First Listen: Knut’s Wonder

Last year I went to an academic conference dealing with all things popular culture. It turned out that what researchers and scholars really liked talking about were popular understandings of sub and fringe cultures. One Finnish scholar now teaching at a university in North Carolina, I can’t remember his name, decided to research fans of Scandinavian and European metal in contrast to the popular understandings of these fans (which tend to depict them as disturbed, depressed, or angry/violent people). His research seemed fascinating to the head-nodding profs, but illustrated virtually nothing new to anyone who identifies as at least a casual fan of metal or “hard” music. Basically, his thesis was that metal seems “angry” to outsiders, but for fans it is a very positive experience that builds community and elicits typically happy emotions.

After that conference I silently asked myself, “Is there enough metal in my life?” The answer, sadly, was “no.” Somewhere along the way, my metal consumption waned and my record collection began to swell with folk and country records. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I decided to diversify my sonic portfolio, so to speak.

Enter Wonder, the new album by Swiss math-metal, hardcore, sludge band Knut. Now, I dropped out shortly after Botch’s We Are the Romans and my stint in Greensboro, NC. If bands continued to make records like Wonder between then and now, then I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

Knut’s latest is a reminder why we need more metal in our lives. Wonder is a cathartic experience. Amidst the chaos of postmodern existence, Knut burst through with raw emotion, stripping away all the excesses of consumerism and putting forth just loud, heavy music. Time changes and riff progressions are everywhere. On my third listen (couldn’t stop to write after one), I’m drawn to the way that the songs evolve. Like a web or matrix, complex riffs, jud, jud palm muting, and polyrhythmic structures shift continually with each song an amalgam of at least a dozen parts held together by a unifying aesthetic theme.

While the vocals (lyrically inaudible, but for me that’s a non-issue) display excellent screaming capabilities, from low guttural to mid-pitch screams, I’m a little disappointed by the lack of diversity in cadence and delivery, which is my only criticism in this early review.