KEN mode - VOID

Angry Metal Guy

Here we are again strung upon KEN mode’s newest, fresh-faced outing, VOID—well, as fresh a face as these Canucks can muster. NULL‘s intense and twisted Red Demon has fractured into a split visage of terrified sadness and caved-in confidence. Though KEN mode has little to fret over in the performance realm, the returning four-piece lineup boasting some of the most diverse and rich talents of the band’s career, a troubled mind, this demon state, does not find solace through notes of proficiency and creativity. So told the NULL prophecy, a fluctuation of anger to aggression. In the fallout VOID finds its grayscale home. There’s an unwelcome nostalgia to pain, an unfortunate ease to melancholy, but rather than be just a pity piece for the shittiest of extended days, VOID finds a mechanical trudge forward that keeps all from feeling completely lost… right?

It’s easy to align with an album emotionally when it plays on base, powerful moods—the collapse of an already gone mind, unfortunately, falls in that realm. An excellent album, though, takes that basic understanding and warps it between its own capable and agonizingly calloused hands. In such care, VOID claws the walls of a misery pit with Sisyphean acceleration (“Painless”), failure recognition (“These Wires,” “A Reluctance of Being”), misanthropic melodies (“He Was a Good Man, He Was a Taxpayer,” “Not Today, Old Friend”) that feel as frighteningly familiar as they do too masterfully and meticulously executed. In this post-metal meets hardcore lane KEN mode remains recognizable in craft—informed by contemporaries like the swinging dirge-leaders of Kowloon Walled City or the hypnotic, corrosive recluses of Khanate—recalling motifs from NULL along the way (“These Wires,” “A Reluctance…”). But where NULL led with an unsettling hiss leaking from bottled madness, VOID spirals quickly into a different kind of disintegration.

VOID by KEN mode

No matter how desolate the horizon feels among vocalist/guitarist Jesse Matthewson’s death mantras of “A lifetime of building, crumbling down” (“A Reluctance…”) or “There is no escape from our mistakes” (“The Shrike”), his sonically-gifted friends surround him to propel the narrative. The snare-marching “Painless,” the macabre-dancing “These Wires,” the soul-dragging “A Reluctance…” all hold the same joint conveyance, that of a buoyant and nimble low-end that carries a lightness against dissonant and scraping guitar wails. At every song’s base brother Shane Matthewson supplies a math rock-nimble, krautrock hypnotic motorik, which finds equal punctuation from throbbing bass slides, sneaky vocal layering, and whatever else Kathryn Kerr can offer—bubbling synth, piano accents, woodwind diversions, you name it. Even on songs that strike classic KEN mode noise-rock-warped-hardcore (“The Shrike,” “I Cannot”), a classy lead bass scuttle or squeak-leading sax break add valuable, frantic, escape-minded dimensions to these despondent scurries.

Whereas NULL saw an amplified, pulsing, industrial influence, VOID sees an ISIS-toned, gothic/post-punk character splintering the overdriven post-hardcore past. Color doesn’t enliven the mangled, humanoid expression that defines VOID, but the lush layers of each moment threaten to crack open the spectrum by the end. Harkening back to the rich textures that helped escalate early 10’s works Venerable and Entrench, KEN mode channels acts like Russian Circles to blare the instrumental “We’re Small Enough” and a modern-period Converge to call and crush with “A Reluctance….” All leading to the close-out one-two mope-a-dope of “He Was a Good Man…” and “Not Today…,” KEN mode summons both a retching and plaintive-bordering anesthetic-vocal putter, alongside feedback-drenched guitar languishing and gentle sax and string accompaniment, to cement the final manic-to-numb swing. Clear in collaboration and mortifying in beauty, a hope shines through these faces that seem determined to avoid feeling.

The end does not come as a conclusion for these Demons, however—anyone who has lived this character¹ knows it’s never really over. But also, remembering that life continues can be a challenge in its own right. We can hear it in the world around us if we listen, just as we can hear the many bodies uniting in support along this album’s journey. For anyone worried that time might dull the edges on this Canadian force, VOID cuts deceptively sharp. For anyone worried that a back-to-back release threatened to come off as an engorged A-side, B-side glut, VOID fulfills the promise of a band that simply has plenty more to say. KEN mode doesn’t tell stories that make you feel good, but they sure as hell know how to tell one that reminds you to try.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Artoffact Records | Bandcamp
Websites: ken-mode.com | kenmode.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/kenmode
Releases Worldwide: September 22rd, 2023

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