Vol 12 / Trk 02 / Odessa / Animals As Leaders

I LOVE this curveball. Craij did an awesome job of setting a very new tone and path for this volume in contrast with the few I’ve been involved in to-date.

I had the (perhaps dubious) honor of living in Washington D.C. at the turn of the millenium and for a time was SO. INTO. EMO. Yeah, yeah, I know—”post-hardcore” or whatever makes you feel better. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I once wrote an article to Pitchfork.com complaining about a Dismemberment Plan show. Fer real.

It was a phase though. The energy and tension of the late-nineties post-hardcore stuff eventually transformed into the energy and tension of post-electronic music for me. But sometimes, when a deadline is looming, I need to ROCK OUT. A little …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead will usually do the trick, but sometimes I need more. And when I need that blast of pure unadulterated rock energy I reach for Animals As Leaders.

Animals as Leaders stands at the vanguard of a sort of post-post-hardcore. Solidly influenced by the Fugazi-generation of grind and stomp but with a big dash of “real” metal and a solid tablespoon’s worth of mathy bleep influence. Odessa almost sounds like a videogame soundtrack for the first few bars thanks to some amazing sampling-pedal acrobatics from guitarist Tobin Abasi. At exactly :39 that facade strips away and Animals As Leaders thoroughly rips your face apart. The odd time changes, the guitar acrobatics, the precision drumming…damn. Damn.

As long as we’re putting our jetpacks on we might as well strap some missiles to that puppy.

b.klops

Filed under: Mixtape, NEIMT, Vol 12, Animals As Leaders