by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Having recently shared the “Real Men” single, Brooklyn’s King of Nowhere are set to release their upcoming self-titled album in January, their first new set of music in about two years. The band, comprised of Jesse French, Dylan LaPointe (both of Tetchy), and Vicente Hansen Atria, play a unique blend of knotted post-hardcore, art rock with a sense of intimacy, and maybe a touch of midwestern emo. The songwriting is strong but delicate, with a focus on identity, aging, and queerness at the emotional core of the album.
The band’s latest single is “ctrl,” a delightfully tangled song that feels indebted to bands like Failure and Shiner as much as it does the early 2000s Dischord catalog. The structure zigs and zags in all directions, snaking its way into unpredictable surges and sludgier moments to balance French’s restrained vocals. The math rock complexity of the song is built on disorienting bends and intricate drums, a fitting representation for the song’s themes of growing up confused and shutting down in the process.