#dream weapon

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Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon

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Genghis Tron — Dream Weapon (Relapse)

Dream Weapon by Genghis Tron

In an otherwise unassuming house off a main street in a far gone college town on a sweltering spring night, a three-piece band has dozens of people jammed into the living room. There’s simply no way this isn’t a fire hazard, and even if someone wanted to mosh, there’s no chance; the band hardly has room for their instruments, so the singer has to scream right at the mugs of those souls standing in place directly facing him mere inches away. The backing music is a bizarre clash of metalcore and synth-pop fueled by keyboards and laptops. There is no drummer. There are no easy transitions. It’s blindingly loud, so of course the cops eventually shut down the set and break up the show. For a surprisingly long moment beyond this one, the band sounds like the opening to another world in loud rock.

That, of course, was the old Genghis Tron. Dream Weapon is the new.

To speak of Genghis Tron now is, effectively, to speak of a band entirely separate from the one that went on hiatus in 2010 following tours and a protracted bout of Board Up the House remixes. What Mookie Singerman, Hamilton Jordan and Michael Sochynsky achieved in their first run remains one of the most remarkable evolutions in 2000s loud rock; from borderline jokey synth-pop n’ blast beats to serious songwriting chops that fully integrated both ends of their split personality, Genghis Tron parted on a high note. The announcement last year that they’d be reforming and, not long after, that they’d made an entirely new record was, perhaps, surprising given the 13-year hiatus.

What makes Dream Weapon a wholly different prospect isn’t just down to time, though. Jordan and Sochynsky reforming the band did not include Singerman (who opted out amicably), but it did include Tony Wolski (who takes over on the mic and has drummed in the Armed and Old Gods as well as directed some Converge videos) and Nick Yacyshyn (who drums here and has also played in Baptists and Sumac). This is a proper quartet now, and Dream Weapon sounds all the fuller for it. Recorded under the watchful eye of Kurt Ballou at God City Studios as its two predecessors were, the urgency of the old Genghis Tron may have faded, but their most eerie atmospheric moments loom large. Imagine Board Up the House on a whole lot more Can or Trans Am and you’re starting to get the picture.

So, yes: Despite all the synths, rhythm is the dream’s biggest weapon here. “Pyrocene” showcased that in as obvious a single as this album has. “Single Black Point,” which rides a 7/8 time signature, starts off with a guitar chug, but it’s Yacyshyn’s drums that come to the fore and eventually mutate it into a 4/4 synth-pop slow jam. “Great Mother” is going to kill when it gets played live, a stadium-filling headbangers’ beat anchoring an otherwise liquid track. And 10-minute epic “Ritual Circle” stretches things out in every regard, a workout for all parties involved.

Yacyshyn aside, that’s how the rest of the band feels: liquid, difficult to fully capture. The title track, which briefly snags a passage from Board Up the House‘s own title track in a neat little through-line, features percussion in line with the machine gun assaults of yore, but the guitar tones suggest a whole lot of shoegaze has been going ‘round Genghis’ boarded up house in the interim. “Great Mother” is similar in this regard. Still, guitars rarely dominate, instead weaving in and out of synth lines (and in opener “Exit Perfect Mind” and “Desert Stairs,” remaining absent); between Yacyshyn’s percussion prowess and an army of synths, there’s precious little space to understand that Wolski is painting some sort of post-apocalyptic picture with his lyrics. The choice to submerge his voice, often multitracked with added delay, seems deliberate; the end result is that he’s simply another instrument, if a welcome one.

In listening to this album, half a dozen descriptions came to mind. I could hear everything from Porches to Battles in its 45 minutes — but more than any other, what Genghis Tron’s reincarnation recalls most is Nine Inch Nails. Take away the industrial imagery and Trent Reznor’s snarling, gymrat-fueled histrionics, and what remains is a close approximation to what’s going on here. Magnificently noisy in some places, forebodingly quiet in others and at all times distended from full cognizance, Dream Weapon is a balanced, well executed step firmly away from Genghis Tron’s former selves. Call it their Year Zero.

Patrick Masterson

[otaku553]

So I saw how dream's weapon could turn into twin daggers and I couldn't resist drawing this so here's a midnight doodle of dream. I hope you see this, @jokublog, and happy late birthday!

[hannibal-or-maybe-just-rex]

Genghis Tron - Pyrocene (2021, Dream Weapon). Press ▶️. Enjoy 🎧.

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[sinceileftyoublog]

Genghis Tron Album Review: Dream Weapon

(Relapse); Artwork by Trevor Naud

BY JORDAN MAINZER

On their first album in 13 years after a hiatus, experimental metal band Genghis Tron reinvent themselves. Yes, programmer and keyboardist Michael Sochynsky and guitarist Hamilton Jordan return, as does Converge’s Kurt Ballou as producer. And thematically, they return where Board Up The House closer “Relief” left off, as the entirety of the new Dream Weapon is inspired by the simultaneous beauty and sadness in the idea that the earth will outlive humanity. Yet, what’s not only immediately notable but actually shapes the whole album is their new vocalist, Tony Wolski, who croons instead of screaming like former frontman Mookie Singerman, and for the first time ever, a drummer, Nick Yacyshyn, who favors meat and potatoes pounding over drum machine blast beats. 

Take “Pyrocene”: Yacyshyn’s skittering beat and Wolski’s chanted and crooned vocals about an “uncontrolled burn” paint the picture of a band a little more subdued and controlled even when the world at large isn’t. The title track and closer “Great Mother” started from riffs Jordan and Sochynsky, respectively, wrote pre-hiatus but really take shape with the new band members. On the former, clattering drums back Wolski’s steady vocals, still pulling back for the buoyant guitar riffs you know and love from the band, but coming in at exactly the right moments to bring the song full-circle. And the rolling drums of the latter--especially in conjunction with Jordan’s riffs--sound like the conclusive, shattering storm that results in the death of humanity and brings Wolski to end the record by singing “No one to save (I can absolve).”

More underrated than the initial shock of hearing a band stylistically shift are the moments where they sound like their old selves exploring new territory. Instrumentals like panning, arpeggiated opener “Exit Perfect Mind”, ambient and droning “Desert Stairs”, and heavy, syncopated lurcher “Single Black Point” show a more post-rock, psychedelic side to the band that fit on this record and wouldn’t necessarily sound out of place on their previous two. “Ritual Circle” starts with drones and pulsating synths before introducing cymbals and beats and vocals, commencing a 10-minute epic that builds but never crashes, Wolski’s only screams midway through immediately tapering off in favor of a second-half krautrock jam. And “Alone In The Heart Of The Light”, built from an arpeggiated melody on a MIDI controller, and the first song Jordan sent to Wolski, brings the lyrical themes and the music together. Finding the perfect balance between steady and proggy, it’s the album’s aesthetic statement. When Wolski sings, “What we called home frees itself from harm,” you think of Dream Weapon as making a case for technology being the means rather than an end, one as a catalyst for further human ingenuity.