Venerable, back cover
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This is the world premiere of audio and visuals from KEN mode’s Venerable.
The album comes out on Profound Lore on March 15, three months from today. Above is the album’s back cover. The label will reveal the front cover in due time. You can stream “Obeying the Iron Will” below.
“Obeying the Iron Will”
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Earlier this year, on their first US tour in six years, KEN mode wrote a series of tour diaries for Decibel. After the magazine’s recent site redesign, I can’t find those diaries anymore. But I remember a particular detail from them. The band stopped somewhere for supplies (Wal-Mart, I think), and its shopping list included protein powder. Touring bands’ shopping lists usually begin with beer and end at whiskey. Someone in the band is a jock, I thought.
Which makes sense – when I listen to KEN mode, I think of a more athletic, yet more bookish Jesus Lizard. Maybe if that band had put down its beers, hit the gym, and boned up on the music it helped spawn – noise rock, hardcore, mathcore, even post-metal – then returned to whip the kids at their own game, it might sound like KEN mode.
Profound Lore label head Chris Bruni put it well:
A different release for me, but I think this is the best out there when it comes to progressive hardcore/Amrep influenced noise-rock.
Venerable is indeed a protein powder-fueled beast. It has somewhat of a lyrical bodily obsession. The artwork features animal and skeleton imagery by Julie Anne Mann. Josh Graham avoided his usual Photoshop-gone-wild style and laid out the imagery with tasteful restraint. Aaron Turner created KEN mode’s logo. Kurt Ballou recorded the album and played slide guitar on one song.
Heavy touring lies ahead for KEN mode. The band seeks a full-time touring bassist for “roughly 8 months of road time”. Evidently a video is forthcoming for the above song, “Obeying the Iron Will”. In the meantime, you can do your homework by hearing KEN mode’s last two albums, Reprisal and Mennonite – for free. Download, stream, and buy them here. More goodness will come on March 15.
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Wow, looks like one to really look forward to…good call, Chris…
Incredible live band, and I am sure this record will smoke.
I am very much digging the music – the vocals, though, I can live without.
The music here does recall some of the noise rock stuff, but I agree with The Chaos Path that vocals are the weak link. The best vocalists from the heyday of Touch & Go and Amrep–the Jesus Lizard’s David Yow, the Cows’ Shannon Selberg, Killdozer’s Michael Gerard, Steve Albini of Big Black, Rapeman, et al–were basically storytellers who crafted smart, often funny narratives about situations gone horribly awry. They also each had a distinctive vocal style: none of them sound like each other, or really anybody else. That’s something that’s missing from a lot of current metal, where the vocals often sound like an afterthought. For that reason, it’s been harder for me to get into contemporary noise rock stuff than it has been for me to branch out into black metal, doom, and death metal, all genres where the vocals are often unintelligible anyway. I don’t think people should try to necessarily David Yow, but I’d love to hear more heavy music bands put that kind of emphasis on vocals again.
Love this band. Glad to see Profound Lore took notice. They have the resources to give this band a ‘push’.
Although I can’t really tell what he singing about on this song just yet, I think Jesse is one of modern heavy music’s better lyricists. There’s a brains meets brawn vibe to his lyrics and I think he’s got a pretty distinct vocal style. It’s way more aggro than any of the amrep singers other than maybe Steve Austin, not to detract from the awesome legacies of bands like Cows, Hammerhead, Halo Of Flies, Big Black, Melvins, The Jesus Lizard etc… KEN mode are one of those rare modern bands kinda carrying the torch for that early 90’s noise but giving it way more muscle. I love a lot of death metal and a little bit of black metal here and there, but those genres are completely boring at this point because of the lack of originality in most of the bands… especially when it comes to vocals. But that’s just my humble opinion.
I can’t think of a better Canadian band doing something real with music these days. Beautiful live shows, chaotically awesome music, I hope their future gets better and better.
Can’t wait for the new album.
Not my typical cup of tea, but I think I could get into this…
Fucking love the drumming on this shit. Great job on the engineering of the kit too. Sounds like it is actually in a room, unlike so much metal where it just sounds like a fucking MIDI kit because it is so clean. Just rough enough around the edges to make it sound real and fucking heavy.
I think the vocals suit the music perfectly
Vocals are so… late 80’s thrash. Yuck. Music is awesome, like a more coherent Zeni Geva or a heavier (and better) Big Black.
Fix the vocals! Tremendous act in the making.
Just listened to the full album stream of this(http://stereogum.com/653571/stream-ken-mode-venerable-stereogum-premiere/franchises/haunting-the-chapel/), and I really like it as a whole. Excited about the possibility of seeing them live at the end of April with Fuck the Facts.