Friday Full-Length: Genghis Tron, Board Up the House
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 12th, 2021 by JJ KoczanIn hindsight, it was a pretty quick run, but the reverberations thereof continue to ripple out. It’s hard to describe the sheer joy it was to hear Genghis Tron‘s 2005 Cloak of Love EP when Crucial Blast put it out. It caught my eye because it was recorded by Colin Marston, whose work I knew through Behold… the Arctopus!, and through five songs in not much more than 12 minutes, it turned the idea of only-super-severe grindcore on its head with programmed drums and dance beats amid frenetic guitar and brutal screams. It was heavy, pummeling, and an unashamed good time. I was fortunate enough to see the Poughkeepsie-based then-trio live at the time — I think they were touring with Pig Destroyer? — and already a fan, I was made one again.
Relapse picked them up for their first album, 2006’s Dead Mountain Mouth, and its inevitable follow-up, 2008’s Board Up the House. I remember being somewhat underwhelmed by the debut LP, ultimately. Some of the experimentalism they showed in trying to draw together the two sides of their approach left me cold, and I think maybe my head was just elsewhere. Board Up the House would be their swansong, and the hype for it was massive, which especially at that point was a huge turnoff for me. Maybe the novelty had faded. Whatever it was, I didn’t give the record its due, and with the announcement that founding keyboardist/programmer Michael Sochynsky and founding guitarist/programmer Hamilton Jordan had reformed the band after a decade to release a new album called Dream Weapon (info here) in March — still through Relapse — and especially after listening to the title-track of said comebacker, it was clearly time to break out the 2008 album to see how it’s held up.
Beautifully.
Some 13 years after the fact, I’m not sure extreme music has caught up to Genghis Tron yet, and songs like the opening title-cut and “Things Don’t Look Good,” “I Won’t Come Back Alive,” the intricately-timed “Colony Collapse” and the final run it leads to are nothing short of brilliant, bringing together industrial, grind, technical prowess and sheer ferocity all the while maintaining an unmistakable sonic persona through a variety of moods, tempo changes and periodic excursions into big payoff riffs. If I missed the effect of a song like Cloak of Love‘s “Ride the Steambolt” on the first album, well, “The Feast” accomplishes much the same blend of EDM and grind, while still moving the methodology forward in under two minutes’ runtime. 
With 11 tracks, it turns blinding ragers and sprinting, slicing precision upside down and barely stops to look back at the faces its melted in the process. “Endless Teeth”‘s sudden departure into dream-glitch. The mini-New Wave dance party set to hip-hop beat in “Recursion.” The foreshadow of slowdown in “City on a Hill” that in itself answers the pre-mosh section of “Things Don’t Look Good.” The use of melodic vocals alongside the screams and barks of then-vocalist Mookie Singerman.
And as almost a separate entity of its own, the final fun — I guess it’s just side B of the 11-song/43-minute offering, but really it’s when “Colony Collapse” picks up from “The Whips Blow Back” — makes Board Up the House all the more worthy of the plaudits heaped on it at the time. Between the industrialized apocalypse of “Colony Collapse,” “The Feast” bringing The Dillinger Escape Plan‘s vocalist Greg Puciato in for a guest spot, the bizarre, bagpipe-esque manipulations of “Ergot” and the 10-minute what-if-Genghis–Tron-but-doom finale of “Relief” — complete with near-harmony on the vocals — it’s no less a dizzying array than Genghis Tron put together throughout the release, but it stands out nonetheless and feels placed on the album specifically to do so. The opening tension of beats and keyboard surges in “Board Up the House,” the song, feel far away despite having occurred only about half an hour ago, and even as “Relief” is indeed a moment to exhale, Genghis Tron still find it in them to shred expectation and create an absolute wash of heavy that’s no less colorful than anything that surrounds.
Simply put, the album is astonishing, and it very much remains that. Genghis Tron have already put word out that Dream Weapon will be different, and the track they chose to stream bears that out. If we’re thinking purely in terms of Relapse Records bands for comparison, it’s more Torche than The Dillinger Escape Plan, and bringing in new singer Tony Wolski and a live drummer in Nick Yacyshyn, known for his work in Sumac and Baptists.
Inevitably, that change — having a person behind a kit — will be a big one in itself, and from just that first single, Wolski‘s melodic vocals in place of Mookie Singerman‘s off-the-rails screaming as a defining aspect will likewise present a turn. But frankly, fair enough. I’m not the same person I was 13 years ago, or 10, or five. It seems unreasonable to expect Genghis Tron — a band who had the impact they did precisely because they were so god damned forward thinking — to return and pretend like no time has passed whatsoever. I don’t know what their next album will bring — I haven’t heard it yet — but hell’s bells I’m looking forward to finding out.
I know this one is a little outside-genre for what one typically might expect around these parts. Who cares? 12 years later, I’m kind of over not writing about something I’m interested in writing about for whatever reason. If you dig Board Up the House, all the better. If not and you’ve read this far anyway, thanks for reading. If you ignored this post altogether, you’ll probably notice how all lives involved have gone on. That’s about where I’m at.
But really, even on the cusp of Genghis Tron showing a different side of their sound — I wonder if Sochynsky and Jordan felt they’d pushed this as far as it could go here — Board Up the House remains strikingly relevant and brazen in its individuality of purpose. As always, I hope you enjoy, but if you can’t find something here to dig into, it’s pretty much your own loss.
Thanks for reading.
—
I had a tooth removed yesterday. I’d never had an extraction before, but following what would be the fourth and final root canal on the back molar — number 30, however those things are counted — I felt like maybe it was time to get rid of the damn thing and have an implant put in. Not like there were any nerves left anyway, and I know that because there was a raging infection in my mouth for the entire plague-addled stretch of 2020 and I only knew it because every now and then I had to drain pus out of a fistula in my gumline. Yes, disgusting.
All the more so because as the oral surgeon — younger than me — unceremoniously yanked the offending number 30 from my mouth, I could smell that same rot and know that there was a hole in the bone of my mouth that needed to be patched up using some collagen and tiny pellets that I can only assume harden like so much Play-Doh over time into a passable facsimile for the piece of missing necrotized skeleton. A childhood of sugary drinks come home to roost. In my defense, I was born before science was invented.
It hurt like a motherfucker. Good luck explaining that to The Pecan, who was like, “Use your jaw to read me Daniel Tiger Chooses to Be Kind while you bleed, fucker!” for the early part of the afternoon. They gave me Tylenol with codeine, to which I was like, “What do I have the sniffles?,” but alas my pharmacist was all business. The good news was there’s a decent leftover amount of Oxycodone around from various procedures, and that it gets thusly hoarded for specific reasons like this. Soon enough I was still in pain but not nearly so bothered by it. The Pecan went down for a nap — which he didn’t actually take, but quiet time in his room is good for everyone — and I read a bit and worked on some other stuff.
Specifically, I’ve decided to bring back The Obelisk Questionnaire and send it around much like the Days of ‘Rona feature last year — actually I suspect I’ll have a lot of the same people answering; my reach is only so far — but I’ll handle sending that out this weekend and hopefully get responses back soon and start posting thereafter. Having people send their own pictures with the Days of ‘Rona thing was the best idea I ever had. I will continue that policy as much as I am able.
Hopefully doing that allows me to give a shout to a bunch of stuff I might not have room for otherwise in a way separate from even the Quarterly Review. I’m just trying to put this outlet to as effective use as possible.
Like all great choices, this decision was made while under the influence of narcotic painkillers. We’ll see how it goes.
Today is The Patient Mrs.’ birthday, and without giving it away, it’s a big one. Happy birthday to the love of my life, whose existence makes not just my life possible, but has a genuine net-positive on the planet, which in my view can be said of maybe three people when all things are factored in. Certainly not something I’d say about myself. In any case, having been together since 1997, I am in continuous and daily awe of the human being who has so generously chosen to spend her life in my company. Thank you, baby. I am fortunate she’s so stubborn in admitting a mistake or I’d have been out on my ass a long time ago.
Years ago, a pact was made that we would buy a boat by… this age that she reaches today, and we got in just under the wire. A used 1985 Somethingorother, complete with trailer. We’re having the trailer hitch put on the car as I write this so we can take the boat up to Connecticut tomorrow ahead of the wintry mix that’s supposed to hit New Jersey on Sunday. It’s not a luxury liner by any stretch, but it’s got a motor, and my understanding is the motor works, and the interior is rad. When The Patient Mrs. first showed it to me, I asked if it had a tape player. We weren’t sure from the pictures, and the thing was winter-wrapped when we actually went to see it, so I’ve still got my fingers crossed.
I would call it impulsive, considering the layoff notice she’s already gotten from her job owing to the pandemic, but hell, sometimes you set a goal and attain it at the expense of both your meager savings and practicality. It’s only an impulse if you don’t count the last 10 years we’ve been talking about it.
Needless to say, I expect one or both of our cars to die at any moment.
If you have a second and care to wish The Patient Mrs. a happy birthday, I know I’d appreciate it and if she has a chance to read this, she might as well. Thanks either way for reading and I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Back on Monday for a whole other bunch of stuff. Don’t forget to hydrate in the meantime.
FRM.
