This album was released in 2008 and have been listening it to a year and a half now. To put it bluntly this album is fucking splendifirous.. Genghis Tron manage to blend programmed drum beats with hardcore metal, glitch drum sounds ala Aphex Twin and ambient music. While this is a feat in itself the songwriting is also quite masterful. The melodies and harmonies are quite contemporary and offer a different world of sound to metal as we know it circa 1980. Purists would argue this is not really metal though, who cares. The modern age has seen rock and metal progress to more and more difficult territory rhythmically and hence has invited comparisons to the progressive rock of the 1970's, ala Yes with modern proponents being the Mars Volta and Mastodon. Genghis Tron tends to nod in this direction but more in a metal way as comparable to Meshuggah, the absolute Titans of complex math style metal. Genghis Tron are not as complex in their time signatures but they have some very clever and intricate rhythmic passages that could only be the work of practiced or studied musicians. If you are not a fan of screamed metal vocals, or cookie monster vocals or in this case cookie monster after he's just found out he's been sodomised repeatedly, Genghis Tron may be a trifle hard to get into initially. Well get over it! The metal screamo vocal or whatever its called is just as difficult a technique as normal singing and one can separate the good people (was going to say guys but there's now more and more girls singing in the extreme metal style) from the average. Mookie, the singer is good but tends to be not as strong live, as witnessed in their live show in Melbourne earlier this year. Even if you don't dig this style of singing it soon gives way to some haunting and catchy vocal melodies. Hamilton Jordan the guitar player is very tight throughout. There is no lead playing anywhere, instead he concentrates on accompanying the rhythm section. Kind of unobtrusive yet powerful in the same way Jim Martin was to Faith no more. Check the intro to opening track "Board up the house" where he uses finger tapping to double the synths. The song "Colony Collapse" features some interesting syncopated sections that would leave many a guitarist head scratching as to what that rhythm was. The synth sounds are very warm and reminiscent of the 70's and are played by both Mookie Singerman and Michael Sochynsky, though Michael tends to be the main keyboard player live. Like the band Black Moth Super Rainbow, Genghis Tron use analog synths. The drums are programmed via computer based drum machines, and as mentioned earlier utilize the type of glitch sounds that can be found on an Aphex Twin or Venetian Snares record. Blast beats and great rolling Tom fills give way to glitch style hi hats. It's the crossover drum sound of kids who played Atari games then later got into heavy metal. The use of ambience throughout Board up the house is quite rewarding. It offers a good contrast and has a lulling hypnotic effect and serves to counter balance the more extreme sections. This may be quite unique for a metal band though saying that the Young Gods have been doing that sort of thing for years; also if you listen to NIN's most recent album The Slip it also tends towards long ambiance in the middle parts. Overall this is one of the finest albums out at the moment, it manages to blend styles like hardcore metal, math metal, glitch, ambience and electro. The most obvious comparison would be to industrial music ala NIN but this is different. The harmonies and melodies are not what you would expect for an industrial band, and the mood changes and songwriting are quite unique. Genghis Tron is truly what one would call progressive music. They take the best elements of contemporary music and blend them to create a new sound. Whilst not to everybody's liking because of the harsh vocals and more extreme metal leanings this album is one fine piece of art.
nice first post i do like this album. i need to listen to it more to fully distill my thoughts on it though. although i think their sound matures a lot on this album i sometimes find myself wishing for the more intense moments of Dead Mountain Mouth. that album took a while to grow on me. Cloak Of Love is also really good and more in the vein of Board up the House imo.
yeah you're right when you say they matured, I went through their catalogue backwards starting with Board then Dead Mountain Mouth then Cloak of Love. Drum programming and sounds are taken up a notch
Yeah, I'm with e_brown, wheret his album took a little while to grow on me, as the bits of interspersed amvienced were definitely a sort of "wat" for me the first few times I'm listened to. Luckily I got used to it, as Board Up the House is an incredible album in its own regard. Must admit, I'm still a fan of DMM more, but fuck, these guys are great. Put on a good live show too. Nice guys.
white walls of DMM live sick mate [ame="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7b060_genghistron-white-walls-live-at-clu_music"]Dailymotion - GenghisTron - White Walls Live at club infinity NY - une vidéo Musique[/ame]
Board Up the House is one of my favorite albums to rock out to when I'm driving. That title track is the most epic intro EVER.
I love the title track and this record is great, but if I were to put it on while driving I think people would die a lot
