Hail the Titans

Do yourself a favor. Take a drive. Alone. Leave everything behind you and just head somewhere. It doesn't matter where. All that matters is that you've got Hymns of Mare Nostrum on your stereo. Hail the Titans is about to put the map in your ears, and all you have to do is listen up and experience the euphonious scenery.

The ambiance of this album takes you from just enjoying cozy back seat scenery daydreams to being bound and gagged in the trunk, then shoved into the driver's seat and forced into a high speed chase from every childhood monster that ever threatened your dreams. Listening is the audial equivalent to the experience of roller coaster-no, a sci-fi action thriller. Imaginative as hell, in your face, and a much needed reminder of how to breathe.

Hymns of Mare Nostrum is an intriguingly fluid melting pot of noises from soft and inviting to provocative and uncertain. This recording is an epic effort of sounds. The use of sampling within the songs is cunning and well thought out. Noise makers in the likes of hand made didgeridoos, children's toys, theremins, bodily functions (allegedly), and pretty much yeah the kitchen sink were used in the recording of this album. But the instrumental layering is so flawlessly laid out that all those little noises are just well placed scatterings between the surface of the sound.

On top, the guitar rifts contain dimensions of dreamy embracing stretches, paranormal drifts and heavy melodic noise that all come together with congruity. The bass is brilliantly diverse, shifting from sometimes beautifully drifting and playful to driving and undeniably assertive. The percussion has a rough shine on this album. It's artistic and unpredictable yet always in a structurally harmonious ebb and flow relationship with the bassline. Alone, each instrument wants to take you down its own path, yet when married the sound is completely harmonious in its direction.

Hymns of Mare Nostrum is a collection of uniquely distinct noises that manifest an energetic attraction which has become rare in music these days. This album is exactly what you need if you haven't heard it already. It's an experience. It's the next trip you need to take. So buckle up, turn off your phone, press play and allow yourself to be taken in whichever glorious direction Hail the Titans guides you.

My recommended songs: "Cesium", "Blood Sisters of the Fog" and "Practical Applications in the Metaphysical". - Bhamrocks.com

In last week’s GO Play section, my “What’s GOing On” column partner Sean Gourley wrote a review of Hymns of Mare Nostrum, the latest release from Montgomery-based instrumental band Hail the Titans.

In the review, which can be read here Sean said: “It’s one thing to blur the lines between genres; it’s another to crank up the sound and blow them apart.”

I myself finally got a chance to listen to the record this past weekend and I have to say - I really liked it. As Sean alluded to, the sounds come crashing together to create music that you don’t even realize is making its way through your ears and into your brain.

I listened to it while doing some work and the production of the various instruments kept me going the whole time, reminding me of my all-nighters in college where Explosions in the Sky or God is an Astronaut provided my studying soundtrack. Though this time, in the case of Hail the Titans, there was a bit more attitude.

My only complaint would be that the intro track goes on a little bit too long. However, that may have been done by design as right when I was beginning to question it, the second track, “The Surface,” came in and captured my attention.

Take another look at Sean’s review for a deeper look as it’s not easy to write a review for an album that doesn’t contain any lyrics, but I have to say he pulled it off.

Hymns of Mare Nostrum is officially released today on digital outlets such as iTunes and Amazon. The physical copy can be purchased tonight at Head on the Door where the band will be performing with openers Hellakopta of Love, who reporter Teri Greene profiled here back in June. The show starts at 10 p.m. - Montgomery Advertiser (Go Play Tumblr)

BY AMELIA SHACKELFORD

Drunken Unicorn // Atlanta, GA // June 18

Someone once told this correspondent, “A metal show should make you feel like you just got blown out a 17th-floor window of an exploding skyscraper. You bounced, and you lived, and you’re ready to kick some heads in.” The good men of Demonaut, Order of the Owl, Mice in Cars and Hail the Titans must have gotten the same memo…

The first half of the night ran the gamut of experimental rock. Hail the Titans, from Montgomery, AL and Mice in Cars, “from over there,” took traditional band configurations and turned them on their ears. After a few solid surf metal jams, Hail the Titans guitarist Josh Carples slung his axe over his back and turned to jam out on an optical Theremin. Mice in Cars’ bassist Mark switched between playing straight and dragging a bow across the strings of his guitar, while their drummer Nick took on double-duty on his kit and a synthesizer. The sound blasting from the stage went from surf metal to mad science to ambient to hard-driving rock and back.

Then the tone of the night took a turn for the Heavy. Order of the Owl took the stage, stared out at their audience and – with nothing more than a look – invited the crowd down the Rabbit Hole to METAL. Their percussion didn’t thrum; it blasted. Clothing rippled against skin like the first wind of a driving storm. People took a step back, but straightened their shoulders and braced forward to weather the blast.

Finally, headliners Demonaut took the stage. The lights dimmed, giving the illusion that the four men on stage had been bathing in blood and murder. With two bassists, Jeff and Joel, guitarist Rod and drummer Dwayne, these men came to thrash. And thrash they did. Little did the audience know, the night had been steadily building to this moment since Hail the Titans’ first chords. Down the Rabbit Hole, indeed, to the Land of Thrashing Metal, Sweat and Darkness.

www.facebook.com/Demonaut
www.facebook.com/orderoftheowl
www.facebook.com/MiceinCars
www.facebook.com/HailtheTitans - Performer Magazine

Very few contemporary bands or artists of any musical genre make albums meant to be listened to all the way through. The vast majority of recent American music is single-centric. It usually features a simple, predictable melody, rhythm and instrumentation. A full album by the average band consists of a few catchy songs and a whole lot of filler.

The cohesiveness of "Hymns of Mare Nostrum" as a complete record with themes and an instrumental story to tell is just one of many highlight-aspects of the debut album by Montgomery-area band Hail the Titans. There is no filler on this record. Every single song on Hymns fits, thematically and instrumentally. Then again, there are only eight tracks—it is not any longer than it needs to be—but at just under 44 minutes it is long enough for the listener to get suitably “into” the groove of the record before it ends. As far as thematic, conceptual albums of any stripe or caliber traditionally go, it’s on the shorter side—but concept albums as a genre are famous for being bloated, so this is not a bad thing.

"Hymns" is an instrumental record, which seemed daunting to review at first, this reviewer having had little experience listening to—not to mention reviewing—instrumental music. Expectations were uncertain. This reviewer is happy to note, however, that few records of comparable quality have been released in this country in 2011, let alone in Alabama. "Hymns of Mare Nostrum" is a true musical highlight, not just for Alabama’s scene, but for this kind of music in general. Native boys Wes Andrews, Trey Baldwin, Josh Carples, and Adam Davila have certainly created something to be proud of.

The lack of lyrical accompaniment makes "Hymns…" an even greater accomplishment when one discovers the album’s cohesive thematic nature and mood. How easily and effectively the songs move from one mood to another and back within each other, as if the record were an extended symphony! Most instrumental records that are meant to be played all the way through are made by bands who call their music genre “stoner rock” or “psychedelic rock.” But "Hymns of Mare Nostrum" has an appeal that goes far beyond simply getting high and putting on some record to listen to. "Hymns…" is practically a psychedelic experience of its own, with all kinds of thematic and emotional ups and downs.

In particular, "Hymns…" features great pairings of songs, back-to-back tracks that almost sound like two parts of a greater whole that as an album form a sort of mood-story. It has long been this reviewer’s opinion that getting a record off to a successful, smooth start and bringing it to a satisfying conclusion are the two hardest parts of thematically constructing a record. Concept albums are usually the most successful at this, but here Hymns stands out even among the standout genre.

The first two tracks, “The Physical Limitations of Nonlinear Waves in Motion” and “The Surface” work this way: the former is a quiet, ethereal, buzzing intro that merges seamlessly into the latter, shooting off like a rocket in a burst of guitars. The last two tracks on the record work just as well, and roughly reprise the mood and timing of the first two: the seventh and second-to-last track on the record, “The Owner’s Manual to the Universe, Chapter III: Celestial Mapping,” is a more fast-paced sort of slow-building synth track like the album’s opener but could also easily be off "Dark Side of the Moon." he album’s closer, “Practical Applications in the Metaphysical,” bursts into melodic noise much like “The Surface” did to open the record. But this time, in “Practical Applications,” with the record closing, a wailing, stirring theremin accompanies the guitars and bass as they bring the album to a climax.

Although "Hymns of Mare Nostrum" is full of great guitar and drum parts, it is arguably the keyboards and electronic sounds that make this record. Songs like the album’s centerpiece, “Wave Goodbye to the Shoreline; Hello Giant Squid” would not build nearly so well without the album’s recurring ethereal electronic sounds and rhythms. Most records with guitar and bass and drums feature that rock trio as a musical default, every song built around the same loud, brash instrumentation. By using a wealth of electronic music and synth influences and saving the distortion, bass, and rolling drums for climatic songs and moments in the record, the album’s big moments are even bigger and more satisfying. Quiet moments and a slow build can be much more satisfying than an hour of noise.

If you share an interest in this refreshing new Montgomery-area record, it is available for purchase for less than $8 at music.hailthetitans.com/album/hymns-of-mare-nostrum. The band will be performing live locally on September 30 at Prattville’s Blue Iguana, on October 14th at the Tipping Point in east Montgomery, the next day at Tuscaloosa’s Green Bar, the 21st at the Nick in Birmingham, followed by shows in Atlanta and Mississippi followed by a November 12th show at the Capital Oyster Bar in downtown Montgomery, celebrating the 1st anniversary of the opening of the Organic Hippie. More information can be found at http://www.hailthetitans.com. - Capital City Free Press

I should specify up front that I had little clue what I was getting into when I sat down to listen to this album. It was an instrumental – that much I knew – but I was in the dark as to any particular genre. Amazon has the album listed as ‘Alternative,’ which really is really just saying, “Well, it has guitars…”

After listening to the album, I also have a hard time classifying Hymns of Mare Nostrum. A lot of the album is broody, ethereal music truncated by moments of frenetic rock. There are hints of many bands/genres throughout the album; on ‘The Surface,’ a light, bouncy guitar and drum combo creeps in that brings to mind the early work of The Smashing Pumpkins, and ‘Cesium’ recalls the later sound of Tool. There are many more references and influences recognizable on the album, but everything blends together to make its own sound.

One of the potential fallacies in making instrumental music is that it can sound lazy, as if the musicians just didn’t feel like writing lyrics or just couldn’t (which is probably worse). Trent Reznor, no stranger to making effective instrumentation, called “The Fragile” his “beautiful failure” because he always intended for the majority of his instrumentals to have accompanying vocals. Hail the Titans do not hit this pitfall on Hymns of Mare Nostrum. Many metal bands use instrumentals to convey a theme or story (Metallica’s ‘The Call of Ktulu’ or Unearth’s ‘Big Bear and the Hour of Chaos’ come to mind), and the Titans are doing the same thing.

From the opening ‘The Physical Limitations of Nonlinear Waves in Motion’ to the closing track ‘Practical Applications in the Metaphysical,’ there is a consistent and building theme, separated into two parts by my favorite track, ‘Wave Goodbye to the Shoreline; Hello Giant Squid.’ It’s an 11-minute opus whose first half serves as the closer to the trance-like, slower section of the album, with the second half being introduced as heavier, faster, and overall more active. I think of it a the difference between looking up at the stars and actually travelling to them, but perhaps considering the track title, I should think of it more as departure from the safety of land to the open seas. Either way, it’s a great track that warrants its length. Also, I’m fairly certain they recorded themselves putting up silverware for the middle part, which is pretty entertaining.

I loved this album and the strange directions the Titans explored; I do, however, have a couple of complaints. First, The Physical Limitations of Nonlinear Waves in Motion could lose at least two minutes with no negative effects, and would probably draw me in better if it were shorter. Second, Wave Goodbye to the Shoreline; Hello Giant Squid has unique parts that work together, and it functions obviously as one song. The Owner's Manual to the Universe, Chapter III: Celestial Mapping and Practical Applications in the Metaphysical would also function better as a single song, as they are thematically similar.

And the drums! There are some wonderful and interesting drum patterns on this album, but they are hard to make out. The drumming seems under-produced; I expect a crisp, clean, pop to the drums, but they sound a little muted. The playing of the drums is fine—I just wish they had been brought a little more to the forefront.

My final complaint is directed at whoever is naming the songs. Good god, man. There is kitschy and interesting and funny, and then there is too much. It feels like the song naming was done by someone trying really hard to be ironic, or by someone who has honestly never even heard of the concept of irony. I’ll admit, the songs titles actually fit very well with the songs, but The Physical Limitations of Nonlinear Waves in Motion would have been just as effective if it were The Physical Limitations of Waves. And this review wouldn’t be 694 words long!

Also, one suggestion: Use a triangle. It might sound like I’m being weird or joking, but I could really see a triangle (or some other high-pitched percussion) fitting in well. - Wasteland Tribune

I remember talking to the members of Hail The Titans a few months ago as they were completing their new album "Hymns of Mare Nostrum."

The members -- Wes Andrews, Trey Baldwin, Josh Carples and Adam Davila -- talked about their love for sonic layers, noise and a sound that is "overwhelming."

All of that can be found in large doses on the album.

Hail The Titans seem to put everything they had musically and everything they could get their hands on physically on the album. There's a barrage of different styles and tempos on "Hymns," and one song includes what I think is a tape recorder being turned on and off.

It's one thing to blur the lines between genres; it's another to crank up the sound and blow them apart.

The album's first single "Cesium" at times fits nicely into the space-rock category with a cool, trippy guitar riff. Not staying there for long, it eventually descends into an all-out thrashing madness.

The eight songs on "Hymns" have a certain drama to them. Not bad-TV drama, but they tell a story. The instrumental album's songs don't have verses so much as phases or chapters.

"Wave Goodbye To The Shoreline, Hello Giant Squid" is a good example of this.

The song has a nice flow at the start, with a bass line sort of groove to it and guitars that bob along. At about the 31/2-minute mark the song shifts into synth and fuzz, what sounds a bit like a sax, bongos and more fuzz. This goes on a bit long, until about the seven-minute mark. Then, perhaps heralding the arrival of said giant squid, pounding drums kick back in with pulsing bass and growling guitars. It may be their most heavy-metal moment on the album. Eleven minutes in, "Wave Goodbye" sends you off with the tape recorder sound.

The varied sounds of the opener, "The Physical Limitations of Nonlinear Waves in Motion" and "The Owner's Manual To The Universe, Chapter III: Celestial Mapping" are interesting and fall into the area of the band's use of noise. But they are overshadowed by the rest of the album. "Limitations" is relaxed with a pleasant feedback that does have the feel of waves or whales swimming in the deep blue. "Owner's Manual" seems to capture what a strobe light would sound like.

Where the band really shines is in the way the songs build as they progress.

"The Surface" starts out with a nice rock sound, flows into an atmospheric feel over a tight snare and back into a pounding drum with choppy riff. They slow things down to bring it back to soaring heights. The drums sound great on this one.

While "Surface" starts out fast, "I Am Become Death" begins with a beautiful, haunting keyboard melody. The drums and guitar come in later, adding more and more. The pace quickens, and the song transforms into a heavier and darker tale.

The closer, "Practical Applications in the Metaphysical" is where they bring it all together. The noise is front and center over crunching guitar and drums. The song pulls back with an atmospheric guitar and marching rhythm. It builds back up toward a heavy close, but shifts to a pinging techno beat. If I had to play one Hail The Titans song for someone to try to sum up the band, this might be the one I would play.

Hail The Titans have put together a great album, full of fantastic sounds and unexpected directions. As I listened to it in the car and in the office, I got various nuances during different listens. You pick up a lot more through earphones, of course. The songs work as background sound and reward more active listening with their many layers.

"Hymns of Mare Nostrum" is worth a listen, many times over. - Montgomery Advertiser

MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- The full-length Hail the Titans album "Hymns of Mare Nostrum" will be officially released at the band's performance Aug. 26 at Head on the Door in Montgomery. Hellakopta of Love will open the show, which begins at 10 p.m. There is no cover charge.

The album showcases the many musical layers of the band, which is made up of Wes Andrews, Trey Baldwin, Josh Carples and Adam Davila. There are many rock subgenres that could be used to describe it - post rock, progressive, ambient, experimental - but it seems rather difficult for people to nail down specifics.

Their live show encompasses the standard instruments you would expect from a rock band - guitars, bass and drums, but this four-piece brings in synthesizer keyboards, extra drum toms, a tambourine, theremins and sometimes even a whamola.

The album itself includes much more than that. The song "Wave Goodbye to the Shoreline; Hello Giant Squid," which clocks in at over 11 minutes, includes many additional layers of noises, including a metal shopping cart, live birds, a Jeep ignition and lots more.

"We wanted the recording to capture the energy of a live show," said Davila, "but we also wanted to be able to experiment with sound while in the studio."

"Cesium," the album's first single, has been streaming online and has gotten some radio play. It can be heard locally on WXFX 95.1 the Fox.
While these four musicians have been performing for some time in different bands, Hail the Titans is relatively new.

"Our first show was on Halloween last year," said Carples. "At that time, we didn't even have a band name."

Since that Halloween show the band has recorded and released a demo, recorded "Hymns of Mare Nostrum" and performed all over the Southeast, including opening shows in Birmingham for Jucifer and Maserati, playing a Mogwai after-party in Atlanta, and last month, performing at Alley Bar for the official Bullrun Rally when it stopped in Montgomery.

The band has been busy to say the least, but as Andrews says, "This is just the beginning."

"We've put a lot of work into this album," said Baldwin. "We're excited to release it."

The album was recorded by Chris Lantrip at Headless Dinosaur Recording in Montgomery. It was mastered by Jamie Uertz at Sarcophagus Studios in Opelika.

Two area artists brought out the visual aspect of the music. The cover and back art is a piece by Winfred Hawkins, who is the bassist for Hellakopta of Love. The inside and disc showcases an octopus drawn by Kevin Sanders.

"Hymns of Mare Nostrum" will be available for purchase at the Aug. 26 show, at Organic Hippie on Vaughn Road, as well as online through CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon and many other online retailers. - AL.com

There comes a point in every writer’s life when she realizes that there is someone out there who can write and describe things better than she can. Okay, not just one point, but many points, but I digress. In the case of this band, I cannot do better than the review given to them on their Facebook page by the owner of the Squeaky Lizard where they performed this past weekend. The review, as seen both on Hail the Titan’s FB page, as well as on their blog (as written by frontman Josh Carples), is epic.

“Watching Hail the Titans play is like Epic Meal Time for the ears. Wes keeps throwing out bass lines like it’s bacon fried bacon, wrapped in bacon and topped with a bacon marmalade with bacon bits. Adam makes you wonder if he is playing a guitar, stuffed inside another guitar, with an even smaller guitar pan seared and marinated in a Jack Daniel’s sauce inside of that one. Josh holds everything together like a meat glue, made of pork, beef, chicken, fish, and therakeytardrumbarine. And Trey on drums can only be described as “Cham Pow” tastic. There is no point in asking how many calories your ears intake during a Hail the Titans show – because numbers dont go that high.”

*clears throat* That being said, I shall attempt to create a review at least half as clever as that… Attempt being the key word…

To give you an idea of just how good this band is, the first time I tried to see them, I couldn’t get into the bar because it had gotten to full capacity at least 20 minutes before the show began. I’ve been to several shows around Montgomery and Prattville, and this was the first time I’ve seen a bar get so full that people are standing outside to listen! I made sure that this past week I got to the Alley bar WELL before the band was to start. And it’s a good thing, too. As soon as the first notes of Josh’s guitar began to hum through the air, the crowd rushed the stage. If I hadn’t already moved close to it, I’d have had no luck getting close enough for pictures.

The sound of Hail the Titans pretty much defies definition. The above genre listing comes from their site on the SoundCloud. Those first notes as they began their set, as each member came onstage one by one, lulled the audience in, drawing them to the stage as if they had some magical power. And then, when the four member band was gathered, the sudden sound that issued forth… You know in cartoons where they show characters literally being blown away by music coming from the speakers? Yeah, it was like that. I can’t remember the last time when that force and passion of music came over me so suddenly that I was left gasping for air. Saying that it was powerful doesn’t quite do it justice.

Their music coursed through me like the pounding of my own heart. It was natural, pure and raw. It takes firm hold of you. Just when you think it’s slowing down enough to release you, it pounces on you again, pulling you deeper under its spell. By the time the set was finished, and it wasn’t that long of a show, maybe an hour and a half, I felt as though I had run a race. Which, considering the calorie count described by the Squeaky Lizard, that is a good thing. This is music performed by men who are as passionate about their music as I am about my writing. Hail the Titans manages to not only reveal this passion and desire in their music, but to make the audience feel the same way about it. That, my friends, is a mark of a true musician in my book.

Judging from the current Billboard charts, Hail the Titans won’t be for everyone. There are no catchy lyrics (no lyrics at all) to find yourself singing in the car or shower. Their music shows that lyrics are unnecessary to make music good. If you like instrumental music, if you’re sick of vapid “all about the image and not about the music” music, or if you want to hear something different, something that will resonate within you, then you really must check out Hail the Titans.

And what luck! Their first album will be released soonish!

Also, keep an eye out here! At the end of the month, I will be posting the interview I had with them! - The Local Scene

Perhaps the quickest rising genre of music, while there was a time not too long ago when you could count on one hand the number of must hear instrumental bands, these days it’s become pretty hard to keep up with how many vocal-less exist. Montgomery, Alabama’s Hail The Titans are one of the up and coming instrumental bands who have one very noteworthy seeming contradiction to their lyric-less music: all members of Hail The Titans have provided vocals for their own songs or other band in the past.

Well, setting aside each members talent for singing, the band realized early on this was a path that clicked in a purely instrumental avenue, the 4 members all contributing a portion of this experimental, ambient, and progressive noise rock amalgamation. Inevitably, all instrumental bands end up being compared to Mogwai or Explosions In The Sky, and though the gradual building and often epic soundscapes here certainly draw parallels to those greats, the atypical song arrangements and radiant prog moments bring the Mars Volta to mind, making this a highly unconventional, immediately engaging listen.

Technically proficient, yet still with a universally, easily accessible feel, the 8 tracks here are swimming in meticulous, creative and atmospheric post-rock with dynamic tempo changes. While a lot of contemporaries create this sort of sound with plenty of studio effects and clever knob turning, Hymns of Mare Nostrum has a very visceral, live feel, almost as if the band are playing right in front of you. Easily in a league with today’s most noted instrumental acts, Hail The Titans surpass the true test of timeless, immediate songwriting by penning an 11 minute song that passes without you even questioning the duration of the track ('Wave Goodbye To The Shoreline'). Available August 26.


- Tom Haugen
http://www.twitter.com/tomhaugen


For fans of: Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, The Mars Volta

Official Site: http://www.hailthetitans.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hailthetitans

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/hailthetitans - The Byke Rack