Album: Icebreaker

Artist: Final Days Society

Released: 1 July 2015

I don’t know what it is about Sweden, but so far I’ve never met a Swedish band I didn’t like. Final Days Society continue that trend.

Icebreaker is an appropriate title for this record. It moves at its own pace, building momentum to get where it needs to go, but its purpose was never to get there at a blazing speed. From the intro of “Drowner” and into the second track, “Drifter”, airy guitar swells, sparse percussion, and falsetto vocals eventually meet their destination after a climax complete with a horns section. I am still a sucker for horns.

The title track, “Icebreaker” is the longest track on the album at just over ten minutes, and is also the loudest track on the record. It has this distinction, but more importantly demonstrates an aspect of the record’s sound that took until a second listen before I...

May 20, 2015

Review: Music To Polish Your Rifle To - Cousin

Album: Music To Polish Your Rifle To

Band: Cousin

Released: 23 March 2015

This is part two of a series I’ve decided to do covering bands playing this year’s ArcTanGent festival that have either recently released, or will soon be releasing records that I’ve taken a shine to.

This review runs the risk of becoming my shortest ever. Not because Music To Polish Your Rifle To is bad. Quite the opposite. If it was bad I wouldn’t be reviewing it. I’m just not sure how to get across how much I really, really like it without sounding too gushy about it.

Alright… let’s walk this tight rope.

Brighton, UK based Cousin are a band that, like most bands whose records I review, don’t sit neatly within the confines of one genre. Their pallet of sound draws primarily from garage/slacker rock, yet it sometimes gets an almost alt-country western flavor. It flirts with math rock-esque meter...

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Review: Nova - Eschar

Album: Nova

Band: Eschar

Released: 3 April 2015

For those who follow post-rock, post-metal, noise-rock, etc. you’ve probably become aware of a certain annual festival held in the UK that’s turned into something of a high-water mark of the scene. I’m of course talking about ArcTanGent. Eschar, also hailing from the UK, are one of the plethora of phenomenal bands part of this year’s line up (which you can see/drool over here) that have really caught my attention. They have also just put out a new record, Nova. And it is also phenomenal.

From the very beginning, this album is done extremely well. An intro of shimmery, glistening guitars bloom and build before being joined by a creeping dissonance that morphs into the aptly name second track, “Monolith”. The winding track shifts dynamics too many times to count over the course of its nine minutes, but it does so effortlessly. It...

Kult of the Wizard

Album: The White Wizard

Artist: Kult of the Wizard

Released: 13 March 2015

It’s been a while since I covered a local band from the Twin Cities. Too long, I feel. Well, here’s me addressing that issue. Kult of the Wizard have recently put out their 3rd release. While I liked their last two releases, The White Wizard is an entirely different beast, and one of the most impressive releases I’ve heard lately, regardless of where it came from.

This record is eerie. It’s dark. It’s heavy. And it’s even kinda, well… it’s kinda seductive. This is not your typical stoner/doom record. Most important, though: This record is really good.

The most noticeable addition to the band’s sound is vocalist Mahle Roth. Drenched in reverb and with a sometimes uncanny sonic resemblance to Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick, she adds an entirely new dimension to an already solid instrumental frame...

Review: Segments EP - This Sun No More

Artist: This Sun No More

Album: Segments (EP)

Label: Self-released

Release Date: 17 April 2015

I don’t normally review EP’s. I just naturally have more of an affinity for full length albums. But I make exceptions for any EP’s that really catch my attention, and that I think might deserve yours as well. Here is one such exception from Stoke-On-Trent, UK based progressive/post-metal band This Sun No More.

Segments begins with “Storm”. An intro section of heavy riffs with proggy grooves propel the track forward until it drops the listener off a cliff into some sonic territory I haven’t heard in a while. I’m always glad when a new band takes me there, though. If you miss Oceanic era Isis as much as I do, there is definite homage being paid here to appreciate, but This Sun No More also maintain there own sound. It’s reminiscent, but not mimicry, and what originally led me to...

Yes, I’m still here.

And no, I didn’t expect you to notice that I was gone. But for the fourteen or so people who did notice: Bless your hearts, all six of you who cared.

It’s been a few months since I’ve posted anything. I’m not dead. But perhaps more importantly for anyone reading this, neither is this blog. I’ve been busy. With stuff. Most of it not pertaining to this blog, but also some stuff yes indeed pertaining to it. Stuff like thinking about how to make it better. Maybe move along at a skippier pace. “Chop chop, let’s go. New stuff. Like, now, please…” kinda skippier. All while still maintaining the quality that I personally like to see in any reviews I read myself. With that…

I’m still busy, but I’ll be posting more reviews despite that I’m still the exact same amount of busy (just kidding, it’s more than) as previously mentioned.

Here’s why: As little as it is compared to other blogs, I’ve...

PostInTheName’s best of 2014 - A year in review… sort of.

Aah, sweet. I get to write my first list. Lists are so hot right now. And it’s a “Best of the Year” list, no less.

Internet: “But Ian, you’ve only been running this blog since March.”

Me: “Well, yeah… but it’s December. It’s all, like, Christmasy and shit. And, like, New Years and stuff…”

Internet: “But March to December isn’t a full year.”

Me: “You’re a pedant.”

Internet: “You’re a blogger.”

Me: “…well that’s just plain rude.”

Agreeing to disagree, I’ve compiled a list of my top five favorite records that I’ve reviewed for this blog to come out in 2014. But before we get to that…

There were a lot of albums that I absolutely loved, but chose not to review simply because they were from some of the bigger bands in this genre. I started this blog, first and foremost, to find new music that I liked and to share it with anyone who cared to read what I had to share, while paying...

Review: The Narcoma - Trita

Band: Trita

Album: The Narcoma

Label: Self-released

Release Date: 2 October 2014

Trita’s sound admittedly falls more under the heavier ends of progressive rock and post-hardcore than what typically passes for post-rock these days, but they are a local Twin Cities band with an undeniably unique, experimental sound. And they just put out a new record. A really, really good new record which I think is worth checking out regardless if it doesn’t fall squarely within the regular trappings of this blog.

After the noise filled “Pilot”, which serves as the album’s intro, the rest of the album is a mix of heavy riffage, both clean and harsher, hardcore style vocals, noise, spoken word, and, well… more. A lot more. Trita are a difficult band to place simply because they don’t like to stay in any one place for very long. Yet, they’ve somehow still managed to cement a consistent sound...

Review: S/T - nullingroots

Artist: Nullingroots

Album: Self-Titled

Label: Self-Released

Released: 4 October 2014

I’ll admit, this album is by far the heaviest I’ve chosen to review, and it won’t be for everyone. Black metal influences such as blast beats are still something of a rarity in the post-rock realm, but I think they have their place under the umbrella as much as anything else within the musical spectrum. With that being said, I think it’s a fool’s errand to get all soap-boxy about it. People have their own tastes. So I’ll just focus on what’s important and why I started this blog in the first place, which is this: This is good music. I really like this. I’d like to share this with you.

Right from the very first notes on the first track, “Scraping the Red of the Skyline”, Nullingroots establishes that before anything else, they are a metal band. Textural guitars careen atop frantic blast...

Minnesota Bands

While I love getting the opportunity to talk to bands all over the world (through email at least), I love getting to see bands play in person more than anything. And since I don’t have the budget to fly to Sweden, I’m compiling a (hopefully growing) list of local post-rock/post-metal/experimental bands from the Twin Cities and surrounding areas. You can get to each band’s Bandcamp page by clicking their name, and if I’ve reviewed any of their albums, links to those will be provided as well.