math rock

Record #983: Narrow/Arrow – Asbestos Weak Hood (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

Gimmicks are a tricky thing to do right. Most of the time, when a band has A Thing™, eventually their music starts serving the gimmick rather than the other way around (ex., Billy Joel, whose late-80s output was a pursuit for what would make the best music video). And honestly, it would be really easy to categorize Narrow/Arrow as a gimmick band and move on. Guitarist/vocalist Cody Nicolas usually plays two guitars simultaneously and every single one of their song titles is a pun.

And yet, they manage to escape all the trappings of their own gimmicks by offering earnestly moving songs and musicianship that’s impressive without ever being flashy. While Narrow/Arrow has been offering up a satisfying mixture of math rock and Midwest emo since their inception, they’ve never sounded more impressive—or more at ease—than on Asbestos Weak Hood.

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Record #842: Chalk Hands – Try Not To Think About Death (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Ever since I’ve discovered that screamo was an actual subgenre and not just what my mom calls any band with screaming (Thrice and Alcest have both bore the term), I’ve found it very difficult to find much screamo that I like. Bands like envy and Boneflower are gorgeous and cathartic in a way that hits me to my core, but most of the pioneers of the genre—Orchid, Saetia, pg.99, et al, have inspired an almost visceral rejection from my ears. As a relatable tweet once said, “scream fans will say, ‘this track is legendary’ then play the absolute worst song you’ve ever heard.”

But every once in a while, something will come out of that scene that blows me away. Don’t Think About Death, the long-awaited debut full length from Brighton UK’s Chalk Hands, definitely uses screamo’s conventions as a sonic center, but it uses that palette to create one of the most moving records I’ve heard yet this year.

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Record #810: Drive Like Jehu – Drive Like Jehu (1991)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

1991 has been called “The Year that Punk Broke.” The success of Nirvana’s Nevermind led record companies to make a mad dash to sign all the noisy, abrasive, energetic bands they could find, leading to some absolutely bizarre major label deals for bands like Melvins, Smashing Pumpkins, and Jawbox. DIY stalwarts Fugazi purportedly turned down multiple million-dollar deals.

One of the noisier bands to land one of those deals was Drive Like Jehu, whose sprawling math-rock/post-hardcore masterpiece Yank Crime was somehow released on Interscope.

But Interscope wouldn’t have been interested had it not been for the success of their self-titled debut, which lacks none of the fury or ambition of its follow-up.

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Record #802: Cursive – Such Blinding Stars for Starving Eyes (1997)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

I’ve been a fan of Omaha’s Cursive for quite a while. I picked up a CD single of “Art is Hard” from my local music store in 12th grade, and I spun those two songs on repeat for weeks. I downloaded several songs from Domestica on LimeWire and burned them to my one of my many emo mixes. Through my “serious music fan” phase in college, The Ugly Organ was one of the few emo records that I still listened to regularly.

But as much as I love those records, I’ve never dug too deep into their earlier material. That is, until I bought a box of classic records from my friend Stephen that included most of the Cursive back catalog.

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Record #771: Kellen – Lowercase God (2018)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

One of the things about having friends that run record labels is that sometimes, you’ll get curated bonuses thrown in with your orders. This is especially true of my friend Rob who runs Friend Club Records, who always includes trading cards of hockey players and handwritten notes with the cassettes I buy from him.

But sometimes, he’ll toss a record my way, which is how I was introduced to Kellen and their brilliant genre-bending EP Lowercase God.

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Record #756: June of 44 – Tropics and Meridians (1996)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

One of the more interesting things about music to me is how we attempt to categorize and classify according to imperfect terminologies—and more specifically, how that terminology changes over time.

Take for instance the term math rock. These days, it is most often used to describe neo-prog with noodly guitar lines (usually played with two-handed tapping) and rapid meter changes through odd time signatures. Think Chon, TTNG, or Polyphia.

But in the mid-to-late 90s, the music called “math rock” was much more patient. There were plenty of odd meters and angular guitar lines, but tempos were slower, more cerebral than maniacal, relying more on compositional experimentation than technical virtuosity. More interesting, much of this early math rock was born at the intersection of post-hardcore and post-rock. Think bands like Slint, Roadside Monument, late-era Frodus, or even Sunny Day Real Estate’s LP2.

One of the hidden gems of this scene is June of 44, who I have somehow entirely missed until the last few months.

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Record #739: Fugazi – Instrument Soundtrack (1999)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Few bands are as monolithic as Washington DC post-hardcore demigods Fugazi. For decades, they have been celebrated for their ethical convictions as well as the severity of their output. So it comes as “No Surprise” that the documentary about one of the best bands in the world would be one of the greatest music films ever made.

The documentary Instrument is a massive work, following Fugazi from their early days in the DC hardcore scene to the recording of End Hits, and it captures a side of Fugazi that runs counter to their reputation as self-serious punk monks—most notably that they lived in a house together with no heat, surviving on a Steady Diet of Nothing but rice. The film instead shows a group of guys who love making music and have a lot of fun doing it.

Likewise, the soundtrack to that film captures the same playful attitude—which isn’t a word typically used to describe Fugazi.

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Record #710: June of 44 – Four Great Points (1998)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In the mid 1960s, a bunch of rock and roll bands discovered free jazz, and their minds were blown. The resulting explosion would lead to psychedelic and progressive rock, as seen in bands like The Byrds, King Crimson, and The Beatles, among others.

In the 90s, a similar movement happened with hardcore and punk bands experiencing similar mind-blowing revelations. Themselves inspired by jazz, Krautrock, and proto-post rock like Talk Talk or Bark Psychosis, they twisted the crashing catharsis of their native genres into what would be known as math rock (which is very different from the twinkly finger tapping that is called math rock today).

The most noted example of this shift is post-hardcore outfit Slint’s 1991 album Spiderland. But that album (or the mixture of influences that created it) was the forerunner of a much larger scene. And after Slint’s dissolution, June of 44 may have been one of the most respectable standard bearers for the movement.

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Record #705: Native – Orthodox (2013)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

The Northern Indiana/Southwestern Michigan music scene is an interesting beast. While my hometown of South Bend is the de facto center of it, we’re close enough to other cities that bands that are born out of towns within an hour drive from us end up cutting their teeth in Chicago or Indianapolis or Grand Rapids instead.

Sometimes, this leads me to discoveries of local(ish) bands that I didn’t even realize were somewhat local to me (see also: Lume, Locktender, Cloakroom).

Earlier this year, I had the similar realization (or reminder, rather) that the mathy, heavy post-hardcore outfit Native were also localish (from Michigan City, but played mostly in Chicagoland).

It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise—after all, Native is fronted by Bobby Markos, the bassist of the aforementioned Cloakroom. And while his rumbling, heavy bass strings are a through line between the two bands, that’s about where the comparison ends.

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Record #680: Battles – Mirrored (2007)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

When you’re exploring new music, occasionally you come across love-at-first-site records—albums that immediately latch themselves to your psyche when you first hear them. Then, there are slow burns—records that take a little more exploration, but fully envelop you in their sonic arms.

Then, there are great, unknowable beasts: eldritch albums with a hundred eyes and a thousand tentacles that never stop swirling long enough for you to get a good look at them. You are left only with a roaring, gaping impression of the unearthly monstrosity. Every glance uncovers additional layers, peeling themselves away endlessly to unrecognizable shapes until it isn’t the album you thought you listened to the last time.

Mirrored has been one of these albums for me: an ancient, Lovecraftian record that changes color and shape with every repeated listen. But after a decade of trying to wrap my head around it, I’ve finally embraced the madness.

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