KEN mode - Loved

Labels: Season Of Mist/New Damage Records

Formats: Vinyl/CD/Digital

Release Date: 31 Aug 2018

Tracklist:

1. Doesn't Feel Pain Like He Should

2. The Illusion Of Dignity

3. Feathers & Lips

4, Learning To Be Too Cold

5. Not Soulmates

6. Very Small Men

7. This Is A Love Test

8. Fractures In Adults

9. No Gentle Art

It's time for some Canadian craziness. "Loved" is the seventh (yes, seventh!) full length from Manitoba's KEN mode. Since their inception in 1999, they've won a JUNO award for 2011's "Venerable" and they've toured with some of metal, punk and hardcore's best bands. After the release of 2015's aptly titled "Success", they took a break and found the time to start businesses, release music with other projects and even learn martial arts! Now, with the support of Canadian label New Damage Records and Season Of Mist, the latter half of 2018 just got a lot darker.

KEN mode’s musical chops gather elements from the entire metal and punk gamut. There’s no sticking to simple formulas because its what people want! They open up with noise-rock that mixes in the hardcore of bands like Snapcase and Time In Malta on Doesn’t Feel Pain Like He Should. There’s definite sassiness going on here. There’s a presence about the trio that overwhelms on The Illusion Of Dignity, despite it’s slightly low-key and sludgy sound. The saxophone of Kathryn Kerr is great, adding a bit of thinking man’s jazz to proceedings. The demonstrable anger that’s present during Feathers & Lips shows that there’s plenty of metal flowing through KEN mode’s veins and that they like to keep you guessing as to their sonic direction. It’s just incredibly noisy and vicious all round.

Jesse’s vocals seem to take on a whole new level of crazy as he gets deeper into the album and the off-kilter goodness that is Learning To Be Too Cold suits them well. The metallic edge to Jesse’s guitar work and the drum & bass playing of Shane and Scott respectively nudge “Loved” in a yet more diverse and experimental direction. The stop/start attitude of grind is present on Not Soulmates, which sounds like a brief ode to a friendship that turned sour (maybe). Whatever, it’s great. KEN mode is back to their noisy-punkish best on Very Small Men, which manages to harness a sound that Canadian bands do best. It’s up-tempo exhilaration is tough to match and it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. To-the-point song-writing and musicianship at it’s best.

Saxophone once again brings a chilled tone to This Is A Love Test and it’s very soothing, positioned as it is between the trio’s short bursts of noise. It feels more like a jazz club than a sweaty metal-filled basement when listening to it. There are more and more albums coming out now that can’t be fully enjoyed or understood in just one sitting and “Loved” is no exception. That said, penultimate song Fractures In Adults is a song that can be enjoyed by both camps, those with attention spans and though without. It’s just got that quality metal/hardcore structure that you just need sometimes. 

It all ends with the grunge-laden No Gentle Art. All eight-and-a-half-minutes of it. It’s slow tribal-like drumming, rumbling bass and quietly spoken vocals could have come from any nu-metal band that was popular back in that sub-genre’s heyday but thankfully the rest of the song doesn’t bare resemblance to any of that. It builds at a steady pace, before exploding at the mid-point into something that’s truly challenging sonically. I guess that’s exactly what KEN mode were going for with this album and it works, brilliantly. 

You can stream and purchase "Loved" digitally from KEN mode below:-

It's available on physical formats from the links below:-

KEN mode - https://kenmode.bigcartel.com

New Damage Records (Can) - https://newdamagerecords.myshopify.com/collections/ken-mode

Season Of Mist (RoW) - https://shop.season-of-mist.com/label

KEN mode - https://www.facebook.com/kenmode/

New Damage Records - https://www.facebook.com/newdamagerecords/

Season Of Mist - https://www.facebook.com/seasonofmistofficial/ 

Kadinja - Interview

This French tech-metal band was a tip from my brother and as I've been a bit out of the loop when it comes to modern tech-metal of late, I thought I'd pay further attention to them. They released their debut album "Ascendancy" in February 2017, which featured a guest appearance from guitarist Rick Graham. Kadinja toured the UK in April 2017 alongside No Sin Evades His Gaze and unlike other bands in the genre, they've even produced their own songbooks based on the album, so fans can learn "Ascendancy" on their chosen instrument. Recently, I sent the band some questions to find out a bit more about them, their influences, those songbooks and French tech-metal in general. Their drummer Morgan was kind enough to respond.

I recently discovered Kadinja thanks to my Brother, who loves tech-metal. Can you talk about how Kadinja was formed and about your career as a band so far?

Kadinja was formed a few years only, we released our first EP in 2014 then first album "Ascendancy" last year and we're now working on the new one which should be out within few months. We got an amazing fan base which seemed to enjoy the album quite a lot, we try to work with fans as much as we can, asking what they would like, and that's quite exciting to work this way. Ascendancy is sold out and we're gonna have to repress it sooner than expected so I suppose the career's good!

I’ve been listening to “Ascendancy” a lot recently and aside from the tech-metal/djent in your music, I hear some similarities to the metalcore of bands like Killswitch Engage. Is that accurate and if so, would you say that those types of bands have influenced your music in any way?

We sure did listen to some metalcore band and I know some of us listened to Killswitch Engage such as our Singer Phil and I, don't really know for the rest of us though. Now for sure we took influences everywhere we could, from rock music to jazz.

“Ascendancy” was released via Klonosphere/Season Of Mist last year. What was it like working with those labels, especially given Season Of Mists’s history within heavy music?

Season of Mist handles the distribution part and I think they did a pretty good job since Ascendancy is now sold out. Same for Klonosphere for promotion, Guillaume Bernard who's a friend of mine also did a great job with “Ascendancy”.

You've taken the time to transcribe your music for drums, guitars and bass so your fans can learn to play the songs. It’s something that more bands should do. What made you come up with the idea and has it been popular with your fans?

Well the idea is not entirely ours since we thought of it but fans asked for that. It began with releasing the instrumental version of “Ascendancy” on youtube, the people started asking for the same without guitars, then without bass, etc... that's how we worked on releasing songbooks. As I said earlier it's really cool to work with fans, they want something, you should be able to provide it. Now it takes A LOT of time it's like 10 full days to write that shit haha, and maybe that's why only few bands do that. 

You recently played Euroblast Festival. What was it like and who were your highlights band-wise?

We headlined the second stage 2 years ago and last year we were on the main stage, incredible crowd and very cool show for us. We're lucky to be close to the Euroblast crew members who helped us developing the band with Ascendancy. We really wanted to see Twelve Foot Ninja, Devin Townsend and Car Bomb, which totally destroyed everything

What is the French tech-metal scene like currently? What other French bands should people check out?

It's getting a lil better every year thanks to our friends from Novelist, Nonsense, The Algorithm, Uneven Structure, etc...

What are you plans for 2018? Will you be touring/playing festivals and are you coming over to the UK at all?

So we're recording our next album, we didn't' wanna wait for too long after ascendancy so it should be ready in a couple of months to be released asap. We're working on a European tour with The Algorithm but nothing confirmed yet. Just like for “Ascendancy” we're gonna have tough weeks working on songbooks so that's pretty much our next few months, recording, writing probably crying a lil haha. We'll try to go to UK during the tour yes of course!

You can stream "Ascendancy" below, where it's also available to purchase digitally and on CD direct from Kadinja:-

Digital songbooks are also available via their bandcamp page too, while other merch can be found here - http://kadinja.bigcartel.com.

Thanks again to Morgan and Kadinja for their time and for answering my questions. Make sure you check them out.

Kadinja - https://www.facebook.com/KADINJA/