by Devin Birse (@devvvvi.b)
Bands come and go with life's tide like sandcastles, but it doesn’t mean we can't reflect on their grandeur. All though they’re still playing a few final shows as of this writing, the news of Atlanta's 15,000 Guns’ breakup is a piercing one. Already coming from an extremely “freakcore” scene, the band's sound was unique even amongst its peers meddling a simmering mix of spoken word drawls with screamo shoegaze bursts that were as titanic as they were heartbreaking. Their final album, Teratoma, remains as a testament to their vision.
The record is a masterwork of contrast, the mathy guitar lines of Michael Mendelson and Josh Rubin recalls 90’s post-hardcore legends like Slint and Polvo at moments only to then explode into blissful waves of shoegaze or tighten into crushing noise rock brutality. It’s a sound that feels like the classic Pixies style loud and quiet dynamic pushed to its extremes. The track “Influence” is constructed around these moments, its tense opening rising and rising till endless spoken word vocals make way for screams that then beckon a wave of crashing feedback that washes over the listener. The vocal contrasts across the album guide these moments like a conductor, spoken word sections call out for slowed-down melancholy, whereas screams beckon heavy blasts of pure sonic misery.
This isn’t an album of either subdued melancholy or erupting misery, but rather a slab of vibrant experimental rock that carries an intense emotional complexity. On the mid-album highlight “Ghormeh Sabzi,” a spoken word drawl gives way to some of the album's most gorgeous guitar work. Riffs upon riffs of distorted beauty duel with each other till midway through auto-tuned vocals pierce through, singing the simple yet uplifting mantra “you did it on your own,” the electronic edges causing them to feel at once apart of the distortion yet uncannily distant from it. It's these tracks in the album's back half that expose a hazy bliss that lurks within the band's sonic wheelhouse. On “Pinprick” the guitars take a backseat acting more to add atmospherics to wistful slacker vocals whilst a phenomenal bass line from Jimmy Huang keeps everything in place till it comes crashing down as the song shifts to a grinding noise rock breakdown.
In and amongst this variety, there's still something that feels distinctly 15,000 Guns. There's a youth to the record, it's not a joyous summery listen but its experimentation belies a group of musicians who are as knowledgeable as they are eager to tear up the rulebook. At points, they grace awfully close to the classics. The opening three-track run of tense spoken word post-rock hits so close to Slint that it begins to sound like a slacker version of early BCNR before an edge appears. Maybe it's Mendelson's lyrics, confessional yet discomforting like an emo ballad written by a killer but with an unexpected pinch of poeticism.
The opener “The Blade Goes Deeper, I Love You More” acts as a showcase to his style, images of faded domesticity like “mother’s sprouts never tasted so good” brushing up against the personal and surreal in equal measure. His voice manages to sway between choked-up misery and growling wrath in a manner that always remains as discomforting as it is entrancing. “Influence” and “Penelope” highlight these dynamics best with the tracks flowing around Mendelson’s vocal performances, or maybe his vocal performances sway to the tracks? As good as they are, his words never steal the show, rather they’re just one aspect of 15,000 Guns' eclectic sonic palette. Unlike in Slint or Black Country, New Road where the sprechgesang murder ballads seemed to play on top of the music as if it were a stage for the vocalists, here Mendelson’s voice feels trapped between the guitar lines, given equal importance as the other instruments but nothing more, or less.
Teratoma is an album that feels frustratingly good in the context of the band's disbandment. Its brilliant blend of genres and ideas feels playful and in an odd way joyous despite the album's bleak tone. While 15,000 Guns have never gained the recognition they deserved in their time, Teratoma remains a testament to the joys of finding new music and the brilliance that’s often hidden away beyond major newspaper reviews and RYM charts. Bands like them are like fireworks, brief flickering things, explosions of brilliance that inevitably disappear as quickly as they occur, but it’s a waste to watch a firework explode and think if only it lasted longer, rather than to just be glad you got to witness such a vibrant flash of color.