Matt Fox does not write easy music. His creations are compelling, beautiful even, and yet so inaccessible. I have listened to That Within Blood Ill Tempered back to back over ten times these past years, and it seems only recently that I am getting it. Just load up “Scornful Of The Motives And Virtues Of Others” and understand how profoundly sensitive such a melody is in its opening minute. As a strange beast, Shai Hulud produces a kinetic and shockingly well conceived mix of technical prog and straight- ahead hardcore. Seriously, it seems like a bizarre union, for such protracted and off kilter time signatures to go hand in hand with youth crew d beat; and yet here it not only works, it crashes with devastating ICBM’s of emotional fallout. My God, the movements in “Let Us At Last Praise The Colonizers Of Dreams”… Soaring moments of bittersweet transcendence fall graciously out of the 4/4 template and jolt through rhythms that only compel you tear apart why such splendour could be so jarring. And yes, Fox is the chief architect of the melodic concepts at work here, but the fluid skins work and low end melody anchor from Matt Fletcher and Tony Tintari also lend the groove and feeling the treble deserves. The crucial delivery of Geert van der Velde interprets the lofty subjects from Fox’s pen and possesses veracity unmatched in the hardcore community. 2008’s Misanthropy Pure is a better album (and is under a vastly different line up) but Shai Hulud’s 2003 full length feels like my favourite. They operate as a band that can release masterpiece after masterpiece, allowing for such a dynamic that enables one to place their hopes, memories, and passions. As a reputable hive of talent, this band has spawned the likes of Zombie Apocalypse and even New Found Glory, yet the passion of all involved has been it’s most urgent on That Within Blood Ill Tempered. It is not easy, it is compulsory.
- Alec
Everyone has those pivotal albums they listened to in high school that formed the primordial ooze of what would eventually evolve to become their primary music tastes. Such is the case with this man / band, and this writer. Many moons ago, Danko Jones played at The Warehouse, opening up for The Tea Party of all people (a band that despite all their fans and detractors are curious in their ability spawn a fair amount of discussion amongst the musically inclined). While the main act proved to put on an interesting show, the opening act was hard to ignore.
The band is most definitely not without their talent. But space is of an issue here, so suffice it to say, this band is it’s own pure and distilled flavor of that rock-and-roll spirit we all seek to imbibe at one point or another in our lives. There are many pitfalls in the rock-and-roll life style…booze, pills, and all manner of debauchery that seek to bring down musicians reaching for excess success. Through out the entirety of his career, Danko Jones acts as if he’s managed to cut away that fat from his life with positive results. What’s left is a rawness of energy, experience, intelligence, and above all…swagger. An aggressive gait of rock and roll spirit that comes across in his shows so well that it is very hard to leave without having had even a modicum of a good time. Nowhere is this spirit more evident in his music than on the collection “I’m Alive and on Fire”, which pools together on one disc tracks from multiple EPs released between 1996 and 1999. While the band now practices a more polished and mainstream heavy-metal sound, back in the era of this disc, they were a bluesy garage rock that was hard not to be entertained by. Give it a listen, let it ooze into your brain.
- Gab
People – especially some Hearwaxers – are going to be mad at me for choosing a Converge album for Weekly Worship, when Nick has already done When Forever Comes Crashing. I agree that I (actually a large portion of HW) worship Converge maybe a bit too much, but You Fail Me is in dire need of praise; as an album placed between their highly regarded Jane Doe and No Heroes, it sometimes gets lost in the mix. This was certainly the case for myself for a very long time – You Fail Me was an album I would skip – not necessarily physically, but mentally – when listening to Converge chronologically. But now, this is the album I find myself relating to musically more than any other work in Converge’s discography.
As Hearwaxer Alec McKay mentioned to me once upon a time, You Fail Me is seemingly the one album that affected the sound of a lot of modern hardcore bands; Jacob Bannon‘s vocals are at his most visceral, Kurt Ballou‘s guitar playing is more streamlined than before (but still rarely sticks to one time signature), Ben Koller‘s drumming is astounding (this is his best work), and the breakdowns…my god, the breakdowns, are Converge’s best.
I regret not thinking much of You Fail Me for so long. Sure, I had listened to it just as much as any other Converge album, but I always used it as a transition from Jane Doe to No Heroes. Now, I find myself wanting to listen to this album over any other album in their catalogue. That is why I needed to do You Fail Me this week. I apologize to the staff and readers who are tired of seeing the name Converge all over this site. (But not really).
- Logan
Remember the 90s? I sure as hell don’t, which is why I had to spend my formative years on the internet sifting through back catalogues of little record labels to try and find all the stuff I was too young to recognize. Unless you’re growing up with parents or siblings who actively engage your musical interests by offering up new bands and tastes, you’re stuck with the glut of pop-diva, new-rock and mainstream hip-hop bull that the major label giants want impressionable youth to flaunt in front of their parents’ watchful wallets. It all works out, however. It’s by experiencing and moving past the big Bass that you encounter, abandon, rediscover, and rightfully appreciate the smaller trout. It started with The Hives. Then I listened to that Refused album. I dug a little deeper and discovered Crank! Records. I discovered Deep Elm. I listened to its back catalogues and Emo Diaries releases. I shelved them for fear of sounding like a pussy at hardcore shows. On the exterior I flaunted Earth Crisis and Hatebreed. At home it was Rites of Spring and Portraits of Past. I then discovered a little band called Knapsack and was blown away by its promise and capabilities. It helped me discover that a band can wear its heart fully on its sleeve while retaining a melodic hardcore edge. They weren’t really screaming and crying either, which made it a bit more reputable in my head. Finally, finally, I discovered a band from Sweden called Fireside.
Fireside haven’t released an album since 2003. You probably didn’t know that. Actually, a lot of people don’t really know who Fireside are. It’s a lot better this way. It’s like their fans form a small cult here in North America. Remember Quicksand? Take them and combine them with a little bit of Jawbreaker and some Hives thrown in for good measure and you’ve only scratched the surface of the greatness Do Not Tailgate contains. Try finding out about this album online. You’re not going to find very much. They’re a bit of an enigma. A post-hardcore, slightly emo-fied enigma that more people should listen to. You’ll be glad you did.
- Nick
If one took all their anger, desperation, and heartbreak, and threw it in a blender, the likely result would be Death Knows Your Name – an album that not only marked a transformation in The Hope Conspiracy, but stands out as one of the most powerful hardcore releases ever.
While Cold Blue resembled no less an expression of Hope Con’s sound, it simply cannot hold a finger to Death Knows Your Name, in that the latter was hardly just an album for the band – it was a journal written in bloody scrawl; running away from home; losing a loved one; the Gospel of Hope Con. It said all that it had to say with such passion and frankness, that it seems much more than just music.
It only takes seconds into “They Know Not” to realize that something has drastically changed in the band, as a quiet strum builds to an eruption of dissonant guitars, and Kevin Baker screams in agony of the “guilty fucking pigs”.
But the devastating “Stolen Days” steals the album, not only in its quality as a closing track, but also in its exposure of a new side of Hope Con. The track is very much what the title track is to Converge on Jane Doe, in the sense that one could seldom imagine a better ending, to such a remarkable musical journey. Unlike “Jane Doe” however, “Stolen Days” reveals a side of Hope Con that was never apparent before, in that with all the aggression displayed throughout Death Knows Your Name (musically, of course), the song displays an instance of vulnerability – and an instance is just enough to convince one of the underlying desperation at hand, that is clouded with anger until those last five minutes.
It’s not a cry for help, nor a lash of protest, but perhaps somewhere in between.
- Vuk
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