Ever been scared? So damn petrified you didn't know whether to shit or go blind? Well, if you've ever lingered in that presence of mind, Excepter just might be your kind of group. To a distracted (or perhaps uninformed) mind, this is just more aimless noise from some city dwelling nutjobs with no interest in accessibility and a whole lot of time and inclination to fart around with splurchy sounds. To a curious mind, the plodding procession of drones and hissing percussive loops is like temporarily living in a dense cloud of nameless dread that thickens endlessly without culmination.
Halfway into the EP, you begin to feel like dissolving in your own coldsweats as you're drawn deep into Throne's interminable, dark, and daunting dementia. It may not be as scary as the soundtrack to The Shining, but it's still a pretty chilling place to be. The aloof listener may wax dismissive, but there is an undeniably cumulative power to Excepter's music. The rhythms may be slow and exceedingly repetitive, but they provide a solid bed for a horrific sort of mud trance that becomes oddly consuming after a minute or two. Excepter seems to be yet another underground band that will have to hit jaded music fans in just the right way to be effective. Perhaps they should play their shows (if they don't already) in haunted house-like atmospheres. There was an old abandoned college I used to hang out in that would've been perfect.
If they're inaccessible, it's only because they are not songsmiths. There's nothing on here that's going to stick in your head or keep you coming back for more. But if one were to have found Vision Creation Newson to be an ultimately palatable listening experience, Throne (or anything Excepter has released, for that matter) could be approached as its murkier, sludgier cousin. If tripping, Vision Creation would be for peaking while Throne would be for the big comedown. It'd be a somewhat menacing, torturous comedown, but an intriguing one nonetheless.
All in all, I'd highly recommend this CD for anyone who likes to be put on edge, only to tilt there for awhile; rapturously savoring the raw apprehension. It's not the best thing Excepter has put out (check out KA, if you haven't yet) but it's a promising release from an experimental group that's done a great job of carving out their own uncannily eerie sound from its treated vocals, synthesizer, and sampler ingredients.
1. Jrone (Three)
2. Jrone (Two)
3. The Heart Beat
4. (The Ass)
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