Review Summary: "An ultimate expression of pain-through-sound." (Alternative Press on Thoughts Of Ionesco)
“Do one thing for me
Before you pull the trigger, say a prayer for me
Before you light the match, turn me into you.”
(Live performance of An Idol Is Falling)
It took me a while to truly understand Thoughts Of Ionesco until I embraced this quote. I turned their pain and sorrow into mine. I experienced their torture as if it was my own and as the intensity of their music poured over me I felt for them. Only then did the meaning in the music make sense in my own life and I was able to appreciate it for what it was, some of the most ***ing intense hardcore I’ve ever heard…truth.
Thoughts Of Ionesco was formed in the mid 90’s by vocalist/guitarist Sean Hoen, bassist Nathan Miller and drummer Brian Repa. The band broke up when most of them were barely 21. Needless to say
...And Then There Was Motion is full of teenage angst but these kids were beyond just angsty. They were nihilistic, suicidal and their sanity was questionable. Their music perfectly embodies the hateful emotions they felt and it’s comes across as so real and personal. The band plays like a well-oiled machine, Miller’s distorted bass and Repa’s powerful drumming make up a consistent core sound leaving Hoen’s down-tuned guitar playing and scathing vocal assault to be the lethal instruments by which the pain of the band is expressed.
The music doesn’t follow much structure as songs progress a lot and tempos and time signatures change multiple times during songs. Thoughts Of Ionesco especially like to play around with the speed of their music, as there are moments on this album that charge ahead with intense speed and others that lumber like something out of a sludge metal song. The first real song
…And None Were Human begins like some beast rearing to charge and when it does the music literally explodes taking off before slowing down again yet never losing it’s power.
Isolation Hymn starts off speeding ahead before it literally begins to crawl and only slows from there before it inexplicably takes off with a reprise from the beginning of the song. The music tends to be a rhythmic assault on your ears with Hoen’s inhuman screams and yells tearing at your sanity. Often though Hoen will play high guitar stabs in the form of crazed lead lines and even some solos, it’s nothing awe inspiring but certainly brings some variety to the wall of sound coming from the mere three members. However a sense of sameness could be considered the largest weakness this album possesses, fortunately it’s only 28 minutes long. Despite this there are some truly different sounding parts on some songs. Movement, which is a tribal sounding percussion piece, serves as somewhat of a brake towards the middle of the album.
Isolation Hymn begins with a saxophone solo in a jazz-like arrangement.
Equinox is an 8 minute epic that just keeps progressing. From it’s typical opening it moves into a more melodic section with Heon’s guitar standing out as he screams
“Giving up on the rising sun.” The song collapses into a quiet section with Hoen’s screams piercing through the quiet then the song explodes one last time before fading out with a chaotic guitar solo.
Thoughts Of Ionesco really deserve far more credit in the hardcore scene than they have ever gotten and
…And Then There Was Motion was just part of the beginning for them. They’d grow to become a jazz-infused, progressive hardcore outfit in their later years but this album still serves as one of the most raw and intense slabs of pain-through-sound to ever exist and if you are a fan of hardcore it’s really a must hear.
