A you’ve all noticed we’ve been on a bit of a hiatus today, but now it’s Friday night and the large part of my exams are over, so I’ll just throw down some of the music I’m digging at the moment. Nothing special, just some bands to keep you busy.

First up is a song by Enslaved, which seems to be a band of contradiction to me. I’m not very familiar with them, but I was really attracted to this song called Ethica Odini, an 8-minute long hybrid of Black Metal and Progressive Rock. It’s really a fabulous piece of music, but when I look at the list of album reviews at the Metal Encyclopedia, I actually find people who are angry with Enslaved for putting out this album Axioma Ethica Odini. I really like it though, because the balance between Black Metal and edgy Prog Rock is just perfect.

I’ve been exploring the web for a while and lately I discovered a lot of interesting new bands, some of which completely blown my mind, as they push the boundaries of what I held for possible. Some of these aren’t completely Metal, but all of them are exceptionally cool and certainly worth of your time. So enjoy the next half hour of Post-Alternative Blackened Punkcore.

Shining

First up are a Norwegian band called Shining, which is not really a name associated with the more serious, dark or violent themes addressed in Metal. It comes as no surprise then that Shining started out as an acoustic Jazz-quartet. However, after two albums, they started taking their music apart and evolved through a form of Jazzy Post-Rock to what they are today on their album Blackjazz, a dark combination of Industrial, Jazz, Deathcore, Alternative and Experimental Metal. In one word, Avant-Garde Metal, whatever that might mean.

This album came in on the hight of my ‘Core-madness, but now after a good few weeks, it has diminished to something more in the way of indifference on the given subject. So Xes and Strokes will probably get some beatings here, although it won’t be beaten to death. Ok, lame pun there, but yeah, that’s how things go when inspiration’s lacking from time to time, as is often the case when writing on a subject that doesn’t bother you too much.

To begin with, Beaten to Death have a really interesting concept on their sleeves. Most bands would take their Grinding heaviness into a Punk direction, but on Xes and Strokes, Beaten to Death seemed to have looked at some Melodic Hard Rock in stead. For me personally, that’s not the greatest surprise, since I know some great Norwegian Hard Rock bands, but the combination turns out to be pretty good.
While trying to classify the album for you above, a few terms have been flying around in my head and on the screen. First of all Grindcore, which is the main genre, but also Metalcore, Grind ‘N Roll, Hard Rock, Hardcore etc. They all seem to fit.

Thanks to motig we got ourselves some delicious Norwegian, classically-sounding Metal. Just Metal, no subgenre indicators – although the band itself seems to favor the descriptor ”Doom Heavy Rock”. I think this is just Metal as it could have been in the Eighties. Except that the band has only been together since 2004.

In the time since then, the band aired three studio albums, titled I, II and III. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

More non-Black Metal from Norway. It’s like it’s just raining down on me! This time it’s an outfit called Zaed, consisting of four dudes that have been jamming together since late 2009. Two years later, Ragnar (vocals), John (drums), Thomas (bass) and Bjarne (guitars) released their first album together and they titled it simply ‘I’.

My naïve self always held Norway responsible for the world’s main supply of Black Metal. The same brain responsible for that belief thought up that then also pretty much every Norwegian Metal band would be a Black Metal band. But lately I’ve been proven wrong in my generalization quite a few times. Like by Aspherium and Okular rather recently.

But I have noticed that Progressive Death Metal outfits like these two often do add in a thick and acid splash of Black Metal darkness here and there. The same is the case for The Fallen Divine as Toreignimmortal has already commented when he pointed you towards the free streaming album these guys have released in late November. Following in his footsteps, I’ve been listening to this highly promising debut release a bit as well.

Yes! Part 2 of the most important list in the whole wide world of Metal. The list of best albums I have reviewed all year. You can’t possibly get a more complete overview of what happened in the Metallic world, anywhere.

Seriously though, this is just a list. My own little list of fifteen albums that struck a special chord with me this year. But then again, I do hear a fuckload of Metal over the course of a year and the fact that these fifteen stood out as the top albums does make them a little special, don’t you think? Hence they are albums that I highly recommend you to listen to, and buy when you can get your grubby hands on them and have no more fuckin’ debts to pay off.

The Fallen Divine are a Norwegian Progressive Metal act, who released their first full-length, called The Binding Cycle about two weeks ago. Now one can stream the entire thing exclusively on metalunderground.com so that’s where I will be linking you to after the jump.

The Binding Cycle is not your average Progressive Metal album à la Dream Theatre or the like, no, it’s heavier, drenched in Blackened Death Metal influences and melodies. The album is very dynamic, with a lot of alternation between heavy and quite moments. With the album bordering on the 50 minutes, it’s not the longest Progressive Metal album, but with 8 songs, this is quite a reasonable length.

Closing in on year end, most sites, mags and blogs have started publishing their year-end lists. The Top 10’s of Best Albums of 2011 will rain down on you like a volley of arrows. And with a bit of luck also The Baboon will publish some kind of list. But fuck me sideways, are we glad that we waited a bit with publishing our list! Aspherium comes straight out of fuckin’ nowhere with it’s The Veil of Serenity album.

The band hails from the Norwegian town of Moss, not too far from Oslo. Them being Norwegian I was expecting some ass-ripping Black Metal, with enough blackness to make a black hole feel ashamed and enough evil to make Satan look like a schoolgirl with colorful braids. To some of our regular or irregular writers that would be very preferable per se, but not to me. Darkness doesn’t get it up for me and neither do tremolo picking and poor production.

Not that I couldn’t get it up on any song or band employing these ingredients, it’s just that it’d have to be combined with at least two of the following elements; groove, melody and intelligent songwriting. With Aspherium I find all of this. And more.

Discovering what Okular is the other day, I couldn’t help a growing impression that the group is special, or more accurately intellectual. Or well, perhaps a bit ”out there floating on the clouds”. The composer and backing vocalist of the Norwegian band, Andreas Aubert, runs his own site / blog at Andreasaubert.no, where you can read about and listen to his music, but also read other articles, about (Metal) music – nice and elaborate reads, worth some attention – and find out about his writing work on social issues, on the one hand, or ”floating stuff”, on the other.

Such as: ‘Fear as a tool in political work’, ‘Hemp as a useful plant’, ‘Is fat an essential part of a balanced diet’, ‘Self-development for men’ and ‘Repressive and authoritarian Yoga-education’. Wow. So that’s the main guy behind the band, not the band itself.

But it does explain part of the experience I’m having with Okular’s Probiotic album. It’s just that extra bit more thought through, more creative, more ‘from scratch’ and more holistic. What exactly that’s evident from? Don’t ask me difficult questions, laddy! It’s just in the atmosphere, which is open and openminded (though certainly not for pussies!) most of the time, it’s in the composition, which is creative and invigorating, it’s in the execution, which is crunchy and spicy, and it’s in variation, which is rich, broad and extensive, taking influences from many a Metal subgenre, and beyond.