A review of @knolacollective’s new record, “To The Rhythm”
by Matty Weaver
I meet up with some old friends. It’s raining. It’s been years and time has left its mark on all of our faces. I’m not sure how to act, so I just do me: the new me, the one I saw myself becoming back then, give or take a few degrees of stormy gray morality.
It felt a lot like going back in time, like seeing the same old same old with newer eyes, like taking off rose-tinted glasses and smiling, staring.
Roll credits.
This is not an easy feeling to evoke through music. In 2016, amidst a resurgence of late- 90s emo bands—and the fall of their late-naughts children—we’re almost oversaturated with half-cocked throwbacks to a genre that started too early and never seemed to truly end. Always on the cusp of reinvention, everyone born and raised around the scene gnashed their teeth at every passing year, waiting for its inevitable death.
Enough rambling. What am I actually going to say? Oh, yeah: Knola has made an incredible record.
That feeling of coming home to a group of people that accept you for who you are, even though you spent years apart, fell down, got back up, changed jobs, changes cities, won, lost, lost everything, gained something; that is a very special feeling and the idea that an album can encompass that is, to me, nothing short of a miracle.
But that sounds pompous. It sounds overblown, hyperbolic, stupid.
But it’s true.
Knola has risen from the ashes of so many other notable groups that listing them here would be a waste; and if you’re reading this, you already know the band’s past, so let’s talk the future: what comes next?
To The Rhythm is a solid follow-up to last year’s debut The Black Beach, a powerful EP wrapped up in five short songs, none of which show up on this full-length. The songs keep the same vibe—sickly-sweet crooning, strong-boned bass, hard-hitting drums and earringing guitar—but it’s obvious that they’re in a league of their own, every previous note and word a stepping stone to this release.
The album starts off with thirty-four crashes exuberant crashes and a twang ringing out, strong words of otherness, “I’m part of the crowd / my head is down,” sung as if muttered under one’s breath, a mantra to make it seem like we’re Moving Along—a fitting title for the song, ending on the loftiest of declaration: “I’m moving along.” The slow fade brings us back down to the ground with Weight, which drives slowly until the end, where the first hints of emotive outburst end in a crescendo, leading into the lead single on the album, Cottage Grove, where the crowing of “I’m afraid they’ll swallow me / if I don’t find find the words, / the weight of expectation’s loud / It’s faceless but it’s heard,” refrained.
The real theme of the album shines through in these next two tracks. Here, we see the pressure of following up on your previous ventures, of turning your back on what came before and focusing on what comes next. In Fabric, the image is of a live performance, where the room is going mad: "Everyone’s shoving, / I’m suddenly shirtless / but I don’t hear a thing. / I’m torn like the fabric / I move to the rhythm, / I trust everyone will sing.” The song has this hazy, wavy feeling that’s almost unsettling, like being an observer to something you shouldn’t be.
That feelings persists through Ruby Beach, and only seems to subside as we lead into the ambient Earth Noise and its droney second-half, House. “I wish there was a way for you / to see inside my chest,” comes the cry: "That my heart is still for you / But if I leave it’s for the best.” Again, we have an image of trying to move forward, despite how we may feel about— or better still, how we lack feeling for—those who once surrounded us.
Winter Skin is the natural second single in this album of slow build-ups and cohesive segues. Standing tall on its legs but not overpowering the other tracks on the album, its lyrics resonate (I would quote but I don’t think a sample does it justice), and it boasts the most impressive interlude/outro (outerlude?) thus far; it’s a song you won’t want to stop listening to.
But alas, the characters are taking their positions for the ending scene, Fireworks. The question is asked: "Have I ever seen fireworks / at a funeral before?” The credits start to roll, and halfway through the song, everyone takes off their glasses, punching out the frames. I follow suit, my movements in sync with the beat.
The music is simple, repetitive but so dreamy and so peaceful; the kind of arrangement you can just listen to on loop forever. As we drift, the drums cut and all that’s left is feedback, rising, then an abrupt nothing, like suddenly waking up.
It is a fitting end to an album about keeping pace and following the rhythm of life onward, even when it seems like everyone expects you to stay the same.
What an invitation! Like a dream- floating in an out and memories and consciousness, Cameron Wisch has such an honest, interesting take on longing. With lines like- “part of a building hiding beneath a cliffside” - you don’t have to have the experience to have the imagery that Cameron is describing.
Android 18 is done. Their release “Six” is one of my favorite hardcore records that I’ve heard. I wish I would have had the resources available to properly promote the record, but for what it’s worth, we made 100 copies of the tape and they’re all sold. That’s a really big deal to me, and I’m really thankful that they gave me the opportunity to put their music out, which was my direct reason for starting fawning. I had the great privilege of seeing them live 3 times, this video is from the first time.
Most of the band dealt with some real tragedy and loss last year. Life is cyclical, or maybe linear, or maybe neither, but I won’t ever stop listening to Android 18, and I will never forget the shock and excitement I felt upon hearing Six for the first time. Good luck to Josh, Jake, Joel, Noah on your future musical endeavors, and in life in general, and thanks to everyone that bought a tape.
I first discovered the band Stevenson through Vincent’s (guitar/vocals) other band, @gguullffeerr. I was lucky enough to get to play with Stevenson last summer with my bands @oliverhouston and @knolacollective. This new EP really hones in on a ‘chill-core’ relaxed vibe, while their older stuff reminds me of bands like WHY? and at times, Teen Suicide.
“A World So Small Poster” by Danielle Poisson (@caeliifera)
“This poster's concept was inspired by a quote by Harry Emerson Fosdick, “I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.” The sentiment resonated with me, that no matter how cryptic life and our world can be at times, the mysteries and questions are part of what keeps life interesting. I would take a mysterious world over a simple one any day. The poster uses pointillism to represent a world not yet fully formed, but coming together. It indicates that there are still mysteries to be solved and pieces to fall in place. The image was hand-drawn, as was the style replicated in the type below to integrate the message.”
I am alive and shit out of luck in the land of 10 thousand hospitals
I’m as charming as they come if they come from a monster truck rally
I’m as handsome as they come if they come from The Gathering
so what the fuck was I thinking? what did I think was gonna happen?
well I don’t blame the rain for tempting me to surface
I just wanna know what I’d be like as a person
living is a hell, but you still gotta trudge through it
but maybe still I wouldn’t dry out if I was human
and maybe i’d have a better idea what i’m doing, yeah?
who knows
“Conversation as placeholder, back and forth / Thoughts collide in the forefront, back and forth” is detachedly half-shouted over nervy, jangly guitar within the first seconds of ‘Gumb’, which perfectly sets up the tone for the rest of Boundary Situations: drenched in tension & full of emotion, sans the melodrama. Charles Rogers finds a middle ground between newer bands such as XERXES, Frameworks and Self Defense Family while still harkening back to golden-era bands such as Fugazi and Drive Like Jehu. They seamlessly explore a range of post-hardcore’s dynamics in the mere 14 minutes of this EP; the first two tracks utilize jerky start-stop rhythms & controlled yet powerful climaxes. ‘Not Finding, Remembering to Look’ harnesses a deceivingly upbeat energy, ‘Keep Discreet’ grants reprieve from the torrent of harshness with driving ambience. But all of the songs have a similar anxious feeling that ties it all together, makes the songs really get under your skin, and makes for a great release from a very promising band.
“Conversation as placeholder, back and forth / Thoughts collide in the forefront, back and forth” is detachedly half-shouted over nervy, jangly guitar within the first seconds of 'Gumb’, which perfectly sets up the tone for the rest of Boundary Situations: drenched in tension & full of emotion, sans the melodrama. Charles Rogers finds a middle ground between newer bands such as XERXES, Frameworks and Self Defense Family while still harkening back to golden-era bands such as Fugazi and Drive Like Jehu. They seamlessly explore a range of post-hardcore’s dynamics in the mere 14 minutes of this EP; the first two tracks utilize jerky start-stop rhythms & controlled yet powerful climaxes. ‘Not Finding, Remembering to Look’ harnesses a deceivingly upbeat energy, ‘Keep Discreet’ grants reprieve from the torrent of harshness with driving ambience. But all of the songs have a similar anxious feeling that ties it all together, makes the songs really get under your skin, and makes for a great release from a very promising band.
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