“It was a mistake to ask me for help.”
More than 20 years after their formation, KEN Mode hold a well-earned reputation. Their discography contains only one misstep – the overly noise-rock reliant Success from 2015 that interrupted an otherwise impressive run. On most albums, the band applies various levels of sludge and post-metal to a generally post-hardcore base. Their last release, 2018’s Loved, leaned further into a sludgy, no wave influenced sound to great effect. Now, long-time collaborator and saxophonist Kathryn Kerr joins the band full time, signifying that things can only get weirder. Null, the newest product from the Winnipeg-based outsiders, also gets even darker.
“What would you know about strength?
What would you know about greatness?
The longer you talk, the weaker you sound.
This is not about you.“
Opener “A Love Letter” drops with immediacy upon the listener with devastating results. Kerr‘s contributions are immediately audible, with a menacing sax line working behind the usual trio, a sound heard here and there on Loved but expanded here. Vocalist Jesse Matthewson seems to have an excellent time chastising you with every opportunity. “I need this act to concentrate and neutralize the poison in my brain,” he says about making this kind of music. Disquieting, certainly, but also sufficient fuel for whatever this fire purports itself to be.
“Can’t eat, can’t sleep,
Consciousness is destroying me.
My eyes are heavy, with no relief,
Just rusted anchors of frozen meat.”
Subsequent track “Throw Your Phone in the River” acts as the opposite of affirmation. At this point in the album, Matthewson appears to say “If this won’t get better for me, it won’t for you either.” Null offers no quarter and no relief, and this track proves an early warning. Indeed, this sound crushes, presses, and dashes the light out of any given room. If it wasn’t so hypnotic, this might be a problem, but the musicianship is top notch throughout. Even a short affair like this track demonstrates KEN Mode at its most depressive, but also its most representative of previous iterations.
Beyond the singles, tracks like “Not My Fault” and “Lost Grip” take things to a new depth. They’re both the noisiest and most skeletal, yet still carry the incredibly heavy load that becomes Null‘s most apparent motif. The no wave element shines most strongly at the albums midsection, and these moments will test veterans of this band’s material. Even so, the dynamic nature of your typical KEN Mode album has prepared its stalwart fans for such moments, and for that reason these don’t disappoint but instead take things in a new and exciting direction.
“Pulsating in its dominance,
And eclipsing all focus.
You felt it too,
Like the beating wings of the thrush.“
Finally, “Unresponsive” ends things off on the lowest note possible. Immersed in the most viscous sludge, this track slouches like the rough best towards Bethlehem to be born. Yeats’s “The Second Coming” provides the most apt comparison towards the imagery evoked here. Barren, downtrodden, and without remorse, KEN Mode wants to elicit your most negative energy. The album’s end seeks to the listener cold, breathless, and claustrophobic, well in line with the album’s themes.
Null exists in a similar space to Have a Nice Life‘s Deathconsciousness and Joy Divison’s Closer in that it does not offer escape, but instead a space to wallow and wither. In that, it limits the album’s accessibility by choice, but also excels in the creation of a suffocating atmosphere. Provided that one enters not be entertained but to experience, it’s hard to do better in 2022 than this album.
9/10
KEN Mode – Null is out September 23rd on Artoffact Records and can be pre-ordered here.