Acclaimed Canadian Sludge Metal band KEN Mode has dropped a split 12-inch charity release! The record features Shallow North Dakota and Kowloon Walled City and is a charity fundraiser for Shallow North Dakota bandmember Tony, who is battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and needs help to support his family. Purchase and stream the release now to help Tony and check out a message from the band
Acclaimed Noise band KEN Mode have booked new tour dates in North American tour this spring. The trek will kick off on May 21 in Regina, SK and will conclude on June 3 in Denver, CO. The band is also performing at several big festivals, JUNOfest, Manitoba Metal Fest, Modified Ghost Festival, and Northwest Terror Fest. KEN Mode is still supporting their 2018 release Loved, out now via Season of Mist. Continue reading
Canadian metallic hardcore-influenced noise rock band KEN Mode are back with a new album, Loved (Season of Mist), but there’s no love to be found on it. Contrary to the name, the Winnipeg, Manitoba band’s seventh album is a solid slab of slow churning, nihilist hardcore that sounds like it could self-destruct at any minute.Continue reading
Award-winning sludge metal band KEN Mode have shared a new video and track from their forthcoming new album Loved, coming later this summer via Season of Mist. Check out the new clip for ‘Feathers & Lips’, directed by Christopher Mills. Continue reading
KEN mode has shared a new video and song for ‘Does’t Feel Pain Like He Should’, the first taste of new music from the band. Their new album Loved will be out August 31st from Season of Mist (New Damage in Canada). KEN Mode has been one of the heavist and most consistent bands for nearly 20 years so take in all of the awesomeness of this video now:
Helmet will go down as one of the greatest and most influential bands ever. This fact is undisputed. Coming out of new York City at a time when a generation of bands bred on New York Hardcore values married to the talent of thrash bands (with some general avant-garde weirdness for good measure), Helmet stood out like a sore thumb of weirdness. Continue reading
A wail of feedback, a sludgy, laconic riff, a jarring bass line and Success (Season of Mist) shudders into being in the style of that too-cool-to-give-a-fuck band that ambles on stage and begins the song with each member starting at their own pace and point of choice. KEN Mode, kings of the post-surf/noise rock power-trio kingdom stroll acerbically into their sixth album.
Jesse Matthewson, known for intelligent, confrontation and biting observations, has chosen to measure his delivery this time, and most of his outpourings are part-spoken and spat, rather than roared or thrown from his maw, seemingly intent on imparting off-centre soundbites. “I would like to kill the nicest man in the world” he states at the outset of ‘These Tight Jeans’, where he trades off lines with Jill Clapham in both a catchy and knowingly cool fashion, channelling his inner Jesus Lizard.
The hand of Steve Albini is present all through, as the In Utero (Geffen) producer skuzzes up ‘The Owl’, an astringent swagger with stoner undertones, before a bass crunk and cello mid-section pull the song into a discordant yowl over clashing chords, as KEN Mode play with the notion of traditional song-structure effectively. Sonic Youth would be proud.
Yet all is not rosy in KEN and Barbie’s world. There is a nagging feeling that while Clutch (for whom KEN Mode certainly owe a something to) are naturally and instinctively quirky, for the first time KM things feel a bit forced, as if stating “Handfuls of proverbial shit tossed over and over against that same proverbial wall” (‘Blessed’) is a little close to the mark, and that moving to a more caustic pop sound may be contrived, such as on the overly self-aware and smug ‘A Passive Disaster’. The cap might not fit at the moment, but all it would take is adjusting the clasp at the back. At times, this new KEN Mode just sits a little uncomfortably. But then such doubts are stomped to dust by the rising dynamic of ‘Management Control’ which builds to feedback end, or the exemplary dark, brooding, sprawling ‘Dead Actors’, that recalls The Doors clashing with a more progressive Nirvana.
Mixing a Clutch of stoner, a Tad of grunge and pinch of Mudhoney slovenliness in their Helmet of groove, KEN Mode can consider their transition a Success. Just.
7.0/10
STEVE TOVEY
Festival season is just around the corner, and what better way is there to start the summer than with Temples Festival? Launched in 2013, Temples is an independent music festival based in Bristol. The event will take place from 29th – 31st May at the historic venue Motion.Continue reading
