After missing the last episode of Northern Outpost due to my summer vacation, I owe it to the NO crew and Speed’s The Name to expand my post this week to mention episode #12 alongside the headbang-inducing show that aired this week featuring the dudes in Empires (episode #13). Before diving into their own sets of mind-boggling, attention-grabbing experimental music, both Speed’s The Name and my friends in Empires discuss subjects ranging from the way they write their songs to the struggles of making a name for yourself in an oft-ignored Twin Cities music scene that seems to be filled to capacity with exceptional music artists in their respective interviews. Since there’s so much video to enjoy, I’ll keep it short this week; enjoy the double-header of local experimental rock and metal goodness!
through the thick and the thin. It’s honestly hard to believe that they held together long enough to record their last album Versions in 2007, a record that saw them step far outside the conventional confines of the metalcore sound which they had a huge part in originally pioneering; and it’s even harder to believe that their fanbase stuck with them through such mind-boggling changes. After all was said and done, the lucky ones who were still paying attention were left with one of the best progressive, post-hardcore albums in recent memory – a disc that is still growing on me to this day..
(The Crinn)
(Zebulon Pike)
(The Body Beneath)
(Ambassador Gun)
(Shellac)
sound that nearly always comes back to the ideas started by the genre’s pioneers in the early 90s. But while all these new cats on the block aimless try to make the “ultimate” death metal album, it seems unlikely that any of them will ever push the revered innovators in 
