Genre Genre demo cassette
Martin Meyer, the head honcho over at Rotten Apple and Inscrutable Records (not to mention the now-defunct Lumpy Records), has been digging up cool and/or weird bands for well over a decade at this point. Still, it never ceases to amaze me the amount of genuinely unique stuff he’s able to find that’s also good. Take GENRE for instance: a group of Kansas City punks who aren’t really doing anything new, but nevertheless sound unlike most other acts going these days. It’s hard to pigeonhole their music (I’m sure their name is a dig at folks who try). The Bandcamp copy asks us to imagine the FALL as a math rock band on Crass Records who’ve kicked out Mark E. Smith. I don’t totally agree with that assessment—I don’t think the music they play is nearly as intricate or heavy as your typical math rock band—but I think it successfully conveys the ramshackle restlessness and general ’90s vibe of their sound. Over the four tracks on this cassette, the band ping-pongs from post-hardcore, to dance punk, to slacker rock, to jagged post-punk, never really lingering on any particular sound. And it mainly works—at the very least, it’s incredibly engaging. They sound a bit like a less erudite, less polished PATOIS COUNSELORS (a band I really love). My only complaint is that I wish they had that band’s knack for burying a silly synth in the mix. Even so, it’s a cool release, and I’m really eager to hear how these folks evolve over time.