A couple of days before this appeared on the new releases list from Ave Noctum towers I read an article online featuring Knoll. It was one of those ones to watch or get your ears round this shit kind of affairs from either Bandcamp or The Mail Online or summat.
The brief bits I skimmed promised a bunch of young scamps from Memphis prepared to blast these old lug’oles with a mix of deathgrind and power violence that would be as devastating as it could be lifechanging. Having only sampled a quick snippet of last year’s Interstice album I dove into Metempiric with a mixture of excitement and cynicism.
The cynicism was there as I am wary of “the next big thing” which gets bandied about every few months as some new gunslinger sashays into town with a slight variation on the generation before’s riffs. Part of me was thinking “so far so Full of Hell”. Ah what a jaded old git I was!
Knoll are a six piece in existence for the blink of an eye (well since 2017 which is both forever in Covid years and nothing). In that short time, they have released a Demo, a split, a full-length album and a live album. Nothing short of prolific. You get plenty of bang for your buck with this band. Three guitarists: Evan Kubick, Ryan Cook and Drew Miller, Lukas Quartermaine on bass with Jack Anderson behind the kit. That kit was formerly occupied by singer and erstwhile trumpet player and electronics fella Jamie Eubanks. Jamie obviously misses the sticks being in his hands as he still likes to thump a floor tom at live shows – check out the St Vitus set on YouTube for evidence.
Now for the matter at hand. Metempiric is quite an epic by grind standards. 13 tracks in 31 minutes, the shortest being 52 seconds the longest – final track Tome clocking in at a whopping 8 minutes 17 seconds. A good five minutes of its running time is a mix of discordance and ambience that sounds like a singing bowl being played in a wind tunnel full of semi lucid bees , which oddly fills me with a feeling of serenity whilst also being slightly unnerving. Which is the best way to describe the feeling that this album elicits throughout as long as I add pummelled with ferocity and technicality into the description. Knoll have kept the winning formula from their debut – the album was recorded at Bricktop by Andy Nelson (FKA Gozer) from Weekend Nachos and mixed by Kurt Ballou. Add in artwork by Ethan Mcarthy of Primitive Man and we got a supergroup on the sidelines before the band even warm up. Gor Blimey is this a release worthy of such luminaries. From the initial flurry and fury of Clepsydra this album is a masterclass in modern grindcore. You can add as many back slashes and subgenres in as you want- Knoll don’t care. They have a musical ideology and they are prepared to ram it down the throat of anyone passing. They also offer a little tickle of the tonsils and a stroke of the neck as they go in.
Whether it is manic trumpets mixing with deep rumbling basslines and fog horn style – I can’t tell if it is guitars or electronics – on “Throe of Upheaval” or the guttural death fury and tight technical riffing of Gild of Blotted Lucra, this album kept me on my toes throughout.
Yes it is ferocious. Yes it has multi layers of discordance and technical brilliance and is a challenging listen at times, sending one’s head spinning to keep up with both the pace and change of direction. At the same time there is something oddly comforting about the album. The chaos has order within it. A purpose. It strays out of the lines but keeps a pattern that that kept me fully engaged.
Lovely
(8.5/10 Matt Mason)
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