Welcome to the third birthday of The Ways of Exile!
This blog was never intended to be a long term thing. To be honest I never had any plans for it, TWoE was always just to give me something to do in lockdown to keep myself sane and to wave my hands around and bang on about the music I love in a different way.
I’m pretty sure that without the Drowned in Sound forum I wouldn’t have lasted more than a few months, at thanks to everyone on there who look in every month and show interest.
I’m also delighted over the years just how many acts have read the blog as well. I’ve never been the kind of person who hangs around at gigs and talks to the bands so it’s nice to be able to tell people that their music is having an impact on me and that I think their work is great.
It always reads a bit hollow when someone says thanks for reading but I really mean it. The numbers for my end of year write up were more than double my normal readership and I’m still a little in shock about it.
But thank you, I really love getting feedback people’s feedback and obviously I enjoy trying to signal boost the music I love further out into the world.
Anyway, let’s talk about 2024. And a few albums I missed from 2023.
The Songwhip links will bring you to a page with a link for the song featured on all the streaming platforms.
Guhts
Regeneration
Opening your debut album with an eight minute epic called White Noise is a hell of a statement for a band to make. The fact that the song is sludgy, uncompromising and a little disorientating makes it an even bigger ask of the listener, but you know what? That’s fine. Consider it a litmus test. If you’re in on this, then Regeneration is an album you’re going to love.
Guhts (Guts) aren’t really in the game to pander to the listener. Amber Gardner’s vocal style is very unusual and the way it writhes and contorts along to the music rather than sticking to the song’s melody is almost unique. I think Julie Christmas is the only person who would be anything similar.
However, she does dial the strangeness back when needed. During Til’ Death, the riffs drop out and she almost coos “Dance with me”. It’s alluring but also feels like something very bad is going to happen, as the band’s slow dissonant vibe isn’t what most would consider come hither music.
Regeneration should be more a challenge to listen to than it actually is. This is a great heavy album and interesting take on post metal, with its use of electronics for texture helping it stand out from the crowd. Gardner’s vocals are going to be marmite for people but hopefully people are up for something a bit unusual these days.
https://songwhip.com/guhts/regeneration
John Jejada
Resound
Sometimes I find it very difficult to write about electronica. There’s a few touchstones like genre and acts the artist in question sounds like, but that’s leaving me very little to go on here. What I can tell you is that this is a lush album of slow, warm techno. At 35 minutes seems very short for a dance album but not a second is wasted, Resound gets in and gets out leaving you wanting more.
I may not have a lot that’s in depth to say, but this album has been helping me through winter. Its warm club vibes keeping the cold out and reminding me of brighter days to come.
https://songwhip.com/john-tejada/simulacrum2023
Cold In Berlin
The Body is the Wound EP
It feels that in the last few years, a lot of bands have been hiding behind the Post Punk label while being obviously influenced by the classic Goth bands. However, Cold in Berlin have always been refreshingly up front about being Goth as fuck and this ep isn’t any different.
The Body is the Wound is their first release since 2019 and the band come storming out the gate with Dream One. It kicks this ep off with a deliciously heavy, doomy goth headbanger and the mix of stabbing synth lines and Maya’s soaring vocal provide more drama and atmosphere than I’ve heard in a long time.
The rest of the ep lives up to the promise of the opener, the moody plaintive cries of Spotlight, the filthy low end of When Did You See Her Last and the vocal pyrotechnics of Found Out make this a very welcome return for the band.
https://songwhip.com/coldinberlin/the-body-is-the-wound
Volkor X
The Loop (Instrumental version)
I was a big fan of Volkor X’s album, The Loop. It’s an epic story of an exploratory space mission that mixes narration with music and feels like a cross between an audiobook and soundtrack. Unfortunately, there are only so many times you’re going to go back and listen to the same story, and while I enjoyed the album, it was always going to have a limited shelf life.
With the release of the instrumental version of The Loop, the album has none of these drawbacks. While most of the dialogue tracks were quite short, songs like Float really come into their own as an instrumental track, all the warmth and wonder comes through without someone speaking over it.
Previously, the long run time was a bit of a effort, now the album flies by, starry eyed and full of synths. Volkor X’s mix of post rock and the wide eyed electronica of the early M83 albums lands perfectly here, allowing you to feel the wonder of the soundtrack they’ve made.
I do think it’s funny that without the narration, you would never realise that The Loop is a horror story. For a self styled intergalactic despot, Volkor X makes some very pretty music.
https://songwhip.com/volkor-x/float-instrumental-version
Bipolar Architecture
Metaphysicize
Post metal is one of those genres that people just can’t help but cross pollinate with other sounds and Bipolar Architecture have thrown Slow Death, and Blackened Prog into the mix. Metaphysicize is the unholy result and is a must for fans of slow and heavy music.
The title track starts with some moody post metal driven by the bass and drums, almost reminiscent of Tool, before the kick drums rush in and give us our first taste of the death metal that lurks around this album.
The third track, Death of the Architect is the album highlight for me and again it’s all about the drums. Huge sounding toms slowly batter into the song before the double kicks assault your ears. It’s a heaviness that kind of reminds me of Bolt Thrower, but more in spirit than sound.
As I always say on this blog, it takes a lot to stand out in these oversaturated genres. It’s very easy to sound like just another copy, but Bipolar Architecture do more than enough to stand out from the crowd with this entertaining and really satisfying slice of heavy music.
https://songwhip.com/bipolararchitecture/death-of-the-architect
The Fauns
How Lost
The Fauns have been on hiatus for a long time now, their last album was released in 2013. And while the world may have moved on a lot musically, shoegaze has never been as popular as it is today. So this is obviously the best time for a shoegaze band to start up again.
However, The Fawns have moved on as well. Instead of jumping onto the current wave guitar fuzz that’s out there, How Lost embraces dance music to wonderful effect.
The opener, Mixtape Days combines chiming guitars, dance beats and breathy vocals to create a sound far more like the lush synths of Ladytron than any shoegaze band. The second track, Shake Your Hair somehow manages to up the bliss levels from the opener and will be a showstopper live.
It took me a while to realise that Doot Doot is a Freur cover, which to be fair, is pretty obscure track selection for anyone. Freur were the band that went on to become Underworld so The Fauns have obviously been digging into the roots of dance music. Thankfully, they manage to improve on the admittedly dodgy original.
Now, all this talk of dance music doesn’t mean that the band have put their guitars away, there’s a few songs here that remind me of Curve and the closer, Spacewreck is a beautiful, languid slice of blissful shoegaze.
As comebacks go, How Lost is an incredible reintroduction to a band who will hopefully make a much bigger name for themselves on their second go round.
https://songwhip.com/thefauns/shakeyourhair
Shipwreck Karpathos
Being Human
The first I heard of Shipwreck Karpathos was a review that said that the album sounded like Midwestern Emo mixed with post rock. Now, I had no idea what the hell that would sound like so checked it out and, well, here we are.
The album starts with an energetic bang as Don’t Panic comes crashing out with some high speed, riffy indie rock, but it quickly slows down and takes on a more thoughtful pace. What I wasn’t expecting was the trumpet to kick in, and there’s very little I like more in my guitar music that a trumpet.
So, what you get on Being Human is some very pretty thoughtful, instrumental indie, interspersed with some breakneck, heavy riffing. And sometimes it’s adorned with strings and brass. It really doesn’t sound quite like anything else I listen to, but it does sound amazing.
The title track reminds me a bit of Broken Social Scene at their most joyful, jamming with And So I Watch You From Afar, while the trumpeter really brings the song to life.
This is an incredibly uplifting album and there’s just something about the arrangements that puts a huge smile on my face. Don’t sleep on this record and let it bring some sun into your life.
https://songwhip.com/shipwreckkarpathos/scene-xii-being-human
Healthyliving
Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief
If I’d managed to see Heathyliving live a few weeks before I started to write up my albums of the year, Songs of Abundance would have easily made its way into the top 10. Over the last two months I’ve fallen head over heels for this album, so I’m going to add this review here.
The band cover a lot of ground on this album, from racing alt rock to post metal riffs, to the more atmospheric passages, but manage to assemble it in a way that sounds unique.
While the songs are great, the band’s not so secret weapon is Amaya López-Carromero. Whereas a lot of female singers in metal use an operatic style, the way Amaya hits the high notes feels far closer to a soul singer.
As amazing as this album is, Healthyliving are somehow even better live. This is a band that could be huge if the music god’s smile on them. With bands like Sleep Token proving there is an appetite for melodic mixed with the Heavy, hopefully Healthyliving can catch this rising tide because god knows the world needs more bands like this to break out.
https://songwhip.com/healthyliving/to-the-gallows
Final Coil
The World We Inherited
I’d like to apologise to Final Coil, who’s album The World We Inherited is a fantastic post prog metal album. It’s really interesting, has rich electronic textures, great riffs and, for some reason, I’ve been completely unable to put together a coherent thought to explain why you should check them out.
Seriously, The World We Inherited is the first album on my best of the year list and I still can’t explain why.
As a reviewer this is more than a little embarrassing. Normally when this happens I just sack off the review and pretend it never happened, but I like this album too much not to recommend it. Sorry Lads.
But! If any of this sounds like your thing, run for this album.
https://songwhip.com/finalcoil/chemtrails
The ways of exile 