When considering the temporal perception and reaction time of the average metalhead, it is to wonder what’s quicker: people hopping on the internet to talk shit as soon as Metallica releases new music, or the unfettered jumping to use the descriptor of “improv jazz” whenever a saxophone shows up somewhere in a band’s line-up. Following up on the ‘how fast’ continuum is the speed with which any band utilizing a sax with any amount of heavy metal heft behind it gets compared to Naked City. In addition to our flapping digital gums about the debut by Brain Tentacles, let’s crush a few dreams and dispel some mythology with some quickness in the process. But first…
Yes, it’s absolutely the truth that Brain Tentacles was birthed by drummer Dave Witte (Municipal Waste, Publicist UK, amongst others past and present) and saxophonist Bruce Lamont (Yakuza, Bloodiest, Led Zeppelin II, amongst others past and present) over the course of a week in order to open a string of Melt-Banana dates two years ago. And it’s also true that bassist Aaron Dallison (Axioma, Keelhaul, amongst oth-…oh, you get the drill)’s entry into the band came after a spontaneous on-stage jam with the band on the Cleveland stop of that tour. What’s not true is that Brain Tentacles comes from the Homer Simpson-assumed school of thought as it pertains to jazz (“Jazz? Pfft! They just make it up as they go along.”). In fact, aside from some of the noise/soundscapes that commonly rear their head towards the end of their live sets and their occasionally being joined by a “guest tentacle” at shows, the material plied is very much thought out, deliberate and beholden to decisive structure.
On the same tack, aside from the actual sound and timbre of Lamont’s horn, there’s not an overwhelming connection to jazz. If anything, the rhythms Witte and Dallison collaborate on are rooted in skittish noise rock and industrial/experimental works, with a sort of staccato accenting that has been as common to metallic hardcore since the late 90s as associated with the occasional jazz/fusion flourish. As a result and expectedly, many have already compared Brain Tentacles to Naked City, presumably because there’s a sax and a connection to extreme music. I personally don’t have an issue with this sort of branding because Naked City is probably one of my favourite bands to ever walk the face of Buddha’s fat earth. However, that ensemble (especially its early work) was more rooted in quick changes of a multiplicity of genres all basted together under the inhospitable umbrellas of noisecore. This is not where Brain Tentacles is coming from at all. Despite the attitude of sonic experimentation, their sound is much more measured and linear. Any abruptness comes within the context of the riff or melody itself, or in the case of “Palatine,” a slow swoop from mind-scrubbing drones to an expansive tribal wash right smack dab into a seven-minute long prank phone call. If you want to keep the associations between John Zorn-associated projects and extreme metal alive and kicking, there’s far more in common here with Painkiller, or God, a dystopian, throbbing industrial project masterminded by Kevin Martin which, in a rare moment, saw Zorn as guest and not band leader.
The start and stops in “Fruitcake” with Dallison’s ascending/descending rumble and the way accents are moved upon as a unit demonstrates a synergy and forward planned movement that takes a mixture of conventional rhythms from the worlds of Unsane and Craw, though we doubt the latter could ever be considered conventional. “Cosmic Warriors Girth Curse” possesses a slow burning sludge/doom air that picks up pace into a shuffling and skipping slice of acid rock majesty that generates images of a Venn Diagram where Hawkwind, Voivod and Pink Floyd meet, then start dropping tabs and covering each other’s most groovy material. The sample introducing “Gassed” illustrates the band has a sense of humour about themselves (“Fuck rock and roll sax!” someone exclaims) before a pulsing riff/melody combo proves effective in its collision of simplicity, power and minimalism.
There are moments that do seem a bit more off-the-cuff; Witte’s double bass patterning on lead off track “Kingda Ka” is delivered in a relatively straight forward manner allowing his band mates to throw alternating musical slings and arrows in a manner which comes across a little more on the jam session side of things, though the off-kilter break in the middle section locks in. But despite what you’re heard on the playground, this isn’t an excursion into the world of improv. As well, be forewarned as you either jump to conclusions about how much you’re going to love/hate this depending on its ties to jazz. Brain Tentacles obviously has connections to that world, though they’re tempered with spines of noise rock, ambient, sludge, doom, progressive weirdness and space rock. Probably the best describer of what’s going on here comes from the band’s own brains when they use the phrase “sound adventure” to denote their musical step towards left field. Straight from the horse’s mouth, as they say.
Score: 8/10
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