Review Summary: This will kick your ass.
1999 was a defining year for Metalcore. The Dillinger Escape Plan were pushing its technical limits with
Calculating Infinity, Poison the Well were delving in to the melodic side of things with
The Opposite of December, and Botch pretty much laid out the template for the next decade of the genre with their magnum opus
We Are the Romans. That same year, Kansas City's Coalesce released their swansong,
0:12 Revolution In Just Listening on Relapse Records.
0:12 Revolution In Just Listening is the most cripplingly heavy 23 minutes ever graced with the “core” tag. Throughout the decade after its release,
0:12 spawned legions of imitators in bands like A Life Once Lost, Every Time I Die, and the Red Chord, neither one able to capture the schizophrenic mixture of ass-whooping brutality and eye popping technicality as the original. As soon as you press play, the album's opener “What Happens on the Road Always Comes Home” hits you like a ton of bricks. It's jagged, blisteringly fast fretboard runs cave in to an unrelenting, head banging inducing, monster of a groove. On top of it, Sean Ingram steals the show as he rips his vocal chords to shreds in the performance of a lifetime. An audio sample of children bridges “What Happens on the Road...” to “Cowards.com” as it continues the aural assault with its crushing mash up of Meshuggah style chug and jumpy Deadguy-esque tech.
As
0:12 progresses, so does the music. “While The Jackass Operation Spins It's Wheels” infuses a healthy dose of quick fire guitar runs that would feel at home on the Dillinger Escape Plan's
Calculating Infinity into the Coalesce formula, creating a beautiful blend of forceful dissonance and precise skill. “Jesus in the Year 2000/Next on the Shit List” opens up with a smörgåsbord of audio samples that lull you in right before the full force of everything that is Coalesce is unleashed on your poor little eardrums. With James Dewee's skillful drumming acting as an anchor to the sledgehammer riffing and Sean Ingram's skin-shredding vocal performance, “Jesus in the Year 2000”, like
0:12 itself, is a Metalcore classic.
Coalesce's
0:12 Revolution in Just Listening is the definition of intense. It's furious blend of bludgeoning groove and scalpel-like precision makes it a landmark album not only for the genre of Metalcore, but for heavy music in general.
