MONDAY SONG ROUND-UP: FROM EXILE, NIGHTRAGE, THE STRANDED, AND THE NEOLOGIST

This morning our buddy DemiGodRaven delivered a short round-up of new songs or videos that struck his fancy, and it came at a time when I was trying to figure out how to publicize a new song and video that I had also recently discovered. So I decided to lead with the one I found and then finish with DGR’s contributions.

FROM EXILE: “A Desperate and Willing Enslavement” Video

From Exile is an Atlanta band we’ve written about frequently at NCS. You can see a collection of all our previous features via this link. Having said that, a year has passed since our last post about the band. That time, the occasion was an amazing music video (featuring guest guitarist Emil Werstler) for a song called “A Warm Place” that appeared on Just Like You Imagined, which was a collection of Nine Inch Nails songs covered by From Exile.

Now, a year later, I’m happy to report that we have a new From Exile song called “A Desperate and Willing Enslavement” and a new music video to go along with it. The video is a live performance of the band filmed at the studios of Digital Arts Entertainment Lab on the Georgia State University campus in downtown Atlanta. It was filmed as part of a video series focusing largely on Atlanta-based bands called indieATL (check out their web site here).

From Exile is a three-guitar outfit, and on this song guitarist Eric Guenther steps up to provide lead vocals. They’re all clean, but this qualifies as an Exception to the Rule around here, not only because the vocals are quite good but also because the song itself is so damned excellent — and you can download the live track for free, on top of everything else.

“A Desperate and Willing Enslavement” is not as extreme as most of the music we tend to cover, but it’s still plenty heavy, it’s memorable, and it’s beautifully performed. I don’t know if this new song and a second one I’ll tell you about in a moment are harbingers of a new EP or album on the way or just one-off things. Regardless, the song is worth hearing — and seeing (the video indicates that the song is called “Infection”, but I don’t think that’s correct):
 

 

From Exile recorded a second song as part of this indiATL session that will be released on video in the future. Undoubtedly, we will be featuring it here when it arrives. That song will also be made available for free download — and I’m assuming it’s called “Infection”. But the free download that’s now available is a song called “A Desperate and Willing Enslavement”, which is the track heard on the video. It can be downloaded via this web page.

You can find the band’s previous releases on Bandcamp (here) and on the From Exile web site (here). To learn more about these talented dudes, check ’em out on Facebook via this link.

And now here are DGR’s write-up’s on the new songs he found:

NIGHTRAGE: “Delirium Of The Fallen” video

I seriously fucked up when I did my top what-the-hell-ever of 2011. I really did. It didn’t occur to me at the time what I had done, but I shit you not, literally weeks after I had published the list it hit me that Nightrage’s Insidious had come out in 2011 and had been one of my favorites of the year. I spun that fucking disc into the ground, then resurrected it via Haitian voodoo (not really), and spun it into the ground again. It became such a part of my daily life that it seemed like Insidious had always kind of been there; it was a disc so good for a while it was just the background music to my life.Then I wrote up the list for 2011’s greatest and completely glossed over it.

Let me say this, Insidious is great and if you haven’t listened to it yet…damned be this lame-ass crowd in the music video. Listen to the song, there’s maybe one sort of iffy track on all of Insidious and “Delirium Of The Fallen” ain’t it by a mile. This song has such a great guitar lead and is one of the faster ones on the disc. Then again, the first six or so songs on Insidious are all some of the best Nightrage has ever done. Check out the video if you’re like me and you haven’t gotten the chance to see the band live yet, or you’ve just never checked them out.
 

 

THE STRANDED: “Sulphur Crown”

Hey, remember The Stranded? I put up a post about them recently after they finally released their first new material as well as the album art for Survivalism Boulevard. Well, the guys have just uploaded another song to their Facebook page called “Sulphur Crown”. It’s another good one, although they still continue to blur the line separating them from their Disarmonia Mundi work with this.

I’m still approaching the band with a very cautious optimism since they are a new project and there are still eight or so songs left to check out before I really get a good grasp of them. That said, if you hit up their Facebook and give the page a like you can hear the new song. If not, I’m sure it’ll spread around the internet like wildfire soon enough.

http://www.facebook.com/thestrandedofficial?sk=app_182222305144028

THE NEOLOGIST: “Subterranean Creatures”

The Neologist strike again! (see this post about their last strike) We’ve been waiting a while as the guys have been hard at work re-working their new disc for lower tunings. The Promise Of Eternal Separation is still on its way, and it seems like the band are releasing new songs as they get them done. Like their other stuff, this one is a buy-at-your-own-price on Bandcamp as well, so you can grab that fucker for free or kick them some money. I’m sure they’d appreciate it.

“Subterranean Creatures”, I think, is a bit of a stronger song than “Call To Harms” was. It’s about a minute longer, but it has a very strong groove and an excellent melodic lead. Still got some very capable vocals as well. The guys have a lot on their plate lately, since I can’t imagine they’re close to done with this project, and likewise they still are working on their various melodeath covers. Check out “Subterranean” in the meantime — it’s a solid slice of music for this fine day — you can acquire the music on Bandcamp here.