by Aly Muilenburg
For a band with a name like Buildings, they sure sound like they relish destruction. Like a rusted wrecking ball, the Minneapolis trio comes crashing into the end of the year with gusto and force. Fourth album Negative Sound updates the iron-flecked noise-punk they’ve been honing over the past decade, especially on immediately previous release You Are Not One of Us.
The band purportedly attempted to reinvent themselves in an “uglier” image with the record. Instead of a total revamp, it’s more like they were covered in several layers of ash and soot that they refused to remove. The guitars are, unsurprisingly, dissonant and chaotic, capable of reducing one’s brain to static in only a few arpeggiated riffs. Percussionist Travis Kuhlman drives many of the record’s best moments. His cacophonous playing gives the songs (and the listener) a bed of nails on which to lie, especially on closer “Thumb in the Eye.”
The abundance of insanity brought to life (or to death) by Buildings is rendered gloriously by Jeff Marcovis’ recording, done at legendary Minneapolis studio The Hideaway. Not a note is lost or wasted. The potent bass of Mike Baillie is never overwhelmed by the fury of his bandmates; an unofficial test of recording/mix quality for many loud bands is whether you can hear the bass at any given moment – the Jason Newsted test if you will.
Brian Lake’s fire-starting vocals are the only thing left untouched, and with good reason. His yawp has continually been molded into the platonic ideal of a noise rock vocalist. It finds a balance of dead-eyed 70’s post-punk steel and industrial throat-shredding without descending into guttural parody. It is the perfect sound to give testament to the heartless mechanical philosophy of the world in which we live, whether it’s a sarcastic sense of subservience on lead single “Bear the Dog” or the desensitization that comes from overexposure to media on “Human Filter.” On Negative Sound, Buildings is refracted in a filthy prism of beautiful noise.