Over the weekend I came across a divergent array of largely new music that I feel compelled to share here at the beginning of the week. It’s really all over the place, up and down, swerving right and left. Tracking through these songs and videos put me in mind of a rollercoaster ride, hence the title of this post. There’s so much here that I’m dividing this into two parts. The next one will follow in a couple of hours. I’ll keep the verbiage brief and let the music do the talking for itself. In Part 1, the music comes from Ne Obliviscaris (Australia), God Is An Astronaut (Ireland), and Apostate (The Czech Republic).
NE OBLIVISCARIS
We originally featured this unsigned Melbourne, Australia band back in March 2010, focusing on a 2007 EP called The Aurora Veil. At long last, they’ve completed their debut album, Portal of I, which will be released in the near future (I haven’t yet found a specific date or how it will be distributed). It will consist of 7 tracks, with a total run-time of more than 1 hour 11 minutes. So yes, the songs are long ones. The band released one of them to their Facebook page on Friday night. It’s called “And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope”. I heard it via a link from NCS reader Kevin this morning — and it has floored me.
I know that I’m given to impulsive bursts of enthusiasm and that this undoubtedly devalues the weight that some people give my opinions. So, those people will want to take this with a grain of salt. Actually, take it with a pound of salt and choke ’til you pass out, because I’m serious: this is a wonderful song. It begins with a sweeping, violin-led melodic instrumental section and then moves on through a changing splash of musical colors and tones, part black metal, part melodic death metal, part prog metal — all good. It’s right after the jump.
Now, for our next spin around the rollercoaster curve, we move to Ireland . . .
GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT
I first discovered this band via a guest post in August by our occasional contributor Siddharth Darbha. To quote from Siddharth’s brief intro to the band: “Anyone who listens to post-rock, will know these guys immediately. This is a tribute to that side of your personality that wants to go sit atop a hill and stare at butterflies in slow motion; a psilocybin-induced mass hijack of your senses. If you don’t dig slow shit, you should listen to them if only for such a super-sexy, muti-layered, thought-inducing band name.”
What I found over the weekend, courtesy of a FB link by another band, was this live video of the band performing a song called “Sunrise In Aries” for a TV station in Istanbul, Turkey. Because it was filmed for TV, the quality of the video is good. The song is largely instrumental, and yes it’s slower and dreamier than about 99% of the music we cover on this site, but I liked it. After all, we need metal for different moods, or to change our moods when we’re sick of the one we’re in. Give this a shot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSuUKaKQJsc
You can find GIAA on Facebook here.
Now, our rollercoaster car takes an unexpected drop, the kind that leaves your stomach somewhere in the vicinity of your eyes.
APOSTATE
Apostate is another band we’ve featured before at NCS — in June, to be precise (here). At that time, we were writing about their Seaborne EP. They’ve now released a new single called “Hermeneutic Circle”, which they’re selling on iTunes and Amazon mp3, and they’ve also already released an accompanying music video for the song.
Apostate falls within the metalcore/deathcore genre, but Seaborne includes some unusual instrumental twists, turns, and mood-changers. There’s some instrumental skill on display, and a willingness to be creative within a saturated sub-genre. So, when I saw news of the new single and video, I watched and listened. The story told in the video is a tale of youthful angst, which isn’t breaking any new ground, of course, but I had fun listening to the song. Here you go (Part 2 of this ride will be up soon . . .)
Apostate’s FB page is here.
15 Responses to “ROLLERCOASTER – PART 1”
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Ne Obliviscaris is fuckin’ awesome. It looks like only four of the seven tracks will be new, the other three are the songs from the demo.
Good point. I suspect they’ll be re-recorded versions of the demo tracks. More info: The mixing was done by Jens Bogren and the very nice cover art was created by the band’s vocalist Xenoyr. And it appears that CDs will eventually be available for order here:
http://welkinrecords.bigcartel.com/product/ne-obliviscaris-portal-of-i
Definitely a must have.
First two songs were just perfect. Fitting my current mood effortlesly. Need to check out more from those bands. As for the third song. I liked the intro, but from there it was sorta dullish.
I’m glad the first two suited so well.
Goddamn! I love the Ne Obliviscaris song! So much in it to listen to! That”ll be a top album of 2012 I think.
We’ve thrown 9 songs out for listening since our posting day began this Monday, not counting all the music included in BadWolf’s post about Ogrefest. But I have to say that I think that one is the one I like the best, because it’s so different, and so much happens within it.
and because you just fucking love the newest member to the comments thread. LOL 🙂
It is indeed good stuff.
That Apostate on the other hand, makes me annoyed at you for bothering to post it 😛
Well, even 1 out of 3 is pretty damned good in my book. That could be because I’m a baseball fan, and .333 is a hell of a batting average. I find many ways to make myself feel good.
I’m a huge Yankees fan (former Long Islander, now living in Orlando). And NY Football Giants!
Holy shit, that Ne Obliviscaris song fucking kills! It’s so different from anything that’s out there right now and just composed so damn well for a song that has so many different parts. It kinda reminds me of Undeceived era Extol in a way…just much better.
Holy. Mother. Of. Fuck.
That Ne Obliviscaris song kicks ass, and then some. I wish I’d paid more attention in what you’d posted before I wandered in last year. This album is going straight to the “to get” list, and I’ve only heard this one song so far.
I had a feeling you’d dig this one.
Dig it? Fuck, I’m not sure if there’s a word for it. Actually, it’s kind of how I felt the first time I heard Thy Catafalque or Negura Bunget here at NCS, to pick a couple from your postings here. Stuff that I have a hard time coming up with a way to describe; there’s so much more than what genres, sub-genres and labels can really say about certain bands.
I don’t get as much chance to wander around aimlessly online to find tunes that I like, so I turn to the likes of NCS, DMB and still visit MS from time to time in hopes of finding something kickass that’s worth getting. Unless the band puts up another song from the album, Portal Of I may be an impulse buy, hoping that I haven’t heard the best of what they have to offer.
I just saw a post by the band on their FB page saying that the album won’t be released until early 2012. The waiting will be painful. The band has also now established a Bandcamp page, which includes the same info:
http://neobliviscaris.bandcamp.com/
The band’s only existing release, “The Aurora Veil” EP is sold out at the Welkin Records store:
http://welkinrecords.bigcartel.com/product/ne-obliviscaris-the-aurora-veil-demo-2007
However, a google search will turn up lots of places from which to download it.