They were missing out.
Maybe your ears suck.
So for about 20 years I thought that one part of me was having a stroke when it came to an album that, I swear, one of my friends told me made him SICK. That album was SLIP by Quicksand. They have released two albums (Slip, Manic Compression; there was an EP that preceded Slip but I've never seen nor heard it). I am unaware of their history or what members have been doing separately since they broke up.
I also claim ignorance of the scene that they came from, but I will say this: "post-hardcore" is not a new thing. That's the description slapped on bands like my new best friends in Aeges when snooty record stores don't want to use the term "metal." You may recall my review of Aegis a few weeks ago. It was not a glowingly positive review and definitely not the kind you'd be able to quote to impress your fans or booking agents, I bet. Well, I wrote it, and somehow they saw it, and they thanked me on Twitter for the honest review. I'll clarify now that I don't DISLIKE the record. I am no longer editing or writing a fanzine so I no longer feel like "wielding fake verbal superiority" (paraphrasing Rollins there) over someone else's work. In the end, after I reread it, I came off as pretty dismissive. I'm not backtracking, though. There's some catchy stuff and that keeps it from sounding like every other harder-than-emo-screamo band that fills up the Caspian Sea and then some, and I bought it because it features a member of Pelican, so hoorah. And I will be checking out more from them for sure when they produce, and if I can, when they tour. But there's room for improvement, and parts I don't like, and it doesn't matter what I think. That's the problem with an album review, you can either come off like you're willing to sexually relieve the band members for a super duper job well done or you're just writing off 6-18 months of their writing and recording work, often before the album you got for free from their press agent or label is done playing and being uploaded on your favorite torrent site.
You know what I mean, assholes.
I will expound on album reviewing much later. I should get back to talking about whatever "post-hardcore" is, and that it's nothing new if you're going to slap that label on every band that's metal but not metal because they're wearing thick rimmed glasses instead of leather vests. Hey, I wore Dockers while playing in the death metal, or metalcore, band I was in. Don't get me started on labels. But just because you don't want to find your hip new band in the same CD discount bin with the Blaze Bailey years of Iron Maiden doesn't mean that your label holds true.
SO, post-hardcore? Well, what is hardcore? What scene had it?
Who had the NYHC black magic marker'd on their hands and when?
Can you bench press the guys in Madball?
Would HELMET be the first post-hardcore band? At least on a mainstream level? I mean, there was metal, and then Nirvana showed up and suddenly we were at Defcon Grunge level, and then as guys with long hair started showing up with heavy guitars but with fewer solos and even less bullet belts, well, what do you make of aggressive music with atonal vocals that isn't on Roadrunner or Metal Blade records?
Helmet's Meantime may have shattered the hardcore glass ceiling and gave us post-hardcore, though "alternative" was already put on the Avery label maker on your record store's word document and it was too late to make new stickers, so in they went.
Quicksand was, I'm guessing, part of that NY-post hardcore scene. (One of the Quicksand guys and one of the Helmet guys would later join Handsome.) I'll get to the album now:
SLIP is noisy, and screamy. But it's also incredibly MOODY. There are no singalong anthems here. The bass is driving so many songs, right from the getgo in Fazer, and they let you know this just before the two minute mark. This album is FULL of these moments, such as on "Dine Alone," which was the single, or at least I had the 7" and the b-side was the phenomenal "Can Opener." If the tracks seem uneven, that's a great thing. This album isn't flat or anonymous sounding. The songs aren't all at the same pace and riffs come out from nowhere and change the momentum (check out "Unfulfilled"). I swear I have to go back after a bridge or a solo break to hear if the chorus they jumped on to was the same as the first chorus. These moments add so much to the rest of the song that it no longer sounds like the same one, or at least has a whole different tone to it that the first half didn't have, even if it's the same chorus! Stuff like that. And I love it! Happy, this album keeps me going and smiling. Sad, this album is right there with me. So, moody.
Anyway, I have been bumping into people who also dig this record. Discussing Helmet, discussing The Elvi, mentioning my new friends in Aegis, and Quicksand came up and "oh yeah, I LOVED that band!" Really? Where were you when my friends were dissing it nearly 20 years ago as a Tool rip-off? That's right, they thought that it sounded too much like Tool's Undertow. Can you believe THAT? I can't. No way in a zillion years would I ever make that comparison.
Maybe YOUR ears suck.
The timing is perfect: the band had tried reforming before the end of the century, and it didn't happen, but they got back together earlier this year and might do a few more shows as SLIP is being re-released later this year. Neat!
So, there you go. I got a few words in over Quicksand's slip. I didn't like Manic Compression. I guess the album they were working on before splitting up again is out there in internet land and maybe I'll track it down, but I'm more than happy to keep spinning this one until the end of time.
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