Bands it seems have realized that these days album sales aren't the best way to promote or make money. Bands like Gama bomb have been releasing their album for free in hopes of gathering more fans and getting more attendance at shows/merch sales etc. I think cds are great for the art and full packaging but with torrents and such there's no way cds will sell as much any more and it's just better if the music gets out to everyone. What does everyone here think?

My band Invection (www.myspace.com/invectionmetal) has been releasing our stuff for free for a while and we find a bunch of people really check it out more deeply when it's a full free release and not just some itunes or amazon sample and it's helped us a lot. You can download both of our EP's for free here, any feedback would really be appreciated. Here's the link to both our EP's:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8lp5kh

The one concern people have is that if you offer music for free people won't buy it but I think that's not really true. Our EP "Demented Perception" was released on Stormspell Records and for an EP it sold pretty well and we continue to sell a lot of EP's and shirts at shows and we just get a lot more satisfaction out of knowing people are hearing and enjoying the music. With torrent sites these days anyway it's not like people can't find it for free, it just makes more sense for the band to do it themselves so they can control the quality of it, how and where it's released etc and the more sharing the better!