TEXTURES PREMIERES A NEW SONG: IS IT ROCK? IS IT METAL? IS IT BOTH?

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Aug 182011
 

On August 3, Dutch metal band Textures released the first song from their new album (“Singularity”), which we declared to be fucking good pancake. Now the band have premiered yet another new song called “Reaching Home”. Like the first one, it comes from the forthcoming Dualism album.

I have mixed feelings about this song. On the one hand, the instrumental part of the song is cool, anchored by the complex Meshuggah-connected rhythms that are a large part of Textures’ signature sound. And you won’t be surprised to hear that the song has an infectious melody, too, because that’s also a big part of this band’s style.

On the other hand, there are no harsh vocals in the song at all, and there’s not much of a metal edge to it either. As drummer Stef Broks candidly told REVOLVER magazine, it “sounds like a direct assault to the rock charts,” and may remind people of Tool, Depeche Mode, and U2. Perhaps that’s why the song is premiering on the REVOLVER web site (cuz, seriously, REVOLVER hasn’t been metal in a long time).

On the third hand, as Brok also said, it may also remind people of Devin Townsend, and I get that connection, too. There’s a dreamy ambience to the song that is appealing, and the appeal may grow if I listen to it more. If you’d like to listen, GO HERE (I can’t yet embed the song).

Dualism will come out on September 23 in Europe, South America, Australia and Asia, and on September 27 in North America.

TREPANNING LIVES: ICS VORTEX AND MALEFICE

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 302011
 

While other metal blogs were posting about the release of new songs by Dream Theater and Trivium yesterday, I was listening to new songs released the same day by ICS Vortex and Malefice. Is there something wrong with me? Perhaps I need to be trepanned.

Speaking of trephination, I’m always trying to think of new analogies for skull-coring metal, and this one just came to me out of the blue. Amazing that I’ve never thought of it before, actually. I read about a shipboard trephination in one of Patrick O’Brian‘s stupendous novels (I forget which one), and it’s one of those scenes that you don’t forget. According to The Font of All Human Knowledge:

Trepanning, also known as trephination, trephining or making a burr hole, is a surgical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, exposing the dura mater [the outermost layer of the brain membrane] in order to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases.

Perfect analogy, eh? I certainly don’t think of trepanning on those extraordinarily rare occasions when I listen to Trivium or Dream Theater. But the new tracks from ICS Vortex and Malefice? Fucking skull-coring! (more after the jump . . . including the songs) Continue reading »

VISITOR

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  3 Responses »
Jun 152011
 

(Israel Flanders reviews the new album from a band called Visitor (UK), and has arranged for some free downloads to boot. This is one of those Exceptions to the Rule embodied in the name of this site)

I think sometimes the number one ingredient to individuality is how a band combine things that already have been done — how they select and distribute existing elements within the music and piece them together into a cohesive product — instead of straining to be wholly original.  Visitor is a band who have definitely succeeded with this formula, and I hope this review will get them some much-deserved exposure, I really do.

Visitor have a rather unique combination of sounds working in their favor.  I’d describe it as a mix of the groove metal stylings of Machine Head, mid-period Napalm Death (think Inside The Torn Apart), and All That Remains.  I don’t know how these guys make this mix of sounds work, but they make it work superbly, in a recognizable way.  I would know Visitor immediately if I heard them, I can say that for certain; they have established their individuality.

The band has just recently put out their latest effort, titled The Need To Believe, and it kicks ass.  I mean, it really kicks ass.  The energy on the record is fantastic, and the music itself is well-written.  The production is a bit rough, yes, but it’s refreshingly rough.  Adding to the feel of Visitor, which is rather hard to describe in the first place, they generate a street vibe (in the same essential way as Machine Head did on their first album), but they’re bringing that vibe into a modern context. What they do doesn’t sound out of place in the present. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say it’s perfectly relevant and needed in the music of more bands here in the second decade of the 2000s. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

KLONE YOURSELF

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
May 172011
 

Too infrequently, we write about music that we pick out for listening based solely on the album cover art, not knowing anything about the music itself. Last July we did that for an album called Black Days by a French band called Klone. To crib from what we wrote about the album back then:

Well, it’s not my usual cuppa tea, which tends toward the more skull-pulping leaves grown on the jagged crags of Tartarus. For one thing, there’s a lot of more-or-less clean singing. . . . But, unexpectedly, I’m really diggin Klone. At a very high level (like, from space), the music straddles a line between the darker side of progressive metal and Chevelle-style hard rock. The instrumentalists are sharp and technically impressive, and even when his vocals are clean, Yann Ligner has an invigorating edge to his voice. The songs cover a wide range, from crosses between doom and prog, to melodic headbanging anthems, to dark dreams of hypnotic ambiance.

Today, we have some news to report about Klone: First, they’ve released a brand new two-part single called The Eye of the Needle that’s available for free download — and it’s absolutely worth hearing. Second, we came across a recent official video for one of the songs from Black Days, and it’s absolutely worth seeing. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

CLEAN SINGING: 40 WATT SUN AND ARKAN

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  9 Responses »
May 032011
 

This site is called NO CLEAN SINGING for a reason. It’s not just a gimmick. We really do prefer our metal with harsh vocals. In part, that’s because the music of bands who feature unclean vocals tends to be extreme in other ways we like, too. But we’re not completely dogmatic about the “no clean singing” thing — we do like some metal that mixes clean and unclean vocals (see Andy Synn’s review of Scar Symmetry’s latest album yesterday, for example), and on even more rare occasions, we enjoy metal that includes nothing but clean singing. We call that kind of music “Exceptions to the Rule”.

Today, we want to write briefly about two recent albums that fall into that category of exceptions — the debut album from UK doom lords 40 Watt Sun and the unusual (and amazing) second album from a French band called Arkan. We’ll get back to our usual, nasty fare in our next post.

40 WATT SUN

We don’t claim to be experts in the genre of traditional doom metal. We try to provide variety in the music we cover at NCS, but doom is a category that we just don’t listen to very much, and as a result we’re fairly ignorant on the subject. In fact, we’re so ignorant that we knew nothing about this band and listened to a promo copy of their new album without any idea of what the music would sound like. If we’d known more about it in advance, we probably would have skipped over it. Ignorance can sometimes be a good thing, because we’re damned glad we discovered this band’s debut, The Inside Room. (more after the jump, including tracks to hear . . .) Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: INSOMNIUM

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Dec 082010
 

Insomnium, like Children of Bodom, is another one of those bands that just can’t be omitted in a feature on Finnish metal — at least not any feature we’re in charge of writing. They draw together strands of melodic death metal, progressive metal, and doom, and weave them into music that’s heavy, epic, beautiful, and sometimes haunting. When people talk about a distinctively Finnish brand of melodic metal, this band, along with Amorphis, are likely the first two bands they’re thinking of.

Insomnium have given us four studio albums to date, with another one due for release next year — their first after signing in August with Century Media (home of other Finnish ass-kickers like Finntroll and Turisas).

We liked Insomnium’s last album, 2009’s Across the Dark, but our favorite remains Above the Weeping World.  That album was our introduction to Insomnium, and it’s still the Insomnium music we go back to, over and again. It’s weighted more heavily on the melodeath side of the scales than Across the Dark, with more un-clean singing, and that may explain our personal preference for it.

After the jump, we’ve got  Insomnium music and videos for your entertainment — including a special single that the band released in September, featuring guest vocals by Dark Tranquillity‘s Mikael Stanne. Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: GHOST BRIGADE

 Exceptions to the Rule  7 Responses »
Dec 032010
 

Contrary to widely held belief, it is not true that 100% of metal emanating from Finland is awesome. The actual statistic is 95%. We’ve speculated before that this is because of something in the water supply over there that mutates 3 out of every 4 fetuses in the womb into riff-meisters. Or maybe it’s Finland’s proximity to Estonia.

Seriously, the whole damned country has only got a population of 5.4 million souls — a little smaller than the population of Wisconsin. How many awesome metal bands are from Wisconsin? No offense to Wisconsin, but we’re having trouble thinking of even one. Now, how many awesome metal bands are from Finland? The actual count is 2 gazillion. It’s true.

No, seriously — it’s statistically demonstrable (as shown here) that Finland has more metal bands per capita than any other country on Earth — and a high percentage of them are good.

So, it should be no surprise that we write about Finnish metal bands a lot here at NCS. This year, we’ve written long or short reviews of music by Kalmah, Kivimetsän Druidi, The Jasser Arafats, Cyphosis, Cavus, Apocalyptica, Blastanus, Sole Remedy, Sotajumala, Survivors Zero, Man-Eating Tree, Gloria Morti, Amberian Dawn, Radiance, Amorphis, and Before the Dawn, and probably some others we missed in our searches.

But we’re not finn-ished writing about Finns. We’re doing a little impromptu series on Finnish metal. We’re calling it Finland Tribute Week, though we’ve gotten so many intriguing suggestions about Finnish metal bands from our commentators since we announced this series that we may have to re-name it Finland Tribute Month. It started two days ago with a post about Amorphis, and that a-morphed into a post yesterday about Before the Dawn. And today, we’ve got Ghost Brigade.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

WELL, FUCKIT: ANOTHER EXCEPTION TO THE RULE

 Exceptions to the Rule  7 Responses »
Dec 022010
 

One good turn deserves another, right?

Yesterday, we ran a post about Amorphis — a strong example of why we have a place for exceptions to the “no clean singing” rule. And based on the comments, it’s clear that even regular readers of this cacophonous site also like some clean singing in their metal, if done right, and in the right doses. One of those comments — by our comrade in arms, Niek, from Death Metal Baboon — pointed us to a band called Before the Dawn. Here’s what he said:

Coincidentally I was just considering tipping you on another Finnish, clean-vocalled exception to your rule. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to this band’s (and its sister-bands’) material on YouTube. It’s Before the Dawn, of which mastermind Tuomas Saukkonen also fronts Dawn of Solace and Black Sun Aeon. I’ve ordered albums of the first two this morning. I urge you to check these bands out!

“Impulsiveness” is my middle name (I have many middle names), and so, despite the fact that I was trying to finish reviews of two new albums while continuing to listen to other brand new releases, I dropped everything, downloaded Before the Dawn’s latest release from iTunes, convoyed the tunes over to my iPod, jammed the earbuds in my aural canals, jumped in the car for an hour-long drive I had to make yesterday morning, and started in on that album at the volume I like best — the volume level that makes my eyes weep blood.

By the time I got back home last night following the return trip, I’d listened to that album three times through (and had eye blood all down the front of my shirt). Maybe it was because I’d already had my senses adjusted by Amorphis, maybe it was because I was tearing down the highway while listening, but that album really hit home — so much so that it would just be criminally ungrateful not to say something about it without delay. So, that’s what we’re doing today — another Exception to the Rule. Don’t worry your horned little heads — we’ll be back to no clean singing very soon. But today, we need to tell you about Before the Dawn.  (more after the jump, including some music to hear . . .) Continue reading »

AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE

 Exceptions to the Rule  24 Responses »
Dec 012010
 

We have a low tolerance for clean singing in metal — hence, the name of this site. With the absence of clean singing tends to come all sorts of other extremity in the music, which is what we like, and which is why we thought “NO CLEAN SINGING” would be a good short-hand way to define the kind of music on which we intended to focus when we started this blog. But from day one, we acknowledged that there would be Exceptions to the Rule, i.e., metal we think is hot shit despite the clean singing, or even sometimes because of it.

In fact, last year, when we compiled our inaugural list of the Ten Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs of the year, that list included a song with almost exclusively clean vocals. We’ve been thinking about that list recently, because if we’re going to do a 2010 list, we’ve got to get our lazy asses in gear pretty fucking soon.

And then, in an episode of synchronicity or serendipity (we can never remember the difference between those words and we’re too fucking lazy to look it up in an actual dictionary), yesterday we saw a fan-filmed video of that same band playing that same song live on November 23 in Munich, Germany. Problem was, the video quality sucked. But it still reminded us how fucking great the song is. So, we hunted for a better-quality live performance of the song, and we found one.

It’s from a televised Finnish music award show called Emma-gala, which is an annual event (comparable to the U.S. Grammy awards) produced by the Finland chapter of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). This particular installment of the awards show took place on February 4, 2010, and the band in question won the award for the year’s Best Metal Album. The band performed live at the event and played the song that made our Most Infectious list last year, and that’s the video we found. Stunningly, it only has 9,580 views on YouTube.  Maybe it’s because the tail-end of the video shows the band accepting the award, and if you don’t speak Finnish, it ain’t that interesting.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

APOCALYPTICA: END OF ME

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News  2 Responses »
Jul 032010
 

This seems to be video day here at NO CLEAN SINGING. We didn’t plan it that way, but we just keep running across brand new videos from bands we like.  Here’s one more.

This one veers pretty far outside our usual stomping grounds. It’s another one of those radio-friendly hard-rock songs that Apocalyptica has been putting out with name-brand guest vocalists. This particular offering, “End of Me”, features Gavin Rossdale, former lead singer of Bush and current husband of Gwen Stefani.

So, the song isn’t metal, but it’s an Apocalyptica song, and your NCS co-authors have had way too much headbanging fun at their live shows in Seattle to ignore even a non-metal song like “End of Me”. So, we’re invoking our Exception to the Rule rule and posting the video. It’s a catchy song, it features a bunch of long-haired dudes rocking out on their cellos, and it ends with an ornately dressed woman fading into smoke.

If you’re in the mood for that kind of thing, you can watch the vid after the jump. And if not? Have a nice fucking day anyway. Continue reading »

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