Monday Threeway Super Fun Time

     Why hello there. Fancy meeting you here. I took a couple of days off over the weekend for my girlfriend's birthday yesterday, but I'm back at it today with a trio of tunes for your earholes to get us back on track. Have at 'er!

     First up is Dutch instrumental fusion band Exivious. I've written about them before, but now that I've spent some serious time with their album Liminal I feel better qualified to recommend another tasty track. By now you should know I like proggy, jazzy stuff and instrumental stuff, so if you like this kind of stuff too, check out Liminal's closing track "Immanent". It's epic, but not overbearingly so, and it's a great showcase of Exivious's melding of heavy and melodically proggy.

     So that's Saturday out of the way, now for Sunday. My girlfriend is a big Headstones fan, so my big birthday present to my girlfriend this year was tickets to see Headstones right here in Kingston at the end of the month (stayed tuned for a pit report, probably in the new year). Headstones were a solid rock band back in the day, and their new record Love + Fury proves they've still got it. So if their "it" is something you're into, check out "Far Away From Here".

     And that's Sunday. What about today, Monday? Well, we're going to commemorate the new A Perfect Circle best-of disc Three Sixty and go with "Weak and Powerless" as today's song. Originally from 2003's Thirteenth Step, "Weak and Powerless" is a perfect example of what A Perfect Circle can do when they're not at "Judith" levels of aggression. Mer de Noms is still my favourite, but "Weak and Powerless" is just one of several great tracks to be had on Thirteenth Step.

     And that's me caught up. Your turn.

Carcass - The Master Butcher's Apron

     I might be a little late to the party when it comes to today's band, but as the saying goes, better late than never. Since their latest album is appearing on a number of end of the year lists, I felt I had to pick up a copy, and after a couple of listens, I can say that Carcass's Surgical Steel is a bit of a monster.

     I've never been a Carcass fan, but all the positive reviews for Surgical Steel twisted my arm, so to speak. So far I'm glad they did. Surgical Steel is a melodic death metal album that to me feels pretty thrashy, both modern sounding as well as a little retro. And, perhaps more importantly, there's a plethora of truly evil-sounding riffs, always a bonus in any metal record worth its salt.

     Methinks I need to go back through Carcass's catalogue to see what other filthy goodness I can uncover, but for now, let's listen to "The Master Butcher's Apron" from Surgical Steel to get us started. Sometimes I have one specific reason or other for choosing a particular song, but "The Master Butcher's Apron" gets the nod tonight simply because I dig it. Surgical Steel has a number of nicely vicious cuts that could just as easily warrant some time in the spotlight, but I've been gravitating towards this one in my listens through the record, so "The Master Butcher's Apron" it is. Enjoy.

Jolly - Firewell

     Maybe it's the academic in me, the guy who spent years writing papers rife with proper source citation (MLA style for the win!), but I always try to give credit where credit is due. So tonight I will send some love out to Metalsucks contributor Shanbomb, whose top fifteen albums of 2013 have provided me, and in turn you, with some quality listening material.

     Yesterday's RSJ track was drawn from Shanbomb's picks, and so is tonight's tune from New York's Jolly. "Firewell" is the song, from The Audio Guide to Happiness Part Two, and the sound is rocking and proggy. I'm tired, so I can't quite put my finger on the kind of comparison to make right now, but my sleepy brain keeps coming back to Between the Buried and Me if BTBAM were a rock/alternative type band instead of metal.

     Maybe that's way off the mark, but hey, it should at least make you want to check out "Firewell" to see just how full of shit I might be. Whatever gets you listening. A foot in the door is a foot in the door, so to speak, so just check out Jolly already.

RSJ - Collectively We Are Tall

     Just in case you needed reminding, allow me to do the honours: it's that time of year again. No, not Christmas. Well, yes Christmas, but more pertinently (for our current purposes) it's also Best of 2013 time, when music websites join just about everybody else in looking back on the year that was by trotting out their lists of best albums of the year.

     I'm waiting until the year's actually done to post my Ten Best of 2013 (gives me more time to deliberate, y'dig?) but that doesn't mean I won't take advantage of the opportunity provided to me by the rest of the Internet's gun-jumpers to discover some new, quality stuff. Thus it is that venerable site Metalsucks has led me to today's song from grimy metalcore Brits RSJ.

     Leaving aside how metal an album title I find Higgs Boson to be, RSJ are packing the aggressive energy and riffage of a grindy Refused or Every Time I Die. And if the video for "Collectively We Are Tall" is any indication, these guys also have both a healthy sense of humour and a commendable lack of shame -- always a winning combination. So slip into something more comfortable and get ready for some pelvic thrusts and deep lunges. You can thank me after you've felt the burn.

Devil Sold His Soul - Time

     Regular readers (I'm going to keep making reference to you despite the dubiousness of your existence) should have clued in by now to the fact that I'm a big fan of British label Basick Records. With a few exceptions, I dig pretty much their entire catalogue to varying degrees, so when I hear they've got a new signing my ears prick up like a ravenous dog hearing kibble hit the food dish.

     As such, I just had to check out Devil Sold His Soul, the latest addition to the Basick roster, and while I'm not immediately as head-over-heels as I was for, say, Skyharbor (I lurvs me some Skyharbor) Devil Sold His Soul has a lot of tasty goodness going on. Think epic metalcore with big melodies and bigger vocals and you're probably in the right ballpark.

     To see if this is a ballpark you want to be playing ball in, check out Devil Sold His Soul's latest single "Time", the first track to feature the band's new singer Paul Green, who you might already know from his other gig in The Arusha Accord, another Basick band. Between "Time" and the band's back catalogue, there should be enough there to hold us all over until the next Devil Sold His Soul LP drops.

Thank You Scientist - Blood on the radio

     I talked recently about how my mandate for Loud Noises has changed from writing about metal music to writing about interesting music, and today's band perfectly exemplifies the fact that something need not be traditionally "heavy" to be interesting.

     I've posted about New Jersey's Thank You Scientist before, with mention of how their energetic pop-prog is built around more instruments than just the traditional guitar, bass and drums of rock and roll, but just in case you doubted me, today's song should be plenty of proof positive.  Strings and horns abound in "Blood on the radio" off of 2012's Maps of Non-Existent Places, forming the song's backbone and contributing some of its best riffs. But don't worry, there's a badass guitar solo in there too, just in case all that other stuff isn't you thing.

     Whatever way you like your jazzy, seven-piece post-rock, Thank You Scientist has got you covered. Got like ten minutes? Why not take a walk down to the lab?

The Fall of Troy - The Last March of the Ents

     I'd be willing to bet that any music fan worth their salt could, if pressed, come up with an artist or band they feel called it quits before their time. I could probably name at least a couple, but tonight I'm going to go with a band that, in my humble opinion, never got the kind of love they deserved. They're not necessarily everyone's cup of tea, but tonight we're going to mourn the demise of The Fall of Troy.

     I've written about this post-hardcore outfit before, and I've been singing their praises to my friends for like a decade, but all for naught: my best efforts at word-of-mouth promotion have been no more successful at resurrecting The Fall of Troy than they were at keeping the band alive in the first place. Nevertheless I'll keep on trying to sell people on this band, because even to this day I don't think they have the legacy they should. Maybe The Fall of Troy were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, so to speak - noodly guitars, falsetto vocals, and lengthy song titles could well have given people the impression that these guys were just another emo band, when really they're so much more.

     But don't take my word for it. Instead, have at your song for this evening, "The Last March of the Ents" from TFOT's self-titled 2003 debut LP. Why this particular track? Come on now. It's a song about the Ents marching on Isengard, for fuck's sake. The nerd points alone should be enough of a foot in the door, and The Fall of Troy's intensity and energy should take care of the rest. Prepare to become a convert.