Stream the album and buy it, here: https://kenmode.bandcamp.com/album/void
"For anyone worried that time might dull the edges on this Canadian force, VOID cuts deceptively sharp. For anyone worried that a back-to-back release threatened to come off as an engorged A-side, B-side glut, VOID fulfills the promise of a band that simply has plenty more to say."
–Angry Metal Guy
"KEN Mode fuse a bruising post-metal/noise rock heft to a deep melancholy and brooding saxophones."
–Consequence
"VOID completes a two-album whole where hope is evaporated and the cries of help ring in the ether unanswered. To say it’s crushing is a violent understatement."
–Everything Is Noise
"Almost exactly a year after NULL attacked your very essence, VOID is here to finish the job. VOID is the sound of KEN Mode completing a powerful 1-2 punch."
–Heavy Music HQ
"Canadian noise nuts KEN mode are set to drop their new album VOID as a follow up to 2022’s NULL, one of my favorite albums of last year. Recorded around the same time, the album shares quite a few similarities with VOID; but it also feels a bit grittier and desolate. Combined with its predecessor, the duo makes for a complete whole."
–Invisible Oranges
"Even when KEN mode let loose, there’s a noticeable sense of melody on VOID. Sure, it’s loud and abrasive—the band haven’t gone soft—but the music has more room to breathe. VOID is KEN mode hitting their experimental stride. There’s strength in restraint and the Canadian group has learned how to hone in on it."
–Lambgoat
"The current kings of heavy noise last graced our ears not even a year ago with NULL... Well, the NULL session was also appropriately the VOID session, because here we are with the other half, and like NULL, it’s different, but just so. That aforementioned, unflappable Brutal Jesus Lizard foundation remains the band’s core, and [Kathryn] Kerr remains a brilliant addition to the band, fitting in so well as an element of both melody and madness as if she’s been in the ranks all along. But where VOID really begins to expand boundaries is through its embrace of melancholy. This is KEN mode at their most melodic, but it’s also KEN mode at their most despondent and depressed."
–Last Rites
"A companion piece to last year’s stunning NULL, this eight-track bruiser isn’t a retread of that album at all. It’s very different sonically and personality wise, and its songs are the result of the sadness and disappointment that resulted from dealing with the height of the pandemic... VOID finishes off an incredible two-album trip that has given us some of the most combustible, memorable songs on their entire run, which is saying something considering the weight of their catalog."
–Meat Mead Metal
"Just a year after NULL, KEN Mode have returned with another intense and noisy record of experimental unease."
–Metal Injection
"VOID was written as a reflection of the shock and other emotions in 2021, when the world was reeling from the weirdest year in most of our memories. On their ninth album, KEN Mode show that they’re not slowing down any time soon."
–MetalSucks
"NULL is meant to represent pain, with VOID being the despondency that follows it. If ever there was a band that could bottle such concepts and distill them into pure sonic form, KEN mode is the one."
"Canadian noise nuts KEN mode are set to drop their new album VOID as a follow up to 2022’s NULL, one of my favorite albums of last year. Recorded around the same time, the album shares quite a few similarities with VOID; but it also feels a bit grittier and desolate. Combined with its predecessor, the duo makes for a complete whole."
–Invisible Oranges
"Even when KEN mode let loose, there’s a noticeable sense of melody on VOID. Sure, it’s loud and abrasive—the band haven’t gone soft—but the music has more room to breathe. VOID is KEN mode hitting their experimental stride. There’s strength in restraint and the Canadian group has learned how to hone in on it."
–Lambgoat
"The current kings of heavy noise last graced our ears not even a year ago with NULL... Well, the NULL session was also appropriately the VOID session, because here we are with the other half, and like NULL, it’s different, but just so. That aforementioned, unflappable Brutal Jesus Lizard foundation remains the band’s core, and [Kathryn] Kerr remains a brilliant addition to the band, fitting in so well as an element of both melody and madness as if she’s been in the ranks all along. But where VOID really begins to expand boundaries is through its embrace of melancholy. This is KEN mode at their most melodic, but it’s also KEN mode at their most despondent and depressed."
–Last Rites
"A companion piece to last year’s stunning NULL, this eight-track bruiser isn’t a retread of that album at all. It’s very different sonically and personality wise, and its songs are the result of the sadness and disappointment that resulted from dealing with the height of the pandemic... VOID finishes off an incredible two-album trip that has given us some of the most combustible, memorable songs on their entire run, which is saying something considering the weight of their catalog."
–Meat Mead Metal
"Just a year after NULL, KEN Mode have returned with another intense and noisy record of experimental unease."
–Metal Injection
"VOID was written as a reflection of the shock and other emotions in 2021, when the world was reeling from the weirdest year in most of our memories. On their ninth album, KEN Mode show that they’re not slowing down any time soon."
–MetalSucks
"NULL is meant to represent pain, with VOID being the despondency that follows it. If ever there was a band that could bottle such concepts and distill them into pure sonic form, KEN mode is the one."
–Metal Trenches
"Feeling on the edge of panic and don’t quite know why? Waking in a cold sweat to feelings of unnamed horror and some terrible images now lurking just outside of your mind’s eye? KEN mode knows you. KEN mode is here for you. KEN mode feels you. And on VOID, KEN mode has reached a peak in its expression of palm-sweating, animalistic terror."
–New Noise
"If NULL seemed like the beginning of something new, then VOID fulfills that promise."
–Nine Circles
"There are few works that capture the existential darkness as accurately as KEN mode’s 2022 record, NULL. Naturally, one record is not enough to cover the entirety of the subject, so VOID comes in as a companion piece... The exhausted demeanor of 'We’re Small Enough' or the tragic and soul-wrenching etude that is 'He Was a Good Man, He Was a Taxpayer' is the stuff that great works of art are made of."
–PopMatters
–New Noise
"If NULL seemed like the beginning of something new, then VOID fulfills that promise."
–Nine Circles
"There are few works that capture the existential darkness as accurately as KEN mode’s 2022 record, NULL. Naturally, one record is not enough to cover the entirety of the subject, so VOID comes in as a companion piece... The exhausted demeanor of 'We’re Small Enough' or the tragic and soul-wrenching etude that is 'He Was a Good Man, He Was a Taxpayer' is the stuff that great works of art are made of."
–PopMatters
"Like its predecessor, VOID allows KEN Mode to explore the edges of their style, bringing previously hinted-at elements to the fore... NULL and VOID are the best KEN Mode have ever been at being KEN Mode, and what KEN Mode is continues to expand with every album."
–Stereogum
"Heavy, riffy, ultra aggressive."
–The Needle Drop
"Heavy, riffy, ultra aggressive."
–The Needle Drop
"Last year, KEN Mode released the outstanding NULL, a record that ranked among my favorite metal albums of the year and which reaffirmed why the Winnipeg band is one of the strongest bands in heavy music of the past two decades... VOID is cut from a similar cloth as its counterpart, but there are darker shades of nuance amid its eruptions of sonic shrapnel."
–Treble
No comments:
Post a Comment