KEN mode – “He Was A Good Man, He Was A Taxpayer”

Why wait until next Friday’s release to go into KEN mode when you could just do it today? The Winnipeg extreme noise-rockers are ramping up to the release of their second album in as many years, VOID, a companion to last year’s NULL. (Get it?) They’ve already shared three songs from that September release, and as of today you can make it four.

Penultimate track “He Was A Good Man, He Was A Taxpayer” is five minutes of harsh, brutish bombardment. The lyrics are rather disconcerting, in a way that feels finely attuned to the music: “We were never young. We were never strong. It’s of so little consequence that you forgive me now now that I’m gone.” The band’s Jesse Matthewson described the song like so: “Perhaps a little more post-punk than people are used to hearing us, but we had fun playing with synth and pushing the boundaries of the emotionality of this track. Is this noise goth? I don’t know. Does that sound stupid? Did I just invent a new genre? There are equal parts Bauhaus and Unsane on this, so maybe?”

Listen below along with prior single “The Shrike.”

VOID is out 9/22 on Artoffact.