blog says “this is a band well worth checking out”.

As well as reviews there’s the usual bunch of foreign press too, this time coming from Italy’s Indie Music blog mentioning the album release, and Wales’ Radio Cymru who mention both the band’s album and trip to China.

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Someone run out and buy a copy and pleeease tell me this is in the actual paper, beacause UK newspaper The Independent’s online site has just about the biggest Crimea article I’ve ever read. Not only that, but it’s bloody good too. Unlike every other Crimea related article I’ve read over the past few weeks, there’s little mention of the new album and mainly concentrates on the band’s trip to China and ensuing food based madness; Davey really should pay more attention to those HSBC adverts. Unlike the Guardian article, this one does include a link to the band’s official website so hopefully there’ll be plenty of new fans heading that way soon. There’s also a quick mention of a pretty interesting development band wise, but you’ll have to read the article to find out .

Back to the album, but this time focusing on the amount of downloads and press interest in the thing, ICWales have another pretty big article on their website with a bit of history on the band too.

Bringing us all back to earth is the No Rock And Roll Fun blog who question the uniqueness of a free music offering. But they get my reward for best Crimea album article title so far.

And here’s another copy of the Guardian article, this time appearing in the Hindu Times, apparently the world’s biggest Hindu Language newspaper. Although on the site it’s in English, I think it may well have been in the actual newspaper a couple weeks ago.

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Yes, real ones! After all that press, at least two people have actually bothered to listen to the thing. Here’s what they thought of it. Keep your eye out for more and do let me know if you find any.

Long time Crimea fan and occasional inaudible.co.uk author Stuart Denyer has stuck his long and thorough review at virtualdebris.co.uk, and there’s another one, found by Rusty… Allan Ogg from The Jumbled Box chips in a personal recommendation..

Also reviewing the free offering is Mike Rea who’s comments pop up on both Contact Music and the Salisbury Journal, with the eventual 7 / 10 mostly due to the excellence of Tragedy Rocks.

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Sorry for the short intermission over the last few days. A kid gotta take a break you know? Anyway, he’s what I collected while I was gone. No doubt Google is full of new ones by now

Adding a list of upcoming gigs to their articles are Indigo Flow and the ever-present CD Times.

Putting a more personal slant to the story are Wayward Measures (”I hope this works…for all our sakes.”) abnd the Fernando’s Desk and The Indie Musician blogs.

Shorter mentions come from This Is London and Crimea news regulars God Is In The TV.

And today’s foreign news come from the French Adilade music site, Russian Pop-Rock site and the Lithuanian Ore site.

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The third major UK publication to mention The Crimea’s album giveaway is The Times. Not sure if the online version featured in todays paper or not, but if it did I don’t have a copy so I’m still left begging for scans of that and any other print based Crimea articles. Speaking of which, this article from the Sidney Morning Herald did appear in the actual paper a few days ago.

The Leeds edition of Glasswerk promotes the band’s gig in Leeds on June 5th along with news of the album. No doubt I’ll be there making a cock of myself once again.

Back to the regular album storys; The Music of Zhisou features a good original write up from some topless bloke. “It’s in The Guardian, now I’m blogging about it, I’m sure there are many other people doing the same.” Yeah, rub it in why not.

While I was at Uni in Wales there was this one channel on TV that caused me much facination. For a while I didn’t think I could get it tuned properly, then I figured all the presenters must be pissed, and had just settled on it being a free porn channel when I eventually realised it was just the Welsh language channel S4C and all the talk about pimps was just the announcer giving program time updates. Anyway, if you wanna learn to speak a bit Cymraeg ala S4C style, start every sentance with “Ferret”, end every one with “like”, and finally recite this Crimea article from Uned5 until you can understand what the hell that Owen’s going on about. Take a look at all the new pretty pics while you’re there, too. Am dani.

A little paragraph from the German Rock-A-Hula Baby, quite a few paragraphs from Javno and if it’s anything like All Of Mp3, most of the album from the Russian @Music site round up the foreign articles. Now it’s late, and I must go watch my favourite new show 2 Pints Of Lager & A Packet Of Crisps while dreaming of a life outside Crimea news story hell. Nosh da.

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There I was, checking out Regina Spektor’s website forum to see if anyone’s mentioned The Crimea yet, when I come across a few people slightly confused over exactly what connection she has with the band. Well, far from some kinda English-Russian love orgy, she happened to meet up with the band waayyy back in 2005 (see photos) and recorded a small poem of Davey’s which features on an old gig recording (available here as Opposite Ends (Live at St. Louis) ). Originally the band planned to include the recording on the new album, but this never happened due to legal reasons (a DMCA takedown would be enough no doubt, damn yanks). Feel free to discuss legal issues surrounding the inclusion of an individual’s voice on a non-commercial album release in the comments. But you never know, one day maybe some clever, mpaa/riaa hater will edit the stuff back in. Now I just gotta get this site’s hosting moved outta the States…

As if you haven’t had enough already, here’s another lot, starting with MSN Music’s Crimea story and Digital Music News’s take on the giveaway.

Putting a different slat on thingg, thank god, are the Londonist who barely mention the giveaway. *Gasp*. Instead, they note the significance of the Crimea’s free gig and BBQ on Primrose Hill, May 12th. You gotta read to find out what it is though.

Another tech blog, Mac.nz, give the album a small mention but The Muso blog trump it with two downloadable singles from the album added to their article.

And where would you be without the regular foreign language write-up. This one’s from Finland, curtosey Discopress.

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Top media site Digital Spy reference the Sun article while mentioning the free album giveaway.

Also referencing the “worst excuse for a newspaper I’ve ever encountered” is the Changing Way blog who add in a little White Russian Galaxy video from Top Of The Pops.

Instead of a video, The Plugg includes two album song clips in their article. Music database Artist Direct have a short mention of the album situation, and the Stranded In Stereo blog obviously includes some keen Crimea fans.

Starting the non-English language articles is everyone’s favorite Welsh music show Bandit who have the story on their front page. If anyone happens to have a recording of the show with any Crimea related stories in it, send it this way.

Another Spanish blog, this time Sin Miedo include the official White Russian Galaxy single vid. Dutch blog OOR and err.. no idea where it’s from but.. Müzik Parti also include short mentions of the freebie.

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Tom Wiggins of Stuff.tv, home of Stuff magazine, has made Secrets Of The Witching Hour his download of the week, seeing the story make it on to the front page of the site. Thanks Tom. And If you haven’t already, download the thing or check out the album lyrics.

The story also makes it’s way on to the front page of Netscape.com thanks to a number of user votes.

London blog 020.com give it their top spot, and it’s a great article too, as is another one at Rock Sellout.

It’s front page news too at Click Music, who include some gig dates along with the regular album story. Also posting similar articles are ShoutMouth, CMU Beats Bar and long time Crimea supporters This Is Fake DIY.

Smaller articles appear on Owen’s ex-employer Fly Magazine’s site (check out the latest mag release btw, it’s free too!), monster music site Contact Music, Entertainment.ie and technology blog PC Advisor.

And Danish news site GAFFAk gets in a story for the Danish speaking Crimea fans.

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Slacking? Me? As if, I still ain’t left my chair. Annnd Davey’s just lovingly sent me about 300 more links. Oh well, they can wait; I’ve been busy updating this site as well as finding out what else is new on other Crimea sites. Here be the low-down:

Someone was looking for this earlier, and as the release caught us all on the hop I hadn’t got one ready, but it’s now finished and here, in all it’s glory, is the wholey unofficial Secrets Of The Witching Hour lyrics page. If you can fill in any of the (albeit very few) gaps, please comment below.

Another returnee to this site is the gig listings page, though it’s missing the kinda excruciating detail my obsessed self would have added in times gone by. But it’ll do you for the next couple of months anyhow.

More updates come in the form of downloads; I’ve added both of Crimea manager Steve Taverner’s radio interviews to the downloads page. And I do appologise for the lack of any other working links there, lord knows how long they’ve been like that but I promise they’ll be fixed very soon.

Not my site but the official one this time. TheCrimea.net’s photoblog was updated sometime last year with summer tour photos. Fun with glasses and bananas abound.

Also trying to trick me in to complacency is the Davey’s MySpace blog which, although not looking like it on the main page, has been updated numerous times in the last few months. I’d try and be funny about it but the Davey’s tales of near self-halm and depression are about as fun a read as Kurt Kobain’s diary. Speaking of which, I’m gonna be dead myself if I don’t get something to eat soon…

The Crimea played at the MIDI festival in China yesterday, and will be playing various gigs around Bejing for the next few days. Here’s a round up of the Chinese based Crimea articles on the web.

Firstly though, here’s Flickr’s latest stream of MIDI Festival 2007 pics. I see no Crimea shots next but there’s some there’s sure some well dressed kids over in the big C.

Lord knows how but someone managed to sweet talk the Chinese government into thinking they’re some kinda superstars, and apparently Davey & Co were having tea with the big wigs a couple days ago. The British Council promoting them as the biggest British act at Midi may have had something to do with it. Somehow I can’t help thinking Davey’s gonna do something mental and fuck it all up. But I guess I found out where I know that Filter mag pic from

The lifestyle website City Weekend has a Midi Fest preview with a paragraph on The Crimea and comments from Owen.

And purely for the Chinese locals, Midi fest has a write up of the band on their site and China News is most likely mentioning the Witching Hour album giveaway.

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