Shake the Baby til the Love Comes Out - in a pretty suit

As a musician, math rock scares me sometimes. The very essence of such technical music is, well, its technicality—its driven by knowledge, and it’s terribly easy to listen to a band cutting up complex time signatures at lightning speeds and feel like they’re just flexing their music degrees at the rest us plebs. But this means such intellectual music needs heart, needs the human experience, more than ever, and few understand this as well as NY’s Shake the Baby Til the Love Comes Out, whose debut record in a pretty suit distills the chaos of existence into song. 

For only a two-piece, Shake the Baby sound massive, a juggernaut of tone and technicality that goes far beyond odd time signatures and jazzy progressions. The guitar guides the compositions all across the sonic map; “Little Spoon, Big Ego” wails with gritty, ultra-dissonant chords, while “Also Vomit” features one of the most moving melodic intros I’ve ever heard. The drums are just as maddening: “Utility Myth” places swing cymbal hits and thundering toms right next to blastbeats, while the hectic hihat work steering “Mine is Viscera” is nearly anxiety-inducing. 

Shake the Baby Til the Love Comes Out play their instruments with incredible ease, but what’s even more impressive is their innate understanding of tension and release. Their songs undulate between emotive melodics and harsh, grinding riffs; between fluid beats that carry the ear across the kit and haphazard smashing that mimics a five-car pileup. “Someone for Everything” opens with a colorful progression before warping into rasping chords, syncopated hits, and galloping double kick hits. Deceptive pauses pop up between periods of noisy thrashing, turning the song’s beat into an arrhythmic heart desperately trying to get back on track.

Each moment of anarchy on in a pretty suit is precise and masterful; Shake the Baby wield searing distortion and blistering dissonance like weapons, embracing the chaos that is inherent in music and using it to build tension as the song evolves. Their constant alternation between compelling beauty and reckless noise makes each tune play like a horror movie, lulling you with gentle conversation and then forcing you to jump as the killer stabs their way across the screen.

Shake the Baby til the Love Comes Out are making music that is manic and unpredictable, and in a pretty suit is calculated insanity at its finest. Their riffs are fun, their songs full of flair, yet all cut with a healthy dose of noise and chaos. Best of all, every tune is earnest—I can hear how much fun this band has making their music, and it’s that type of honesty that connects with fans. This act is bringing the heart back to an often-heartless genre, and wherever they take it next, I will surely be following them. 

My Top Tracks: “Someone for Everything

 

You can find more from Shake the Baby Til the Love Comes Out, including upcoming shows and news, on their Facebook page. Then head over to Bandcamp and snag your own copy of in a pretty suit.

God Program - Fragments of Illusion

While I grew up listening to metalcore, it’s a genre I thought was basically dead. Ten years of local shows with six bands playing nearly-identical riffs had taken its toll. Mainstream bands grew to avoid the sound entirely, or traded it in for a strange, loathsome pop-metal hybrid and radio play. The brutal and brusque energy that I’d loved had become sterile and store-brand, so I gave up on it. To me, metalcore was dead, and honestly, I was glad for it.

Then God Program dropped their debut EP Fragments of Illusion last fall, and made me stuff those sentiments right back in my mouth.

Fragments is furious and fearless, six songs of unbridled energy. The band’s performances are tight and technical, thundering drum beats and chugging guitars coupling into one continuously ruthless machine. Fierce screams coat the instrumentation with the human condition, punctuated by gentle and tasteful singing that spreads the emotion beyond pure fury. There is no shortage of intensity on Fragments of Illusion—every song hits like a shot of adrenaline stabbed through the breastbone.

Fragments is as original as it is ferocious; God Program keeps their debut record evolving and growing even as it spins. “What Trigonometry Couldn’t Solve” plays with dynamics by juxtaposing noisy distorted chords with moments of silence, while “Dostoyevsky vs. the Long Island Sound” slaps catchy melodic choruses against pummeling palm mutes and double-bass patterns. The grinding of ”Exposure Therapy” practically collapses into “Scorpio Rising,” an acoustic-driven tune that eschews volume and virulence for sad beauty without sacrificing the powerful performances that make God Program’s music so damn compelling.

God Program have taken a dying sound (dead to me, at least) and yanked it back from the brink. Their music is honest and driving, much more a defiant shout of life for this genre than the death rattle I expected. Fragments of Illusion is an incredible effort by a very talented act, and if this is just their debut, I can’t wait to see what chaos they cook up next.

My Top Track: “Exposure Therapy”

You can find more from God Program, including upcoming tour dates and news, by following their  Instagram @godxprogram. Fragments of Illusion is streaming on Spotify and available for purchase on Bandcamp.