Search - Harkonen :: Grizz

A stone cold classic in 5/4 time.

Forrest L. Norvell | San Francisco, CA USA | 12/18/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Harkonen's career was abridged but glorious. Mining the same vein of bass-driven sludge (and jokey non-sequitur song titles) as Washington peers Botch, but with a looser, scuzzier feel, Harkonen put out a few nearly perfect EPs, a middling album, and then called it a day. This short set, produced for Hydra Head, is one of the highlights in the catalog of a label that, at the point it was released in 2001, could do no wrong.



It's no exaggeration to say that I've listened to this EP about a hundred times -- it's short, loud, and to the point, and is incredibly focused. I wouldn't exactly describe it as angry, but it's definitely aggressive, and the 5/4 time signature used for all five songs gives it a lurching groove that exactly matches whatever grievances Ben or Casey are semi-unintelligibly screaming about. It's simplistic and reductive to say that Harkonen's origins in the Northwest are what leads this to have a sort of grunge sound, but there's a definite loose, lazy surliness to the songwriting that is not dissimilar to Mudhoney at their most irritable. These guys aren't about the diamond-sharp transitions and breakdowns of the (old) Dillinger Escape Plan or the tightly coiled changeups of Botch -- these guys are more like those bands' scruffy, stoned older brothers -- but they're in the same family.



For a long time I considered everything on Hydra Head a must-buy, and this is my favorite release on the label. If you like heavy, loud music I think it's a no-brainer."