Knut

"Challenger"
(Hydra Head Records)  

You know in the back of my mind when I was finishing up reviewing their "Bastardizer" release a year or two ago I was relieved… it's over, no more of this. Somehow though I knew we wouldn't be spared. Let's get the pronunciation out of the way first, it's "Ka-nut" rather than the two or three thousand other syllabic misnomers I'd been throwing their way… and yet who cares really, the name, when applied to the "music" is difficult to forget. The problem I have with this or others that violate nearly every natural law ever applied to instrumentation-not an insult, just an observation-is the tunes adopt such a degree of familiarity in their noise factor you can't hope to retrieve one from another without… a pillow to at least rest your head when the challenge becomes too great! "Challenger" is the Swiss bands' latest attempt at creating art out of instrumentally strewn terror-"Bastardizer" owning not a thing on this. The songs racked with repressed anger and a childlike ferocity to inflict torment on any and all authorial figures, cracking a menacing smile as the finger depresses that which triggers the subsequent agitation-only here it's the music, pure sonic suicide with several key filter effects and time changes to somewhat offset the magnified noise factor wrought of debilitating guitar scales and indecipherable wails of discontent; time keeping lost its place long ago when they put their first fateful discussions together; The vocals, well we'll call it lucky we're at least provided with some degree of song lyric whereas if at all, we could ascertain a darker side of humanity at work here, or wholly consumed by an industrious invader relenting only its complete annihilation… "Challenger" is a raging behemoth at the forefront of Noisecore technology; an acquired taste, occasionally transcendental in its ambience, yet suggesting a reserved conscience amidst shards of broken glass.

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