The Always Open Mouth

Fear Before

There's lots of bands out there pushing punk and metal to shocking, terrifying territory. Bands like - and this is just off the top of my head - Frontierer, The Locust, and Daughters either push the volume to deafening levels, employ constantly shifting rhythms that leave you disoriented, use shrill and dissonant tones through instruments and voices alike to create truly grotesque soundscapes, or some combination thereof. If I could liken those bands to a movie, it would probably contain some of the most shameless, graphic depictions of blood and gore with stomach churning, jittery cinematography. The point I'm getting to is that Fear Before's The Always Open Mouth is nothing like that, and yet it is still one of the most unsettling albums I've ever listened to. It's shocking in a more sophisticated way, like a devastating psychological thriller that you can't seem to stop thinking about long after the movie has ended. The Always Open Mouth has a masterfully assembled atmosphere where instrumentation, vocal performances, and lyrics cohesively mesh together to spell deep and utter despair. This is not a feel good record.

I like framing this record within the context of a movie because it really does feel cinematic. You have blood pumping action sequences on songs like Drowning the Old Hag where the sludgy guitars and crashing drums really get the adrenaline pumping. The end of this song rages pretty hard as the volume reaches explosive levels with guitars, drums, and vocals all punching together in unison. There's intrigue in the beginning of songs like Taking Cassandra to the End of the World Party or High As a Horse where clean guitars play unusual chords; building tension and suspense until it eventually overflows into angsty mayhem. There's moments of high drama with tracks like ...As a Result of Signals Being Crossed due to its weighty piano lines that play just a single note phrase. Action, suspense, drama; these scenes crisscross and splice seamlessly from one song to another creating a truly engrossing experience.

To help make each scene really come to life, the band and producer Bobby Darling inject a great deal of sonic detail at every opportunity they can. The methodical creation and placement of certain sounds is truly unbecoming for a band of this nature and status; which I guess is another reason why I'm so impressed. The ghostly squeal on Taking Cassandra to the End of the World Party perfectly adds to its funhouse quality, and the spring reverb noises on The Waiting Makes Me Curious make that scene even more chilling. On the percussion front, I thought the way two drum parts were layered on top of each other on ...As a Result of Signals Being Crossed and Ten Seconds In Los Angeles made for interesting rhythms and tones when they bled into each other. The pulsing electronics at the start of Lycanthropy immediately set off those fight or flight instincts while the electronic blips and shimmering guitars on My (Fucking) Deer Hunter are like being entranced in a dangerous underground lab. There's so many sounds to mull over and even after sixteen years, I'm still finding more to be drawn to.

There's even a lot of diversity in the vocal performances on this record. David Marion's main mode is his sinister, throaty retch that would be unflattering in any other context, however, on this record, he offers so much more than that. Marion's singing can take on all sorts of tones and inflections to suit whatever is needed in any particular moment. In Ten Seconds In Los Angeles, he can be heard performing a guttural, fried tone that is reminiscent of Marilyn Manson, and thanks to a vocoder effect, Marion sounds like an oppressive robotic overlord on My (Fucking) Deer Hunter. His foil, guitarist Adam Fisher, can also deliver a lot of tonal variety. His scream is a shrill shriek best demonstrated on the crushing Drowning the Old Hag, he has an amazing tortured belt on My (Fucking) Deer Hunter, and perhaps his creepiest performance of all occurs on Ten Seconds In Los Angeles, where he puts on this super nasally inflection that makes him sound mentally disturbed.

The instrumentation and vocal performances do enough to make this album truly unsettling, but it's the ugly lyrical themes that really push this thing over the edge. I get notes of societal brainwashing (High As a Horse), conquest and domination in relation to ones enemies and perhaps more sickeningly, within the family (My (Fucking) Deer Hunter), and tales of unhinged men who may snap and bring violent terror to anyone who crosses their path (Lycanthropy). Dog Sized Bird brings more cryptic tales, specifically about an animal that feasts on the remains of unfortunate persons who found themselves beneath the wheels of moving trains; intentionally or unintentionally, it is unclear. The whole record is just unrelenting doom and gloom brought about by inspiring words such as "just like I came into this world, all by myself I will leave it." Then there's the mantra of "everything will not be made right," that fittingly opens and closes the record. In the beginning, it's a laughable prophecy; by the end, a harrowing reality.

Are you starting to see what I mean? The Always Open Mouth is an existential nightmare that communicates how darkness and futile our life is. And that is a deeply terrifying notion. One that is presented with a great deal of thought and consideration for sound, performance, and overall atmosphere. Despite it being a total bummer, I don't think it can be denied that this record has a ton of artistic merit. But I also understand that this album is not for everyone, and certainly not for the faint of heart.