NGOD was (and is? q.v. Howl), in some sense, two different bands.
Originally, NGOD was a math pop band of the late
2000s/early 2010s Englishmath pop
scene, a scene that included TTNG, tubelord, Foals,
Colour, Tangled Hair, Fish Tank, Love Among The
Mannequins, Wot Gorilla?, and Vasco Da Gama, among others.
Think math rock, but in the style of pop-rock. All of the post-hardcore/math rock stylings are there, including punchy block
chords, complex time
signatures,
the occasional screamed/yelled/gang vocals, mixed use of
distorted and undistorted/clean guitar tones,
and intricate guitar lines. But all of this is wrapped up in
silky-smooth clean singing, grooves
that are often oddly danceable, and
intentionally catchy refrains.
Somewhere around – or so, NGOD must have had a change of heart.
Presumably inspired by the mainstream success of fellow
Englishmath poppers Foals,
and discouraged by the presumably poor earnings made from playing music in an
obscure genre, NGOD did an about-face away from their previously post-hardcore/math rock stylings towards a
straight-ahead and polished take on pop-rock. This landed them a record deal with
Sony, and their new music even made its way
into FIFA 17. They then changed their
name, rebranding to “Howl”. This was after having already
released music in the new style under the NGOD name, however.
Unfortunately, quickly after having a change of heart in or so, NGOD opted to expunge their previous
work from the internet, deleting their old bandcamp page and YouTube videos.
What remains of their old material (and some early demos of new material) is
provided here. It’s hard to call NGOD’s early material a
“staple” or “classic” of the math pop genre insofar as it is not very well-known; however, it comes highly
recommended (particularly the two officially released records, “XL”
and “Bait Head”) to anyone who is interested in math pop or likes math pop even a little
bit.
notes on the distributions
“[YouTube rips (2011)]” contains a collection of audio from old
NGOD YouTube videos (in no particular order), presumably obtained in
through the services of a
“YouTube-video-to-MP3” service or similar.
“[collected demos]” collects, in chronological order, the
post-“Bait Head” demo tracks recorded by the band. The dates on
these tracks span from to , and some of the tracks will give some insight into
NGOD’s later sound.
The second track off of “XL” (“Talk With Hands”) also
appears on the second Musical Mathematics compilation (“Second Time
Lucky”). This is reflected in the distributions listing.
![cover art for “[collected demos]”](collected-demos.png)
