Exceptions to the Rule Archives - Page 48 of 76

AN NCS PREMIERE: PERIHELION — “VÉG SE HOZZA EL”

Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres 3 Responses »

Sep 212015

One good thing sometimes leads to another good thing. About two weeks ago I was excited to discover a music video for a track from a forthcoming album (Zeng) by the Hungarian band Perihelion. I wrote about the song (“Égrengető”) here, and now we find ourselves in the happy position of being able to bring you the premiere of another song from the same album, a track named “Vég se hozza el” (Hungarian for “Even the end will not bring relief”).

While “Égrengető” has its heavy moments, particularly as it builds toward the climax, much of its magic lies in the ethereal guitar melody and the experience of listening to Gyula Vasvári send his voice arcing into the sky. “Vég se hozza el” combines similar ingredients, but in different proportions. It starts in a blaze, takes a breath, and then pours out its intensity and passion in a stream of gleaming black water. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2): MEPHORASH, NAPALM DEATH, NIGHTFELL, RUBY THE HATCHET, SATAN

Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Sep 112015

(Leperkahn compiled this second of at least four round-ups of new music we’ll be presenting today. Part 1 is here.)

MEPHORASH

In my infinite wisdom, I totally forgot that the Swedish black metal band Mephorash’s new album 1557 – Rites of Nullification had already been released (despite Andy Synn’s glowing review) until I saw that Mephorash posted a stream to a track other than the advance track they had previously presented on their FB page. This “new” track, entitled “Phezur – Dissolving the Sea of Yetzirah” has me strongly regretting that lapse in memory.

The song masterfully conjures a deeply evil, occult, Luciferian atmosphere with its stirring riffs and caustic snarls, and the riff that comes in about a quarter of the way through the song is certainly quite the earworm. It moves through periods of chaos, groove, eerie calm, and infernal majesty, all while maintaining a truly nefarious aura. Make this the soundtrack to your next black mass if you know what’s good for you. Continue reading »

NAKED ROOTS CONDUCIVE: “SACRED 521”

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Off Topic 3 Responses »

Sep 082015

(Austin Weber takes us far off our usual beaten paths with this review of an unusual album by a violin-and-cello duo who call themselves Naked Roots Conducive — with a full-album stream.)

I think one of the most wonderful things about avant-garde and experimental music is how it seems to transport you to a very strange yet intense place where you may have to adapt in order to fully appreciate it. Such is the case with the New York City-based duo called Naked Roots Conducive. The two members are Natalia Steinbach who plays violin and sings, and Valerie Kuehne, who plays cello and and sings as well. The range and scope of the music on their new album Sacred521 is impressive, and I’d say additionally impressive because no other instruments beyond violin, cello, and their two voices appear on the album.

Records such as Sacred521 are difficult to describe, since there aren’t many other people doing anything similar, and the musical lines they straddle coalesce into a sound that doesn’t fit into any established musical style. Naked Roots Conducive craft exquisite and intricate songs that are part classical music, and part nightmarish film score instrumentation, accompanied by heavenly singing courtesy of each member. The end result is not wholly classical music, nor simple singer-songwriter-oriented stuff either. It’s very sweeping and dramatic music, constantly traversing, back and forth, a divide between sour and sublime sounds. Continue reading »

STUFF WE PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT EARLIER: FLUISTERAARS, VAMPIRE, WINDHAND, BARONESS

Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 4 Responses »

Sep 062015

(Leperkahn rejoins us with a round-up of new songs that have struck a chord.)

We cover a lot of stuff here at NCS. Hell, I can barely keep up with it myself. However, even more goes on in the wide world of metal than the busy staff could ever hope to cover (and normally, I’m too lazy to move my arse and actually put fingers to keyboard). Alas, here are a few tracks that I’ve been really hyped up on, though sadly lack of time has prevented us from giving them proper coverage.

FLUISTERAARS

Early last year BadWolf published a review of Dutch black metal band Fluisteraars’s debut album Dromers. That review was my introduction to the band, and my, what an introduction it was – three extended tracks of harrowing, melodic lo-fi black metal (and I’ll be damned if “De Doornen” didn’t stick in my head like one of Frankenstein’s bolt things). “De Doornen” ended up earning a spot in the Most Infectious Songs list for 2014, and also ended up on my year-end list.

Luckily for us, Fluisteraars have returned, with a new album entitled Luwte (apparently Dutch for “Lee”, though I’m not sure what that could signify) due out on Eisenton on September 25th. At the Bandcamp page for the album a track is currently streaming, an eleven-and-a-half song entitled “Stille Wateren” (“Still Waters” – three quarters of college-level German prepared me to figure that one out without the services of Google Translate). The track is anything but still in its first half, however, as Fluisteraars have unleashed another torrent of scathing melodic BM riffs, shifting from one to the other seamlessly, all punctuated by some soul-cleaving rasps on the vocal front and drums that are evidently try to stir up a tsunami. Continue reading »

IRON MAIDEN: “THE BOOK OF SOULS”

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule 8 Responses »

Aug 312015

(Wil Cifer reviews what may be the final studio album by a band named Iron Maiden.)

Iron Maiden is right behind Black Sabbath when it comes being one of the most revered classic metal bands of all time. This is for good reason, as they have maintained tons of integrity over the years, even if they did break down and use keyboards and made the poor choice of trying to replace Bruce with Blaze. Line-up changes and tweaks to nuances in their sound aside, in the bigger picture of their legacy, they have never really whored themselves out by appearing on American Idol, which sadly is something Rob Halford cannot say. So for me the bar is held really high when it comes to this band, and if you have any questions as to my devotion, all I need say is that I have The Number of the Beast album cover tattooed on my left forearm… what do you got? So I have been upping the Irons since 1984.

Going into this album, the trepidation I had in regard to how it would uphold their legacy was due to the Dickinson’s much publicized battle with throat cancer and how that would affect his voice. Then there was the cowbell-infected lead single off the album, “Speed of Light”, which might have quelled my fears of “will Bruce still have it” and replaced them with “will this album be filled with cheesy rock n roll”? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (Part 2): MORDBRAND, HOODED MENACE, OAK PANTHEON, ONIRIK, EARTHSIDE

Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 4 Responses »

Aug 272015

One of these days I’ll learn that part-time, half-witted metal bloggers shouldn’t make promises about what they’re going to do. Yesterday I wrote that I would post two round-up’s of new music in an effort to partially catch up on all the new songs that had emerged since the last one I compiled five days earlier, but that obviously didn’t happen.

However, thanks to Austin Weber, we do have two today, with this being the second one. One silver lining to the cloud of my tardiness is that since yesterday I discovered one more item worth recommending to you — and it’s the first one in this post.

MORDBRAND

For those who haven’t religiously followed my scribbling over the last few years, I will confess that I’m a slavish fan of Sweden’s Mordbrand. It’s not that they have any compromising photos of me, it’s because they’ve been so consistently good at what they do. Out of all the outstanding songs they’ve released, perhaps my favorite track is “That Which Crawls” from their 2014 album Imago — and today they released a video for that very song. Continue reading »

FIGHT AMP: “CONSTANTLY OFF” — A FULL MUSIC STREAM AND A TRACK-BY-TRACK COMMENTARY

Exceptions to the Rule, Interviews 2 Responses »

Aug 252015

The new EP by Philadelphia’s Fight Amp(utation) is a whirlwind roller-coaster ride — or it would be if a roller-coaster were capable of leaping off the rails with a mind of its own in addition to veering up, down, and sideways. It’s only six songs with a total run-time of about 18 1/2 minutes, but Fight Amp pack a lot of head-spinning diversity into that span of time. It’s the kind of music that keeps you pinned in place, gleefully wondering what the hell is coming next.

Precisely for that reason, it’s also the kind of release that justifies a track-by-track commentary from the band — and that’s exactly what we have for you here. But you need to listen to the songs either before or while you’re reading — or ideally, do both. A stream of Constantly Off is at the bottom of this post, along with a Bandcamp link where you can pick it up if you like what it does to you. And to get an LP edition of the album, Brutal Panda has got that HERE. Continue reading »

MECHINA: “THE WORLD WE LOST”

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHORT BUT SWEET 3 Responses »

Aug 222015

(In this post DGR reviews the new release by Chicago’s Mechina.)

Mechina are a band whom I’ve learned to stop trying to figure out. They’ve somehow evolved into superhuman musicians who can seemingy do no wrong when it comes to putting out quality music. They’ve consistently kept to a yearly release schedule, and recently have even added a single release mid-way through the year — and those have become huge efforts in their own right. I keep waiting for them to slip, but it seems that somehow the people behind Mechina are absolutely tireless as well as immensely talented.

The Mechina singles are some of the longest songs the band have written and are the musican’s equivelent of a short story — which is odd to say when it comes to music, but given that the band have created their own universe and continually add to it, it isn’t hard to see the band’s brand of symphonic/industrial/groove/death metal starting to become like sitting down with a storyteller and letting them entrance you with another tale. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ABBOT

Exceptions to the Rule, Interviews 2 Responses »

Aug 142015

(In this post, Latvian music journalist Evita Hofmane presents her interview with vocalist JP Jakonen of the Finnish band Abbot, whose debut album Between Our Past and Future Lives was released in October 2014 by the Italian label Bloodrock Records and can be heard at the end of this interview.)

Abbot? What is Abbot?

Abbot is classic heavy rock n’ roll band from Pori, Finland.

We had a pretty long and nice virtual interview with their vocalist JP Jakonen.

And btw, Abbot have a US West Coast Tour in the works for the summer of 2016.

Wanna know more? Go ahead! Continue reading »

THE WAGAKKI BAND: “AKATSUKINO ITO”

Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Jul 312015

Before I saw the video by the Wagakki Band that you’re about to see, I was at work on a big round-up of new music for later today. And then our Tokyo-based pal Phro messaged me about the video, and I watched it — and felt compelled to get it up on our site without delay.

I counted, and this makes the sixth time we’ve posted about the Wagakki Band at NCS, and they deserve all that attention because they are awesome. This most recent video is for a new song named “Akatsukino Ito”, which will appear on a forthcoming album entitled Yasou-emaki. I want to quote an excerpt from Phro’s post about it at RocketNews24:

“The music features the band’s trademark mixture of rock and traditional instruments, with thundering drums and furious strings that compel the soaring vocals ever higher. The song is almost like a battle cry, which manifests in the video as the members draw swords to face off against a dragon flying through the sky.”

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