Terraformer

Apparently Knut is a highly influential and respected band. I don’t know exactly what they’re famous for, or whom they’ve influenced and I’ve never met any one else who has even heard of these guys, but all of my research still claims that this band is a big deal. If Terraformer is any indication about the rest of Knut’s discography then I can’t say that I agree with the “legend” label.

I bought this album on a whim three years ago at an Isis concert. Unless I’m listening to the record I can only recall about four of the twelve songs from the album. Despite its title Terraformer is not a world changing release. On the contrary it’s an aggravatingly inconsistent one. Knut seems unable to decide whether they want to play slower doomier songs or fast technical semi-songs. I say semi-songs because most of the shorter fast pieces on this album (and that’s most of the tracks) don’t feel finished. It’s pretty obvious that this band has some technical skill under its belt but there’s no finished product to show for it. It doesn’t help that the sludgy guitar tone that works well for the slow tracks makes hearing what’s going on during the faster sections very difficult. Musically these pieces are somewhere in between sludge like Eyehategod and Dillinger Escape Plan style mathcore. These songs all tend to mush together and have very few individual characteristics to make them stand out. Hell, if it weren’t for the sample in Fallujah, it would be completely indistinguishable from the following track Genoa.

As is often the case with inconsistent albums, the earlier tracks are better on Terraformer. Kyoto, despite using some of the same self indulgent drum parts of Seattle, has a few interesting tempo shifts and makes better use of its chaotic sections. While it still feels slightly disjointed Kyoto succeeds where most of the other fast songs fail. It’s also one of the three songs on this album with vocals. The singing is of the usual sludgy hardcore bellowing variety and does so little to push the songs forward that one has wonder why they’re there at all. There’s also some really stupid computer vocals in Torvalds that ruin any chances that track had of being cool.

But enough on the negatives, lets move on the Knut’s stronger and under used side. The most memorable and effective parts of this album are Knut’s flirtations with minimalistic and crushing doom. After a brief but musically strong intro, Wyriwys raises the bar far higher than any other track on the album even gets close to. That main riff coupled with the grimy dense distortion is a wonder to behold. While the guitar tone made it nearly impossible to understand the later tracks on the album, it works perfectly here and none of the wanky drums that pop up later are present. Evian isn’t as immediately ass kicking as Wyriwys but it’s a hell of a lot better than the majority of the album. In some ways it reminds me of older Pelican, although considering Knut’s reputation the influence probably goes the other way around. Solar Flare drags a bit, but otherwise is a strong drone tune with some haunting delay appearing halfway. Davos is one of the more depressing tracks because even though it’s meant to be an interlude, it’s longer than a few of the real songs and a good deal better. Fibonacci Unfolds is pretty much a waste of time unless you’re hardcore into ambient music although even then this isn’t anywhere near the best you can get in that field.

For some reason after three years of not being impressed by this record I still continue to listen to it occasionally and still keep it on my iPod. There are a few things that Knut are very good at, but for whatever reason they decided to ignore those traits in favor of generic and forgettable mathcore. I don’t really know who to recommend this to, or even if I’d recommend the album at all, but I can say that Wyriwys is definitely worth a download.