Reviews for August
Indie rock sandwich with unbridled hardcore filling
Maybe some astute readers will disagree, but I personally feel as if I can be kind of predictable with what I review. It may be a bit of a failing on my part to kind of talk about the obvious, bands that I’ve been a fan of for years and their new records which I’m bound to heap praise upon. So I’m a little bit proud of myself this month because there’s a bunch of stuff in here that is brand new to me and only a few of these bands I’ve talked about before. But this is what I’ve come across and what was holding my interest. So if you’re a regular reader this may all be new to you as well. I also sandwiched a whole lot of obscenely aggressive music between a couple weird indie bands. Deal with it.
PILE, “Sunshine and Balance Beams”
I’ve never been good at describing Pile. You would think after 9 albums I’d have it figured out, but they remain a singular rock band with their own unique way of writing music. The closest I feel like I’ve come is some slight resemblance to follow Bostonians The Pixies, if only in the way that guitarist/vocalist Rick McGuire can shift from a quiet yowl to a harsh scream suddenly while the nature of the songs also makes seemingly random shifts that are pretty and contemplative and also aggressive. It’s all I got for a comparison- Pixies if they were more morose and less quirky, but significantly more intense? In the trend of their last couple albums Pile continue to make use of some synth and strings here, mostly for background texture and it adds a nice quality to another album that is consistent in terms of quality. Lyrically I feel there’s a bit more of a theme between being born, growing and becoming a cog in a machine, and then passing into death. It’s a little sad. However, for me, the standout tracks are the heavier and plodding “A Loosened Knot” and the rallying cry against organized religion (at least that’s what I’m taking from it) of “Born At Night”. For those that never heard Pile you can drop in at most any of their records and then spend the next year repeatedly listening to all of them trying to figure out exactly what to compare them to and still come up empty. That, to me, is a very good quality.
MOVINGDIGGINGTEETH, s/t EP
There’s not a whole lot of information about this band aside that they’re from Florida, but I’m guessing it’s maybe dudes that have been around quite awhile and have some other known bands under their belt. Either way, I was drawn in by the artwork that just looks cool and dirty so thankfully the music was equally as cool…. and dirty. Definitely a lot of Infest love across the 4 songs on this demo as the band blasts through and leaves no time for looking back. Although their songs might be a tad longer than Infest and they aren’t afraid to incorporate some other elements- “Chain Of Hands” is actually slow for half the song and uses some, I guess you could say it’s melody, in parts while “Autonomy” is a step away from being a finger-pointing hardcore anthem. The entire demo is six minutes long. You have six minutes you can spare, give it a listen for cripes sake.
DEAL WITH GOD, “Hell Without Intermission” EP
Listen, you know I got a soft spot for some Central and Western NY hardcore. Or I should say ‘Hardcore” (capital ‘H’ intended). Deal With God have been bringing it for a few years now and this newest EP really shows their exceptional talent across two new songs and a Poison Idea cover. The first track “Gauze” is pretty much what you expect from the band at this point- a lot of Integrity worship between faster and slower parts with some soaring leads. It’s short and gets right to the point. The title track is next and explodes in a flurry of blast beats that give way to some slow mosh and a very pit-activating mid-tempo section that keeps it both savage and interesting at the same time with some excellent drumming. They close it out with “Gone For Good” by the legendary Poison Idea, a band that I’m honestly surprised anyone under the age of 40 would think to cover. But bless their grimey souls for following through and taking interest.
DIE LAUGHING, “Fingers Crossed”
As of now I’m pretty sure Die Laughing is the project of two people spread across the East Coast, but geography be damned, they went and cut an 8-song demo anyway. Their ripping fast hardcore takes the unique approach of straddling between short and punishing songs that often segue into more spoken-word sorts of tracks with background noise, or music accompaniment. So if you just want no-frills, ultra pissed-off hardcore punk they got you covered. If you want something a little different from that, but equally as challenging, the transition from “Immanence Dirge” into “Good Luck” is like Left For Dead laying up a Rollins spoken bit and back into some crushing heaviness, while “The Dawn Chorus” is more solemn in it’s cold and questioning delivery backed by a strange and uncomfortable soundscape. Get a little feisty, get a little brooding. You can have both with this.
BANN, “Neumann”
There’s not a whole lot of information to go with this release or this band. But here’s what I figured out- they’re from South Korea. They have a lot of guitar pedals. They’re really damn loud. To get an idea of what their music is like that’s kind of a tough thing to nail down as well since they cherry pick from multiple sources and blend it together for some mix of Pelican-sized riffs and epic melodies, Torche’s bountiful heaviness, Envy’s drawn-out screamo epics, maybe even a bit of some Melvins slow-and-low crawl (the first half of “Histrionic”). All of these songs are a bit long and the whole album is a solid hour, but it’s pretty riff-tastic all the way through. The vocals tend to be fairly minimal and buried a bit in the background, yet generally sung or yelled. Whatever the case, this is a beast of a release and kind of caught me by surprise.
CATHARSIS, “Hope Against Hope”
Break out your ‘Shoplifting Is Not a Crime’ t-shirts, bolt cutters, and poorly-copied Radical Gardening pamphlets…. Catharsis has graced us with another record. The band I once booked in a basement with The Movielife (of all bands) where they rolled up with at least 20 crust-hippie followers and took over the apartment kitchen to cook dumpstered cabbage and beans (or something), and petty theft in the suburb of Liverpool, NY probably spiked tenfold over the next 24 hours all got big tech and government jobs and now preach centrist politics and working class values. Just kidding. I have no idea if these dudes have jobs, even twenty years later. They’re still soundtracking the end of the world and hoping moss (or massive coronary failure) consumes every boss and billionaire on earth through epic metallic hardcore. It’s powerful stuff. They really haven’t missed a beat. Not sure if they ever truly went away, but they got a lot more quiet since the early 2000’s, though you can catch guitarist Jimmy Chang in Sect. Vocalist Brian Dingledine likely had to be extracted from a jungle hideout while it is claimed that drummer ‘Alexei played the entire recording encumbered by an ankle monitor.’ While their outlook is often bleak there’s always a glimmer of hope in their music (hey, that’s in the album title!), providing, of course, this entire system gets dismantled. Perhaps “Hope Against Hope” will encourage listeners both old and new to begin some of that dismantling.
SCARAB, “Burn After Listening”
Sometimes supposed ‘supergroups’ will get the stinkeye because it appears they get an easy pass based solely on their bona fides and turn out less than exceptional music. I admit, I checked out their demo based on the hype and I’d say it’s well-deserved. Hell, I like this more than the members main bands, which run the extreme music gamut from Devil Master to Seed Of Pain and Gridiron. Scarab has been described as Skitsystem meets Hatebreed and I’d say that’s pretty accurate. Across 8 tracks in all of 13 minutes this…. I don’t know, EP? LP?… churns out down-tuned d-beat hardcore with some blast beats and plenty of filthy breakdowns that have a proper build-up and placement rather than just lazy songwriting to instigate low-brow crowd reactions (or crowd-killing depending on what city and bills they’re put on). They’re a band that seems born out of the hardcore fest circuit, but seemingly bucking expectations and delivering something even more abrasive and harsh than one might expect. Maybe I’m reaching too far, or thinking too much about this. All I know is that I really like it.
DOG SKULL, s/t
First off, gotta love the name. Second, the cover art is so weird and disconcerting that when you put it together with the name…. well, I just had to listen. What I found was a band that parses a few styles into something that fits an overall aesthetic, but toggles between them enough to not feel like a one-trick pony. The overall feel of Dog Skull is a band that mashes up hardcore and Helmet-sized grooving riffs in a loose and noisey way that I think is pretty great. Throughout the nine tracks on here they shift from the more riff-oriented hardcore to a couple tracks in the middle that have a little more of a punk feel and tempo, to a couple other tracks that contain parts more akin to what bands influenced by Helmet did next in the more groove-oriented end of things.. but again, noisier. If Dog Skull, at any point during this record, opted for more sung vocals rather than the razor-lined bark on all tracks one could accuse them of dipping their toes into nu-metal nonsense. But the vocals keep them firmly grounded in the dirty and filthy end of grooving riff-worship with a hardcore mindset. Thank dog for that.
BELONGING, “Hollow Cells”
Having seen these Portland locals on a couple of occasions now I have to say I’m surprised at what I’m hearing on their first full length because it’s different than what I felt like I was hearing in the live setting. I guess I mistakingly lumped them in with the sort of gruff-punk/heavy rocking of Gainesville Fest type bands. And while I’m sure they’d go over great there this ain’t exactly that. It’s quite a bit more. Their sound is often slower, more brooding, and riff-centric. However, the standout track on this album- “Bonehead”- comes off like a more aggressive Jesus and Mary Chain, while “Longhaul” is like a Hum track sped up a bit and played by contemplative punx. The record comes in this rad silkscreened package that looks a bit minimalist, but I assure you, it looks really cool. Throughout this record you’ll hear elements of space rock and shoegaze, chonky rock riffs, psych rock, some soaring vocal melodies (“Birdcatcher”), pulverizing post-hardcore (“Buzzkill”), and probably a few more sub-sub genres I’m excluding. What I’m saying is, this is a pretty fun and engaging record to check out if you have ever enjoyed guitar-based heavy rock.
EDITRIX, “The Big E”
Editrix are such a weird band that I kind of surprise myself that I’ve followed them through all three of their records to date because by all accounts, they’re not an easy band to get into. But then you hear the catchy bits woven into their complex and twisty songs and suddenly it’s stuck in your head. I will say though, compared to their previous records “The Big E” is a bit more grounded at times. The first few tracks are what you’ve come to expect from them- both progressive and avant-garde, yet skittering and erratic, guitarist/singer Wendy Eisenberg’s vocals either matching the complicated melodies, or breathy, soft, and floating above the music to provide some sense of calm. It’s not until halfway point “No” where things take a turn as the song is a long and drawn out doomy epic, but altogether satisfying. The next pair of songs focus on rhythm, as complicated as it might be, but they carry the song without veering off-course and stick to a couple awesome and solid parts. The last track, “Slight Return”, is half Eisenburg playing solo and singing some sadness before the rest of the band kicks in and builds towards a boiling point before pulling it all back in again. I certainly appreciate Editrix for their bizarre takes and wild talent. However, I really like it when they can take complex parts and turn them into a repetitive earworm.