The Always Open Mouth

by Peter Aleksa

Since their 2003 debut Odd How People Shake, Fear Before the March of Flames has fast become one of the most respected and innovative bands in today’s hardcore scene. And with their highly anticipated third album, The Always Open Mouth, released September 19^th on Equal Vision Records, the band is poised to make some serious waves.

Fear Before the March of Flames has really created something unique with The Always Open Mouth, a dense sonic landscape full of haunting piano melodies, anguished screams, singsong vocals, spoken word samples, breakdowns, and ambient noisecore. The band has really broadened their sound on this album, layering a myriad of synthesizer parts, delayed guitars, and multiple vocals to create a dense, rich sound. And unlike some hardcore bands who just hold a few keyboard chords with the default settings on a Korg, the use of keyboards and piano is done astoundingly well on this album, blending perfectly with the host of effect laden guitar parts and driving bass lines, as the whole mixed media collage of sound is punctured perfectly by Brandon’s stabbing drumbeats.

As the band shifts genres at ADD speed, they seamlessly combine elements of a host of diverse musical styles to form something that sounds like many different bands, but like nothing else at the same time. Songs like the crushingly heavy “Drowning the Old Hag” and “A Gift For Fiction” offer a new take on the breakdown-driven sound Fear demonstrated on their last album, Art Damage. While sections of music like the electronic techno babble and catchy hooks of “My (Fucking) Deer Hunter,” which features guest vocals from Anthony Green of Circa Survive, and the odd timed grind and stoned out heavy metal of “A Brief Tutorial in Bachanalia,” similarly give an altogether familiar feel to the album. And yet, paradoxically, it is somehow unsettlingly different, like the way that people and places in dreams become distorted.

Lyrically, the album is a haunting tale, like stepping through the looking glass into a discomforting vision of a future gone terribly wrong. A nightmarish take on who we’ve become and who we are on track to become, the album abounds with themes of repression, apathy, greed, rampant materialism, drug abuse, and the disintegration of the modern family. On “Mouth,” the lyrics anguish about the lack of discourse in modern society, “Anything to numb/ anything to encourage ignorance/ anything to put us to sleep,” and later rant about our coddled existence and generational apathy, “Someone/ anyone/ take off your shirt/ and pacify/ make it easy for us to eat/ easy for us to sleep/ someone/ anyone/ take us out back/ and put us down/ I think we deserve it.”

There is also an excellent usage of unnatural imagery to unnerve the listener, such as in “Dog Sized Bird,” “Have you seen me lately/ I am the dog sized bird on the tracks/ I have an unhealthy handful of options/ and a couple of trains on my back.” The chillingly apocalyptic predictions in “Taking Cassandra to the End of the World Party” further the unsettling tone of the album, “At six miles up you will explode/ I can see it all/ at sea level you will be drowned/ I have seen it all/ beneath the surface the monster will have you/ I can see it all/ but God damned no one will believe me.” Such lyrics echo the dilemma of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, questioning whether, in a world predicated on certain illusions, being the only person able to see the truth would make you appear insane.

Some of the most insightful lyrics on the album can be found in the track “High As A Horse,” which examines our modern drone like existence, as we dull our senses with pharmaceutical dependencies and mindless television. Commenting on the systematic fleecing of the american public, Adam and Dave sing, “If we give the horses blinders/ they won’t see the approaching ledge/ too much time and effort spent on just another bridge.” And by accusing, “We trust the local doctor/ we trust the medicine/ our child gets a scratch/ we give our child a brand new head/ we eat what’s on our plate/ we drink what’s in our cup/ we like the shiny TV screen/ it spits/ we lap it up... There’s no need to talk/ when we have medicine/ there’s a pill for every fucked up thought/ and a cure for every fucked up child,” they capture perfectly our reliance on modern comforts to supplement unfulfilled existential desires as well as the epidemic of overmedicating American youth.

The high point of the album by far, though, has to be the brilliant two-song tandem of “Complete and Utter Confusion” and “...As A Result Of Signals Being Crossed.” Here, the band’s new blend of ambience and brutality is at its most stunning. In “Complete and Utter Confusion” vocals sweetly soar over a mix of piano, clean guitar, and electronic blips, “There’s a man from the afterlife/ at the door trying to sell us hope,” before brutal screams coming crashing down on the listener with, “Lock the doors/ and close the windows.” The song continues to alternate between sugary, dancey atmospheres and heavy rock, before finally fading out in a sea of feedback. Which, is where the companion track “...As A Result Of Signals Crossed” picks up, continuing the religious and salesman motifs of the previous track, as well as the masterful shift between beautiful instrumental arrangements and calculated brutality.

Throughout the album, the band makes use of repeated imagery and lyrics, such as, “What you see/ and what you believe/ are never going to be the same,” appearing in both “Drowning the Old Hag” and “...As a Result of Signals Being Crossed,” that help tie the album together into one big fucked up portrait. This is furthered by the continuity between the opening track “Absolute Future” and the closing track “Absolute Past,” with their repeated refrains of “Everything will not be made right.” The album artwork, designed by drummer Brandon Proff, features unsettling mashups of portraits of individuals, cityscapes, and productivity charts that embody the thematic elements of modern life encroaching on humanity that is representative of the overall tone of the album.

Pick up The Always Open Mouth now, it’s one of the most unique and rewarding albums in recent memory, and probably the only album you’ll find worth listening to in quite some time.

It’s A Pizza Party!

by Pete Aleksa

“We couldn't decide if we should stay in Chicago and keep eating pizza for the rest of our lives. But after two days of rigorous theory, we realized we had to write divine music about the pizza. We decided to drive home immediately and write and record a 5-song EP called ‘Pizza’ before Sounds of the Underground and Warped Tour started. God was there,” came the website explanation from HORSE the Band as to why they made an early exit from their recent tour slot opening for Gatsby’s American Dream and Portugal. the Man. HORSE fans, accustomed to the irreverent posts found on the band’s website, may have been surprised to discover that this posting actually spoke the truth. After leaving the tour, the band did, in fact, write and record an EP extolling the divine properties of this delicious modern-American dietary staple (no confirmation on whether or not God was there). Entitled Pizza, the CD-EP was released on September 5, 2006 with a limited edition vinyl EP, encased in a pizza box, to follow in the near future.
Musically, the Pizza EP is an oddly catchy amalgamation of hardcore, punk, synth pop, grind, and lo-fi electronica. The rhythm section remains rock solid throughout, while the keyboard serves up countless helpings of cheesy brilliance (oh god, the puns) and the guitar work, while not showy, is nonetheless impressive, providing an excellent counterbalance to the keys. Of note is the last thirty seconds of the second track, Crippled by Pizza (Pizzarrhea in the Pizzeria), featuring an odd timed riff played by a compressed guitar that is the most spectacularly strange section of music on the album. And, as played out as the comparison between HORSE’s music and various video game music is these days, I must mention one of the high points of the album are the eerie melodies found in the track Werepizza, reminiscent of the background music one would find in the NES-classic, Castlevania, or the B-horror scroller, Zombies Ate My Neighbors.
True to the bizarre nature of the album, the Pizza EP ends with a tongue in cheek cover of the beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song. While the comic rendition of the pizza-loving Turtles theme is a cleverly funny addition, and one that fits with the theme of the album, it ultimately does not bear repeated listens. After the initial run through I found myself skipping the track on subsequent trips through the album.
I’m not quite sure of what to make of the ongoing pizza leitmotiv. My enjoyment of this joke seemed to move in cycles, from the initial chuckle at such a ridiculous premise, to a growing annoyance with the joke, to a point where the joke had run on for such an unbelievably long time that I couldn’t help but laugh yet again. With the lyrics on the previous HORSE album, The Mechanical Hand, Nathan Winneke’s sometimes absurd lyrics were underlain with a certain innocence and vulnerability, at points displaying genuine emotional content and reflection on the dissociative state of modern society. On this new offering, however, it’s hard to make such a connection. Winneke makes use of some clever word play that is charming in its blatant simplicity, screaming on Werepizza, “Be aware/ or be a were/ werepizza.” If anything though, the real artistic statement of the lyrics lies in the decision to write about such a dispensable consumer commodity as pizza. Perhaps, in line with the band’s stated preference for “making incomprehensible statements beyond critique, like lots of artsy screamo bands,” a concept album about pizza is meant to function as an updated version of 1960s pop and camp art, with ironically passionate odes to pizza meant to mock the abundance of super-serious bands in the hardcore/screamo scene. Or maybe, they just really like pizza.
The most promising aspect of the Pizza EP is that the band demonstrates its growing ability to create well-developed songs out of a collection of seemingly discordant pieces. However, while there are moments of ambient brilliance, a handful of crushing breakdowns, and some genuinely evocative vocal moments, overall the EP functions much like its doughy namesake: as a quick and sometimes delicious diversion, but one that ultimately leaves the listener craving a proper meal. Still, it is ultimately well worth a listen, and I especially recommend it for HORSE fans in search of a snack to hold them over until HORSE’s next full length release, due out in 2007.

Okkervil River

by Pete Aleksa
If you have never heard of Okkervil River here is your chance to learn about this rising band before your friends do. Okkervil River is an up and coming indie-rock/folk band based out of Austin, Texas. The band is composed of songwriter/singer Will Sheff and multi-instrumentalists Howard Draper, Jonathan Meiburg, Travis Nelsen, Zachary Thomas, and Seth Warren. With their new album Black Sheep Boy released in April of this year the band is poised to make major waves and have already garnered critical acclaim, recently receiving a laudatory front page write-up in the New York Times Arts section (ed: I'm not linking, they'd make you pay to read it anyways) while touring with The Decemberists.
The new album begins with a cover of the Tim Hardin song Black Sheep Boy, from which it takes its name, and never looks back, carrying this concept of the Black Sheep Boy throughout the record. Constructed largely of neo-folk ballads, Black Sheep Boy may not be the ideal record to shake one’s ass to. There are however a few cuts that could get the crossed arms crew shuffling their feet, like the up-tempo dark pop pieces “Black” and “The Latest Toughs”. Together, the airy folk and orchestral pop weave a delightful phantasmagoria, blurred together by virtue of the album’s production, in which songs fade out into droning organs and static, and folksy acoustic melodies are underlain with white noise and field recordings.
Throughout the record Will Sheff’s voice quivers with emotion. Most impressive, I found, was Sheff’s performance on “For Real,” a song in which he alternates between the sublime melancholy of The Cure’s Robert Smith and a tortured wail evocative of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst or Neutral Milk’s Jeff Magnum. A style befitting to Sheff’s brand of wordplay. With an emotional tone that channels the existential yearning of Holden Caulfield, the album thrives on dark poetry and elegant prose passages that read like pages ripped from a storybook. In this capacity Sheff proudly displays himself as a champion of the literati. The band for its part orchestrates the songs beautifully. The wide array of instruments featured on the album—including acoustic and electric guitars, drums, bass, pump organ, mandolin, piano, and synthesizer, among others—adds a whole new dimension to the songs. Not to mention the way the band plays for periods of time with such incredible restraint only to burst forth with well-timed flourishes of accompaniment.
Fans of artists such as Bright Eyes, Neil Young, Neutral Milk Hotel, Elliot Smith, The Decembrists, or Iron and Wine are likely to find Okkervil River right up their alley. The band recently finished a slate of shows opening for Earlimart and will be opening for the rapidly rising indie-pop group Rilo Kiley in June; a gig sure to earn the band its share of hipster cred. Okkervil River’s Black Sheep Boy is released on the indie-rock label Jagjaguwar and I suggest you pick up a copy.

Circle Takes the Square: As the Roots Undo

by Pete Aleksa

Circle Takes the Square is an experimental emo/post-hardcore three-piece from Savannah, Georgia that consists of Drew Speziale on guitar and vocals, Kathy Coppola on bass and vocals, and Jay Wynne on drums and samples. With their chaotic drumming, spastic start/stop guitars, stoned out melodic passages, and male/female vocals that range from dueling screams and anthemic chants to cocky, singsong harmonies and soft, quivering whispers, Circle Takes the Square create a complex sound that blends the abrasive/chaotic styles the Blood Brothers and Daughters, the ambient instrumental styles of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and the indie-rock/emo sound of Bright Eyes.
Having already put out an EP and a 7” split with Pg. 99, the band just released its first full-length on Hyperrealist/Robotic Empire, As the Roots Undo, a romantic tale of life and death and everything inbetween.
An eerily whistled melody starts off the album, introducing the main musical motif that will reappear throughout the album in various forms on a number of instruments. The intro soon breaks into the shouted opening lines of the first track, “The Same Shade as Concrete”, a frantic collage of grind, indie-rock, and techno. Guitars and drums spazz all over the place before calming down for a danceable break that grinds into a folkish interlude. From there, the band fast descends into a barrage of metal riffage before introducing a electronic bass swell that soon becomes the beat for the crescendo.
“Crowquill” and “In the Nervous Light of Sunday” are masterful displays of metalcore and grind that the band keeps interesting by spicing them up with emo sing-alongs, dancebeats, and spoken word interludes that provide a short break from the chaos. The lyrics here are some of the best on the album, particularly on “Crowquill”.
The album then enters the calm, pretty section of the album in which the band displays their atmospheric side. The melodic, sample driven “Interview at the Ruins” reintroduces the main theme of the album, first on piano and then later as a vocal round to end the song.
“Non Objective Portrait of Karma” begins with a slow, dramatic instrumental buildup, full of droning melodies and elusive tones, that develops for nearly four minutes before the tension finally breaks and explodes into a full-out screamo assault, loaded with technical guitar riffs and grind drumming.
The album keeps this intensity for the grandiose two-track finale, which comprises a third of the eight-track album. The heavy “Kill the Switch” balances its craziness with brief interludes dominated by delayed guitars, spreading everything out only to have it come crashing back together. The final heavy breakdown descends into an ambient section that reincorporates the main motif and leads into the final track, the metal epic. “A Crater to Cough In” is a huge piece, building for nearly nine minutes before the album finally comes lyrically and musically full circle; a final chorus echoes the opening lines before the record closes with the same haunting motif that opened the album.
All in all the record is an impressively ambitious project that the band pulls off with remarkable skill. A rewarding album, full of layered intricacy that assures it won’t get old after a few listens.