Season To Risk

The Shattering (Owned & Operated)
by Craig Regala

These guys have been at it for a decade plus and I know I saw ‘m at some time, six or seven years ago. The modestly clanging drilling music inclosed reminds me of a less florid time. The whole nü metal/rap rock thing has so bulldozed the industry that other potential sounds and tempos really belong to a different era, not just a different time or “alternative” space. Luckily, art doesn’t follow commerce wholesale… Hell, I was told Universal wasn’t putting out the new Hellacopters disc in the U.S. because “there was no market” (hint: put ‘m on tour with Buckcherry). Maybe everything’s as it should be: People like Limp Bizkit for a reason, not because it’s shoved at ‘m – the songs and music mean something to them. I know, I’ve asked.

So Season To Risk move through a territory of drone punch that may’ve shared space with the math rock mid-Western movement as well as the stripped-down to the girders tension release hard rock of Shellac and Tar and some of what I guess would be stuff that opened up territory for “emo” (what a horrible term, eh?). That being Jawbox and some of the stuff on their label, Desoto, without any reference from or to “pop punk.”

Also, this sort of pensiveness has been captured by Chokebore, a band who did some recording for Amphetamine Reptile, a label that moved towards this feel/approach (as did the Touch & Go label), a reflective blues, the emotional state, for the times. Fugazi’s mid-period without “that” rhythmic underpinning and less emotional gushing. The songs are OK, but none of them defines all their power. The electronic touches throw some haze, a bit of noise, and a snip or two of synth-as-fire fly-trails into the proceedings. I could put a couple of these cuts – “Deserve” or “Straight and Narrow” – on a mix next to recent Radiohead and it wouldn’t dick you down unless you’re a simp. Most of the rest is for, uh, Barkmarket fans and folks who have Bailterspace records and dig Drive Like Jehu… Yeah, I know: “huh?”
(PO Box 36 Ft. Collins, CO 80522)