Divider/Colony- Split by Toxicbreed
If you are not aware, Divider and Colony are two bands from New York that have been making waves in the “sludge” realm of hardcore. You may have read about Divider before here at Figureheads when I covered the Throatruiner three-way split they contributed to with Bone Dance and Plebeian Grandstand. The stream comes to us from Toxicbreed’s Funhouse.

Without losing much time, let’s dissect this monster. Being a 7” it is relatively short but the short form does not restrict anything. Divider offers only one track to their side of the split. The relatively long track delivers a pretty hefty haymaker. There are no frills here but tribal-ish drumming and a staggering and stomping rhythm section gird a razor sharp gargle. Like I have mentioned before, Gray Ghost are an apt comparison but to me “Tide Lungs” is sonically akin to one of my favorite records of all time, Zao’s Liberate Te Ex Inferis (do yourself a favor, seriously) which itself took huge cues from Neurosis who, lest we all forget truly founded this “Doom-meets-hardcore” sub-sub-sub-genre.

On the flip side comes three tracks from Colony who can be a thrilling but frustrating group. The formula is familiar, fast paced blasts and dueling shouts but the trio are not content to be pigeonholed into the genre that everyone seems to want to call Power Violence these days. Druggy feeling riffs come close to cresting but never break in quite the way the style would dictate. Hardcore that bucks trends is almost a trend itself and the most exciting part about Colony is their complete unwillingness to ride behind that horse.

Even the multi-color record sleeve throws tradition right out the window. No faux-xerox art here, instead there is a satisfying wash of blue, red, and purple around a solid black planetary body at it’s core, looking like a nightmarish version of Beautiful Katamari, the Japanese import video game about rolling objects into a ball to create new stars.
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Throatruiner Records - Three-Way Split

I decided to give this three-way split a listen based on a lot of internet promotion of the album. It seems like every blog had this one up. I had heard of Plebeian Grandstand before but the other two were new to me. I was intrigued by the idea of the release, three different expressions of hardcore, each tied together by the common thread of intensity and passion.

Upon first listen, Bone Dance can easily be placed somewhere in the realm of Gaza or Botch. Their two songs on this record, “Conniver” and “West” play like amazingly heavy counterparts to each other. The first, is a rager of odd riffs, dissonance, and barrel-chested roaring vocals. Imagine Torch Runner with more complex guitar work. At nearly four minutes it finally winds down, but not with out a fight, as the song lurches to finality. “West” immediately called to mind the sludge inspired hardcore mastery of Gray Ghost, as down tuned guitars churn and ring until about halfway when the tempo takes off again. This five piece from Idaho is currently on tour throughout much of the midwest and will play a few dates with Former Thieves.
Bone Dance

Speaking of Former Thieves, the next band on the split, Divider have much in common, especially in regards to vocal tone. The music is not as complex but Divider achieve the same massive feeling with drawn out passages of driving and building guitars on “Gaia”. Divider are not to be pigeonholed into the “epic” soaring style of Hardcore, as the next track “Halios Geron” takes on the traditional hardcore short and fast framework, occasionally interrupted with crunching breaks and crescendos.
Divider

Lastly, we come to the strangest beast on this split, Plebeian Grandstand. The French quartet offer up possibly the most intense take on hardcore with their pair of tracks, “Woe Is Me” and “Woe Is You”. I don’t think it would be possible to talk about these songs without mentioning the oft lauded, French post-hardcore/screamo/black metal giants Celeste. Plebeian Grandstand achieve something very similar in their experimentation. The first of the two songs is a hard pill to swallow in terms of tone, with a non-stop wall of buzzing distortion, blasting drums, layered vocals and echoing, nearly palpable reverb. The second track just drips with Neurosis influence, littered with hypnotizing guitar work and a drudging bassline laid over tribal drumming. Plebeian Grandstand route the song through every possible dark alley, taking off into angular and grinding directions, before reining everything back in for the last build up before a long decrescendo, ringing out in a reprise of it’s trance-like introduction.
Plebeian Grandstand

Throatruiner Records