Review Summary: A tale of two albums
Dissonance
and fury: that pairing, an ugly harmony, is KEN mode’s unique selling point. For me, it’s this delicate balancing act that differentiates the Canadian four-piece from the twin-pools of noise and hardcore from which they draw their lifeblood. The narrow nature of their niche leaves little space for the winding 15-minute epics of the post- kids, nor do they deliver the pure pummeling of their more aggressive -core comparators; instead, they’ve built their own peculiar kingdom in the gloriously murky middle-ground, and
my god do they rule it.
NULL, by contrast, is more ambitious, seeking to tear down the walls of the band’s home and open up bigger, badder soundscapes to claim as their own. In this endeavor, regrettably, KEN mode may have gnawed off just a sliver more than they can chew.
Genuine, unfathomable
terror awaits in opener ”A Love Letter”: a mangled, heinous, hellish
terror told through the jerking language of drum kicks, chainsaw riffs and tortured horns. It’s a meaty, gnashing
monster of a track, providing the booming blueprint that album highlight “Lost Grip” builds on brilliantly.
“I don’t believe that you mean well” decries frontman Jesse, nightmarish keys and distortion groaning around him, coalescing delightfully in a true testament to the extreme heights that the band’s demonic songcraft can achieve. What, then, is to be made of “Not My Fault”: a sad, fizzling
almost-song that starts nowhere and goes nowhere. That a tune so tepid features on the same record as the aforementioned monoliths is baffling, as can be said of the foreboding closer, “Unresponsive”. The LP’s swansong thumps and scrapes its way through blunt, circular motions before fizzling out, flaccid, its initial potential unrealised. The essential
fury - that
ugly harmony - just isn’t here; in its place, a lackluster, noncommittal sonic collage that sounds like an intro to a superior song that doesn’t exist,
not the epic conclusion the record’s opening moments promise.
Things remain uneven as the record lurches into true
Kill Everyone Now mode. Save for “Throw Your Phone in the River” - an adrenaline-fuelled Converge-ian
thumper -
NULL’s heavier motions also lack the band’s typical zing and snap. “But They Respect My Tactics” is a monotone mildew mush, grunting and chugging in all the right ways, but lacking the dynamism that gave the barnburners of
Loved their essential staying power. Things improve with “The Desperate Search for an Enemy”, layering in strangled brass and devilish drum-work two thirds through, only for the track to shudder to a halt as things get interesting.
Unexpectedly, then,
NULL is actually
TWO:
two tones,
two grades of quality,
two albums. One exhilarating, the other mediocre - it makes for a beguiling listen, as both the pinnacle of the band’s evolution and a fractured fall from grace. The more reserved, atmospheric leanings that give its best cuts their colour seem, also, to strangle the flame that brings their niche fusion of genres to life. It is, I’m sure, a stepping stone, for an album of
NULL’s best ideas would surely hit levels of nightmare-fuel matched only, in recent memory, by the likes of Daughters’ 2018 opus. For that (I hope) inevitable conclusion, I await,
giddily; until then, all that’s left is the half-empty void of
NULL.
