Review Summary: An astounding grindcore album that effectively mixes numerous characteristics of other genres for a very distinctive listening experience.
The Number Twelve Looks Like You –
Mongrel
At the time of recording,
The Number Twelve Looks Like You (TNTLLY) was:
Jesse Korman – Vocals
Justin Pedrick – Vocals
Alexis Pareja – Guitar
Jamie Mcilroy – Guitar
Chris Russell – Bass
Jon Karel – Drums and Percussion
The products of genres such as mathcore or grindcore are often misinterpreted as technical overhauls of noise, with no direction ahead or leash behind to restrain them. Many understandable issues are brought up by those not too fond of the genre; the screaming is ridiculously unnecessary and unpleasant, the time signatures are erratic as are the instruments and so on. It even takes time for fans of heavier music to adapt to the numerous quirks of the genres, as they disobey unwritten laws of music and abuse one’s ears with a “we don’t give a **** what you think” sort of attitude and approach to their music. This is not to assume they feel the same way about their music, as gems of grind and mathcore are meticulously crafted with equal attention placed on every aspect of the music. It just isn’t always everyone’s cup of tea, being hardcore in every sense of the word. New Jersey sextet
The Number Twelve Looks Like You are no different, and since 2003 they have put out quality material that has experienced its fair share of praise and harsh criticism. Their intentions are to blow listeners away with the heaviest possible music, and the aptly named
Mongrel, their third full-length album, does just that. While the band boasted
Mongrel to be their most chaotic release to date, it is plenty more than that, as it addresses some issues of past releases as well as being their most fundamentally sound musically.
TNTLLY are regarded as incredibly talented in all aspects, especially the dual guitarists, who are some of the best in the genre and are vastly underrated. They are best classified as mathcore, as they mix progressive metal with post-hardcore for some very unconventional heavy music, making them most comparable to
The Fall of Troy (even though Troy has half as many band members). Prior to purchasing
Mongrel, my experience with this band was limited to
Nuclear.Sad.Nuclear, a few tracks off of
Put On Your Rosy Red Glasses and their
My Sharona cover. All of these early recordings were superb, but possible turn offs to new listeners were apparent. Jesse and Justin were unbelievably violent with their vocals, conveying almost excessive anguish, and their clean singing was consistently terrible. The instrumental parts were, as expected, disorganized and technical, but the severely raw production burned them and made for some occasional awkward tones as well as an overall choppiness present. Here is where
TNTLLY’s newest release quite possibly shines brightest; the production on
Mongrel is brilliant. Not in the overdone, frosting on the cake sort of way, but every instrument sounds perfect, as well as all the vocals. A vivid picture is painted for the listener every time guitar strings are plucked, every time the double bass kicks in, and every time the dual vocalists harmonize ear-splitting shrieks. This production makes the music so much more enjoyable, as it maintains a realistic and expected sound full of angst, but removes the unpleasant, making this scream fest exceptionally melodic. Another welcome departure is the whiney singing that is featured on many earlier releases. The sparingly used clean vocals on
Mongrel are tuned down a notch, nowhere near as obnoxious, and prove to be a valuable asset to the album. They flow with the instruments, rather than having taken center stage and thus been given the opportunity for a distasteful climactic moment, but again the singing is much improved and is openly welcome for future releases.
In technical music that is lacking of any significant structure, songs are usually constructed by linking many intricate passages in any order the group desires. Another common complaint about
TNTLLY and similar bands is failure to attain adequate cohesion between these countless musical sections. They did a fair job in the past, but really stepped up when recording
Mongrel. Nothing ever feels excessive (for the genre) and parts flow beautifully into one another and every element of the music will have its chance to shine, with notable moments including the drumming in
Cradle in the Crater and the vocals in
The Weekly Wars. The instrumental work is just as good as ever, but possibly riskier as well as this album being chock full of catchy sections. The band also incorporates multiple styles of music into the album, as they have done previously as well. Whether it is the jazzy sections, progressive sections, or classically-influenced guitar,
Mongrel is unpredictably diverse. There are often times when Jon Karel will toss in some fitting and not over-the-top blast beats, and the track
Grandfather even has a few guitar bits at the end reminiscent of J.S. Bach’s glory days of the Baroque period. All of this culminates to make the album anything but an unpleasant wall of sound, as it is instead one of the more complete metal recordings of the past few years.
To prove once more that
TNTLLY puts a full amount of effort into their music is the gorgeous writing and lyrical content within each and every track. Always highly metaphorical and regularly dealing with serious issues (
El Piñata De La Muerte involves revenge against an abusive stepfather), these are some of the better written songs in today’s music scene. Another positive is that they are written in more of an essay/story format, rather than the band sacrificing some deeper content to create one rhyme after another. Rhyming would be highly unnecessary here though, as it is an arduous task to try and comprehend the screaming and shouting.
I have no complaints with
Mongrel. Everything the band did they did as close to perfect as one can come for the genre, but there are a few things they didn’t do that might have helped them out. There are no guitar solos on here, and I am currently infatuated with the very brief solo on
Civeta Dei, but I’m also fairly unfamiliar with their earlier recordings and am unaware of them constantly using them or not. Maybe the occasional solo would have done this album some good, but the lack thereof doesn’t do any harm to the album either. Plenty of melodic sections sans vocals are scattered throughout for easier listening, but are scarce in proportion to the frenzied segments that dominant the recording. The variance is acceptable but there could be more.
While there have been slightly better,
Mongrel is an undeniably hard yet beautiful kick to the jewels that should keep fans of anything heavy content, and is one of the best mathcore albums out there. Do yourself a favor and buy it, download it, give a friend’s disc a few spins, whatever. This album definitively breaks away from its predecessors and cements itself as the band’s greatest achievement to date.
Top Three Tracks:
Jay Walking Backwards
Grandfather
Sleeping With The Fishes, See?
Score: 4.5/5
