Here we go again — another episode of MISCELLANY, in which I expose myself (figuratively speaking) to music from bands I’ve never heard before and dutifully report the results to you, along with the songs themselves. The rules of the game that I’ve set for myself are to listen to only one or two songs from each selected band and let that be the basis for some judgments about the music.

Recently, I’ve been violating the rules with increasing frequency because I’ve had good luck with the MISCELLANY picks and gotten caught up in the music. For this listening session, I decided I’d really try to stick more closely to the rules because I’m so far behind on other NCS projects. (Here’s a hint: It didn’t work.)

The bands I picked from our MISCELLANY list for this session are Manegarm (Sweden), Exorbitance (US), and Strom (Germany).

MANEGARM

In the last few MISCELLANY sessions, I’ve been intentionally including one pagan/folk metal band on the listening list. It’s a genre about which I’m not terribly well-versed, and I’ve had fun subjecting my eardrums to something different from their usual diet. As usual around here, the comments we’ve gotten on these posts have pointed me to some interesting looking outfits. So, I decided to continue the recent run of pagan/folk music by picking a band called Månegarm, who were recommended by multiple commenters. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »