One of my favourite hardcore bands are releasing a new album soon!
KEN mode have been responsible for some of my favourite hardcore songs since I dabbled into the genre. I fucking foam at the mouth at the mere mention of this band. Their release of Venerable in 2011 was completely solid, and my second favourite heavy release of that year next to Trap Them’s Darker Handcraft, both of which, I believe, shat on Mastodon’s ‘The Hunter’ (or at least in terms of band direction… their past two albums were so much better).
Besides that, the opening track off Mennonite “Extending Common Courtesy Throughout The Evening’ is one of my favourite songs ever (despite the album being a disappointment in my eyes). Reprisal, their second album, is incredible from start to finish and really mixed up the song structure in a way that you don’t get with typical hardcore albums. Their first album, Mongrel, was pretty decent too with a unique mix of noise rock and epic progressions that sounds like what I’d call ‘opera-core’.
Entrench will be KEN mode’s 5th release. Apparently Matt Bayliss who was responsible for recording albums for Mastodon, Botch and Isis has done the recording for this album, along with Dave Verellen from Botch and now Narrows doing some guest vocals which should be sweet, along with a guy called Tim Singer from bands Deadguy and Kiss it Goodbye… but I haven’t heard of them yet.
Anyway, I’ll drop you links to my favourite tracks from their past four releases, and a live video with a track from their upcoming album. Enjoy! Also Pitchfork has got access to a properly released track. It's Here.
And the ticket prices are 20 bucks for the Canberra gig!
These guys play a strain of high speed psychedelic rock. Maybe like Tame Impala on crack?
Any rate though, their 2011 release of Carrion Crawler/The Dream was pretty amazing in my book. Fast, energetic, absolutely dirty fucking guitar work coupled with machine gun drum rolls and had this sweet old surfie psych vibe to it. It was planted in many top 100 album lists for that year. Putrifiers II, which they released in 2012, was probably better constructed and was definitely a more ‘conventional’ album but lacked that filthy sound that made me love CC/TD so much. Still got reviewed very well though.
Like I said, 20 bucks. It’ll be sexy and electric. Just do it. What’s the alternative, sit around at home on a Monday night complaining how long and boring the rest of the week is going to be? Oh sounds wonderful.
February 11th at Transit bar! Be there or be shit!
Thee Oh Sees - Soul Contraption/Desert Runs for: 5:21
Jesus Christ, so filthy. Wait for the guitars and the drums to kick in and oh my god.
Also, while we're on the topic of tours, Mount Eerie are hitting east coast Australia like... now. Completely different band but check out the deets at http://www.pwelverumandsun.com/.
Doing a bit of trawling over the internet whilst bored at work (as I do) and I came across this gem of a website.
http://unwoundarchive.com/
It’s been set up by the band themselves. I put an enquiry through to the site to try and find out if there’ll be a section about what the ex-members are doing now and got an email from Justin Trosper himself saying that he might put up something on the site. Stoked to hear from him actually, The guy’s a bit of a hero in my books and I’m looking forward to hearing more out of his new band ‘Survival Knife’ which (from memory) sounds like a good sort of garage rock/post-hardcore revival. Youtube that shit!
The site has a lot of cool stuff related to the band on it. One of the flyers I liked came from a show in Germany in ’94 and had some pretty wicked artwork of people walking by what looks like a prison camp wall. Besides this they’ve got all sorts of cool stuff like a mildly amusing food diary from their tours, timelines of their gigs, old interviews from articles, photos and all sorts of other interesting stuff. If you’re a fan of the band, or just want to kill a bit of time at work I’d recommend checking it out before your fuckhead networks department drops a filter on the site so you can’t check it at work.
Last year I decided I’d try to get into a couple of new styles of music. I tried Jazz, and it sucked. I tried black metal and realised I’d have to be 15 and trying to look edgy to high schoolers to get into it so I left it alone (why bother with black metal when sludge is far superior? SUCK IT METALFAGS). I tried the blues though and thoroughly enjoyed it! I expanded my music library greatly and learnt a few new things on guitar as a result.
This here is a quick list of blues songs you can listen to if you’re looking to get an appreciation for it. I personally prefer delta blues over electric blues, just because there’s a certain bare-bones aesthetic to delta blues that most electric artists I’ve come across seem to lack. Albert King is the exception to the rule though.
Son House is easily my favourite artists due to the fact that his mastery of the guitar is such that most songs he did on the father of the delta blues compilation had a real sort of solid soundscape behind the music that makes it sound like more than one instrument is at work. He experiments with a lot of musical styles as well – outside of his powerful blues tunes, there’s also elements of gospel worked into the album. The whole thing is like a hearty musical stew! Along with this, Son House was apparently a massive influence on Jack White of The White Stripes. Bit of trivia there for you.
John Lee Hooker is probably my second favourite. I’ve got to admit, while I love his voice to death, I get it confused sometimes with the voice of Muddy Waters – but Serves You Right To Suffer is probably my second favourite blues album that I own. It’s electric but doesn’t go over the top with it like I feel some of the other blues musicians I’ve got into do.
Another favourite is Mississippi Fred Mcdowell. His music is the perfect example of the kind of intimacy that you can only get from the delta blues – that single guitar working up all kinds of magic. Lots of really obscure sounds coming from (what I assume to be) decent slider work.
Anyway enough of me crapping on. Here’s a few songs for people looking to get into the blues.
Son House - Death Letter
John Lee Hooker - It Serves You Right To Suffer
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Kokomo Me, Baby
Albert King - Personal Manager
Just for the record I pretty much just snapped up any Youtube video I saw on the list. I don't know if they'll be perfect quality. Sorry!
All heaped into one. Fucking brilliant start to the album and the song ends like a catastrophic thunder.
This album has been in my library for some time and I’ve come to hold it in regard as an album of potential. The band is unfortunately no longer together but had they kept on going and continued with the stronger sounds on the album, they might have made the best sludge metal release since EVER.
So what makes this album good? The band managed to create this incredible climatic feel. From the word go, the album hits you with a brooding then thundering intro, rolled on to the first proper track Nayeli. Even then by the end of that song it builds up into this incredible tremolo, thrashing out a thundering end. ‘Emma Peel’ also has a brilliant rolling riff at the start and finishes with some nice droning segments mixed with sung lyrics sometimes employed by neo post-hardcore acts.
The vocals are very grindy. There’s a shriek being employed here rather than a bellow and I’m not sure if that works to its advantage. You get used to it over time and I believe its unique and complements the album nicely in the long run, but I can’t help but wonder how good the album might sound with more traditional roaring hardcore/metalcore vocals, or even a backing vocalist employing this style.
The final tracks on the album leave something to be desired as well. They drag on a bit and don’t really offer the atmosphere or climatic display that we get on the earlier tracks. The worst part about these tracks probably lies in the instruments seeming relatively uninspired. For the rest of the album, we get a powerful display of mixed noises and technique, something that’s really individual and puts the band apart from other sludge metal acts. Their sludge riffs and composing set these guys apart from a lot of other bands in the scene, but for the end of the album to put the brakes on this and bring it to a halt was a bit disappointing. Not to say that the final track, ‘Land’ was a bad finisher at all, the album wraps up very nicely with a slower, droning track that takes the heat off the rest of the album.
Overall, I’m a little gutted that the band fell apart before we got to see another album out of them. This one is a bit of a gem in my library and while it’s not my favourite – it’s definitely something I’d recommend to anyone dabbling in sludge metal. I know I’ve painted out a lot of the negatives of the album, but what is good here is REALLY good… nearly groundbreaking. It’s very difficult to find sludge metal of this calibre or distinctiveness, that alone should be reason for you to listen to it.
Reccomended for: People who liked Tempest, fans of early Isis. Also –corewhores.
Time To Burn - Isle Of Men
Runs for: 2:51
Instrumental track that really highlights the band's musical strengths.
Smooth track. Completely love the bassline even if it's a bit simple, plus it's got a definite feel to it.
This album has been a real grower on me. Their previous album, Exploding Head, was a pretty solid modern shoegaze/post punk-hardcore release and was a solid and noisy listen. Worship, however, is a bit different and leans more towards the post-punk genre with a sound similar to that of The Cure or Joy Division. On top of this, the snappy drum work brings me to say there’s a similarity, ironically, to the band ‘The Drums’. However, the insane amount of noise, use of electric drums and calmed vocals make this seem like a perversion of all the previous bands, merged into one final brilliant product. Kind of like a noisier, faster At The Drive-In. Maybe.
A lot of the tracks on this album are powered by the drums and a distorted (flanged?) bass guitar. The guitar comes over it doing whatever the fuck it wants and on a rare occurrence, you’ll find it adding to the song! If I’ve got one criticism here it’s that the guitar has a tendency to trail off into noise-esque style riffs, although the lower range is quite relaxed and supports the music really well. It’s more the highs and the noise segments that throw me off, along with the high chord work over the low rhythm of the bass and guitar. In my opinion if the guitar was toned down more often and bought in line with the rest of the music, the album could be… different. Maybe more conventional and approachable, but I’m of the belief that they album’s noise work is a defensive measure. I’ll explain.
I started spinning this album to a mate of mine in the car on our way to a music festival. Honestly there’s something about this album that’s very catchy and interesting but it’s veiled by the noise sections. I think what the deal here is that you can either see this album as primarily a noise album with catchy hooks, or an indie rock album with noise segments – vice versa. I think unless you’re acquainted with noise music, it’ll probably be too difficult to digest. Besides this, the electric drum work in incredibly snappy and works well with an indie medium. The vocals are mellow and deep to a point where they sound nearly spoken. The bass works perfectly with the drums and pretty much backs the album.
Besides a few instances of subtle self depreciation, a lot of the lyrical themes seem to surround interpersonal relationships and the combination of those themes with the near spoken vocals seem to create this bizarre… I guess what you could call sexiness that isn’t dissimilar to themes that Queens of the Stone Age has emulated at times. Combine this with the music itself and it gives me the best two adjectives to describe the album – sexy and deranged.
The album isn’t for everyone, but if you learn to deal with the noise, you’ve got an incredibly solid album here with unique and interesting tracks. These guys are touring Australia soon but regrettably not doing a Sydney show (at least that's what I thought when I saw the tour release when I first wrote this... turns out they're at least doing a Canberra show - GET IN!). What’s more I’m broke. They’ve said in an interview that they prefer to push their amps to a level wherein the sound itself shakes both the audience and the musicians, creating a unique feeling. Does that sound like a good time? Fucking go to the gigs!
Reccomended for: At The Drive In fans, maybe Unwound fans, Future of the Left fans and anyone who’s down for some fast paced, decent yet alternative indie rock.
A Place To Bury Strangers - Why Can't I cry Anymore
Runs for: 3:39
Pretty raw and definitely a good indicator of their musical niche. Gets me pumped yo.
A Place To Bury Strangers - And I'm Up
Runs for: 3:46
They picked videos for all the good songs on this album didn't they?
They've made the record pretty diverse and this song should show that with it's kinda upbeat, poppy feel.
I'll sum it up below. There's something interesting and maybe groundbreaking here...
This one here scored album of the year in the mind of one of my good mates. We were having a beer or 4 at a pub in Hobart and upon returning to my home, I realised I had the album and might as well give it a spin.
What do I make of this album? The vocals are pretty sweet, deep, and have a very jazz/blues/spoken word vibe to it, making this album an interesting fusion of both that element and house music. The drums and drops are pretty decent, and get stronger as some tracks go along which sets a bit of a mood.
I guess what I don’t like about this album is that for the earlier parts of it, it’s just too slow. Some of the songs (Running) will take a long time to build up and peter out too quickly when the climax is reached. These earlier parts seem to be trying to set up a funk, but it’s not something that me as a listener can connect with. Tracks like this pop up a few more times. Sometimes, though he nails it and creates some really decent atmospheric tracks with dirty as shit sounds behind it – NY is killing me being a good example of this. These problems might simply boil down to taste though. I typically like my tracks either energetic, evocative or atmospheric and this album kind of evades what I’ve come to normally expect in house music.
There are other instances where the vocals bring to a head a strong, climatic feel, which perfects the fusion I was talking about previously. My Cloud is a great example of this. Good drums, bass, and those jazz/blues vocals floating over it turns what would have been a simple chilled house track into a proper song. It feels like it’s pushing a genre, a genius combination that should have been put forward before… maybe it has, I’m not sure… but it seems like a clever progression to create a song that can both have the electronic emphasis of house music with soulful and more traditional vocals – rather than the usual house method of just chucking in a woman singing the same lines over or a guy with vocal effects repeating a couple of phrases.
Outside of this, some of the drums and electronic work are slightly reminiscent of Radiohead’s more experimental work and I think listening closely, that should be apparent to most listeners. I say this mainly because the drums are snappy and have a certain click to it which feel very familiar, along with some of the floatier synths.
Overall I think the best way to describe this album would be ‘unconventional’. I don’t think it’s bad at all – it’s boundary breaking in places and I live for that - but I don’t know if I like it. I try my best to enjoy most styles of music, and while there’s definitely something here, I don’t think there’s enough for me personally to put this as an album I’d be listening to frequently. Still though it’s definitely got a good feel to it. Anyone who’s big on garage or dub should be pretty big on this album I believe.
