Getting Into Of The Only Exception: What You Need to Know
Of The Only Exception is an American post-hardcore band from Chicago, formed around 2007. They released four studio albums on Sumerian Records before going on an extended hiatus. If you are looking for their music, you might run into some confusion because their catalog isn't as straightforward to access as some other bands. The band consists of Brian Stallman on vocals, Alex Gandolfo on guitar, Andrew Gargano on bass, and Dan O'Leary on drums. Their debut album, Captain, I've Sunk Another Ship, dropped in 2009. It's the one most people start with. Tracks like "Loud Pours" and "It Isn't Fair" got some radio play in the post-hardcore scene around 2010 to 2012. Their second album, Magnets, came out in 2012 and showed a noticeable shift toward a more polished, alternative rock sound. Tides followed in 2014, and their last release, Ways to Lose It All, came out in 2017 before the hiatus kicked in. Here is the practical issue: the band has been inactive since roughly 2018. There has been no official announcement about new material. When you search for their music on streaming platforms, you will find it available on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. The catalog is complete across all major services. No tracks are region-locked. That is one positive thing.
I ran into a specific problem a couple years back trying to get high-quality files of their later material. The-band camp's SoundCloud page was taken down sometime around 2019, and several demo tracks and B-sides that used to be floating around as free downloads simply disappeared. I spent about an afternoon digging through Wayback Machine snapshots and old Reddit threads to recover two tracks from the Tides sessions. If you want those versions, your best bet now is Archive.org or the Wayback Machine cache of the band's old SoundCloud URL. No official reupload has happened.
Where People Usually Look for Downloads and Why It Gets Messy
You will find Of The Only Exception on every legal streaming platform. Sumerian Records still holds the master rights, so the catalog hasn't vanished from any legitimate service. The band does not appear to sell direct downloads through Bandcamp or their own store currently. If you see third-party sites offering MP3 or FLAC files for free, those are almost certainly unauthorized uploads. I would not recommend using them. The audio quality on those is inconsistent - I have seen some rip files that are 128 kbps disguised as 320 kbps, and the stereo imaging gets messed up on the remastered versions of Magnets. For actual listening, the Spotify version of Captain, I've Sunk Another Ship is fine if you are on the free tier. The paid tier gives you offline downloads within the app, which is how most fans in my circle listen to the back catalog. Apple Music users get the same album in their library with no issue. Tidal has the full discography in HiFi resolution if that matters to you. One thing nobody really talks about: the vinyl pressings of Tides are harder to find than the earlier records. The 2014 pressing ran through Sumerian's standard distribution, but they stopped restocking it after the hiatus started. If you want a copy, check Discogs. The average asking price right now sits around $25 to $40 depending on condition and pressing variant. The 2009 debut pressing is more available and usually cheaper, around $15 to $25 on the secondary market.
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What to Expect If You Are New to the Band
The early material leans heavily into the mid-2000s post-hardcore sound - breakdowns, screamed verses, clean choruses. Magnets is where the songwriting gets more mature. The production is cleaner, the structures are less formulaic, and Brian Stallman's vocals range further. Tides is arguably their strongest work sonically, though it split fan opinion at the time. Some wanted the heavier direction of the first album back. Ways to Lose It All is a mixed bag - a few solid tracks but overall it feels like the band was already winding down creatively. If you want a starting point, begin with the track "Loud Pours" from the debut. It represents the band's core sound well. Then move to Magnets and listen to "The World Is Big" and "Hold Me Close." Those two tracks show the direction they were heading before the hiatus. The band has not announced a reunion or new music. Rumors surface every year or two on forums and Reddit, but nothing has materialized. The members have moved on to other projects. Daniel O'Leary has done session work, and the rest of the lineup has largely stayed out of the public eye. That means the discography as it stands is likely final unless something changes, which probably won't.
Search for their albums directly on your preferred streaming service. There is no centralized download hub from the band anymore. The official links all route back to the same four studio albums across Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal. Avoid the unofficial file-sharing sites - the audio quality is unpredictable and there is no guarantee the files are complete or properly tagged.
