There is a misconception I see sometimes that the better a song is, the more difficult it is to play. After all, anybody can write a simple song, but it takes someone with real talent to write something complicated. It takes real talent to play an intricate solo. It takes real talent to write a song with lots of different chords and multiple time changes.
However, there are numerous examples across the world of recorded music that disprove that theory. Bands like The Ramones or The Jesus and Mary Chain.
Add to that list Kowloon Walled City, a Oakland CA outfit that creates huge monoliths of sludge metal without much complication. While other bands might be tempted to speed these songs up or fill them with gratuitous guitar solos.
Kowloon Walled City resists these urges, trusting the strength of the crawling riffs and passionate songwriting to make Grievances a chilling statement—and rightly so.
As I mentioned earlier, I was first introduced to Kowloon Walled City through the supergroup Less Art that featured members of KWS, Curlupanddie, and Thrice. I tracked down a copy of 2012’s Container Ships as fast as I could. But love that record as I do, Grievances is everything Container Ships is, but more so. The songs are slower, heavier, and more brooding.
Chords crash and linger, the swollen amps threatening to burst into feedback. Drums pound warlike beats at slow tempos. The music plays a careful balancing act between resolute stillness and menacing movement while Scott Evans plays a similar game with his words. His voice wails over the dim, not quite singing, but not quite screaming either, drawing a bridge between sludge metal and post hardcore. He offers pensive like, “we’ve had better years / but bad years look better when they’re gone.”
And from the opening of the record to its closing, the band plays with control, carefully building and releasing tension like a chef keeping a pot just below boiling. “Your Best Years” roils and foams to open the disc, slowing to a lurch during the choked-fuzz, whole note guitar solo. “Grievances” shifts its weight ominously between two or three chords, moving between dark guitar arpeggios and sharp snare-assisted blasts.
Even when the tempo increases, as in songs like “The Grift” or “Sons and Daughters,” it’s not enough to shake off words like “plodding” or “sludgy.” The detuned guitars and distorted bass still drag the drums down like stones tied to ankles.
Admittedly, there is no shortage of albums like this in my collection. I am a massive fan of dark, ominous, glacially-paced sludge metal. Hell, I just reviewed the new Big Brave album. But even as crowded as that section of my collection is, Kowloon Walled City manages to squeeze something fresh out of the molten sticky tar. It is an immensely dark and brooding album, but it is alluring in its own way.