Review Summary: Purity.
Personally, I’ve never had much time for the musical divide known as ‘genre’. I always understood the necessity of categorizing bands so as they can have their own shelf in HMV, but I always viewed music as being a subjective medium, and thus, genre seemed irrelevant for a listener who simply likes music. ‘Genre’ as a term always seemed to cause more problems than it was worth. To many of the casual observers, any genres that are in the ‘metal’ genre and feature screamed vocals is known as ‘screamo’, and this is a label that is unfairly attributed to a wide variety of bands who have no relation to the genre whatsoever. My perception of the genre, 'screamo' manifest itself as an intelligent, emotional off-shoot of emo and hardcore, and when asked, I would always cite Swing Kids as a perfect example of this kind of music.
Writing heavy music that is both aggressively hard-hitting and intricate is no easy task, but it’s even harder to attribute valid meaning to such music as this. The presentation is usually to blame for flushing out any intended meaning and leaving the release, whilst still technically impressive, rather vacuous and unfulfilling (Dillinger Escape Plan's
Ire Works). Swing Kids, on the other hand, transmit emotion through every decibel; every palm-muted guitar string vibration and every pained yelp help to create an elaborate and intelligent musical journey. To describe the appeal of a release like this, one need look no further the example of art. Russian penman Leo Tolstoy said of art, ‘To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.’ Art serves its purpose by instilling feeling(s) in the viewer, and Tolstoy argued that it was the feeling the artist felt whilst creating the piece that ‘infects’ it’s audience with similar emotions. With the example of abstract art however, people will have differing opinions. To some it will look like nothing more than a mess; a streaky labyrinth of colour and shapes on a white background. To those who appreciate it, however, they will see and feel the emotion In every single brush stroke, every splatter, every drop of colour. Regardless of how haphazard a piece created as art is, every facet holds intentional meaning. This communication is present throughout the whole of
Discography, for those willing to embrace it.
Discography is an antsy, bizarre experience which draws from a number of genres, perhaps most unusually from math rock and grind. ‘El Camino Car Crash’, ‘Line 1’ and ‘Clean Shade Of Dirty’ are whirlwinds of atonality that are filled with hoarse yelling and surprisingly melodic refrains. The seemingly ‘messy’ nature of the riffing and musicianship as a whole masks the true intelligence of the writing, however, as every vocal tic and string pluck is perfectly synchronised with the tinny rattling of the drums, which keeps tempo amidst the chaos. ‘Warsaw’ demonstrates the band’s ability to play in a very grind-influenced style, but due to the music and vocals not being heavy enough, the result is pleasingly hardcore; a melodic but thickly distorted sound brought together by the playfully emotional lyrics. Perhaps the most triumphant song on the collection is also one of the shortest: ‘Situation On Mars’. A disquietingly minimalist piece that features the same repeated lyrics (‘We've seem to have lost all contact. All connections cut. Oh, Houston do you read? I can't breathe.’) set against the continuingly schizophrenic tune. As the vocals become increasingly frantic though, the true hopelessness becomes expressed through the sound itself, the tune descending into a repetitive vortex of quiet terror. At a minute and a half, it lingers just long enough to sow the seed of uneasiness in the listener’s mind, but merges into the next song before the true effect has fully sunk in; it truly is a masterful use of musical ability; vague, but the whole picture is obvious almost immediately.
Discography is not an easy album to describe; the lyrical themes and musicianship, which are quintessentially hardcore, do not aptly describe the forces at work in the music. The incredibly raw sound is paradoxically loaded with a juvenile finesse; a little immature, but remarkably coherent and innovative. It retains most of the hallmarks of punk, but isn’t afraid to push the boundaries a little further in order to experiment with the sound. In short, it’s a curiously controlled exercise into organized chaos, all at once heartfelt, angry, and leaking surplus energy. It communicates in a way very few albums do, and it does so with vicious aplomb.
