What Just Happened?
We come across a lot of albums we love for any of a number of reasons but it is rare we come across something that truly stuns us (in a good way). Well, we have one of those rare occurrences this week, and it helped create an episode that us musically all over the place. No seriously…try listening to all of this back-to-back, or worse, on shuffle. Shit gets weird fast.
Reviews:
Crimfall – Amain (Metal Blade)
NYN – Entropy: Of Chaos and Salt (Vmbrella)
The Hirsch Effekt – Eskapist (Long Branch)
First Impression:
Caligula’s Horse – “Will’s Song (Let the Colors Run)” from In Contact out September 15, 2017 through Inside Out
Crimfall – Amain
Nyn – Entropy: Of Chaos and Salt
The Hirsch Effekt – Eskapist
The Sideshow Podcast 
First, thanks for the NYN. I hadn’t heard of them and as you guessed, this is certainly my jam. I agree with you guys 100% about it. Dense is a word you described it as and that certainly applies. And similar to what you alluded to, here’s what I’ve been doing with the album: listening to it maybe twice and then just focusing on the first song. That first song “The Apory of Existence” has a mind boggling amount going on in it. It’s amazing to even say that it feels like they packed in an album’s worth of material into a seven and a half minute song – but NYN have done it. This music is so fast and so dense it even borders on the human mind’s ability to process it as you listen to it. Which it makes it all the more incredible that someone is able to even perform this music.
Unrelated, I was driving down to Maryland in a rental car this weekend and the car didn’t have an aux input and I couldn’t get the Bluetooth to work. So I was forced to listen to the radio. What I discovered was a revelation: real heavy metal radio does in fact exist in the New York/New Jersey metro area. It is WSOU 89.5 Seton Hall Pirate radio. They played actual metal, not “radio-friendly” rock/metal. On my trip I heard songs from System of a Down, Black Dahlia Murder, The Faceless, Nine Inch Nails, and Nightwish among others with a mix of both old stuff and new. The only bad part about it is that their signal doesn’t seem very strong. I lost their signal when getting to about exit 9 or 10 on the Jersey Turnpike and once I crossed the GW bridge back into Manhattan the signal was spotty. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that real metal radio does in fact exist.
Brian: WSOU is no secret dude. Lol. It’s a nationally renowned, long running college station. They sponsor a lot of shows at Starland Ballroom too. Their music selection is great, through there is some limitation because Seton Hall is a Catholic school. So you won’t here much Black Metal or anything mentioning Satan. God Forbid was even a problem for a while because of their name. Ha ha. That said, imo, their DJs are horrible. Some are unlistenable. They absolutely ruin listening to that station for me. They are backup if I cannot use another type of media, like in the situation you were in.
Glad we could introduce you to NYN! It’s funny you mention “pack[ing] an albums worth of material” into the first song because I had the EXACT same thought the first time I heard it. It’s still probably the standout track for that reason.
In the back of my mind, I did feel like we talked about the radio station WSOU before, because when I was writing the comment I was pretty sure you (Brian) were aware of it. But you guys have mentioned on the podcast that they don’t play metal on the radio anymore and when I stumbled on WSOU this weekend and experienced it for myself I was pleasantly surprised and felt the need to point it out. I did notice the quality of the DJs, but I chalked that up to them possibly being only 18 years old. Though I’m sure you guys did a better job when you were at “the Q”.
We did do a better job! Lol. We also had two golden rules: never talk over dead air (always have a music bed) and always identify the station between songs. WSOU never uses beds and barely uses station IDs. I know our rules aren’t universal (the IDs kinda are) but it still pisses me off, especially since the dj banter is nonsensical bullshit a majority of the time. We always talked about music, whether it was news, debating merits of bands/albums, etc.. We had that shit meticulously planned (seriously…Nick and I spent far too much time planning out playlists and RELEVANT talking points).