AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): JESSICA93 — “GUILTY SPECIES”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Oct 302017
 

 

You’re about to have the chance to hear a full stream of Guilty Pleasures, the fourth album by the French underground band Jessica93 in advance of its November 3 release by MusicFearSatan and Teenage Menopause.

I nearly didn’t agree to host this premiere, despite how hard the album hooked me. It’s pretty far away from the varieties of extreme metal that are our bread and butter, and the vocals are entirely clean, which always generates confusion among those who take us at our word when they see the site’s name.

But then I thought, if someone as musically tunnel-visioned as I am can get enthusiastic about this music, maybe the same will be true of others who usually come here to get their skulls fractured and their brains purified by flamethrowers. And in fact I do think there are aspects of the music that are likely to appeal to segments of metal fandom. Besides, you’d have to be the victim of a C4 cervical fracture not to reflexively move to these songs. Continue reading »

EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE: UNHOLD, THE ORDER OF THE SOLAR TEMPLE, HANGGAI, JESSICA93, ATRORUM

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Oct 022015
 

Unhold-Towering

 

In this post I’ve collected some songs I discovered recently that don’t fit our usual mold around here. As most people know by now, we no longer adhere strictly to the rule expressed in the site’s name — though I’m more faithful than some of our other writers. But the songs in this post are exceptions in more ways than simply the use of clean vocals; some of them aren’t even metal. But despite these departures from what I usually enjoy, all the songs have wormed their way into my head, and I thought you might enjoy them, too.

By the way, I spend very little time exploring music outside the boundaries of extreme metal, so these choices are hardly the result of some comprehensive survey. I came across all of them quite by accident.

UNHOLD

Untold are based in Bern, Switzerland. Their most recent album (their fourth full-length) is named Towering and it was released in January of this year. The song that’s gotten its hooks in me is a track called “Voice Within”. Continue reading »