Review Summary: Stand Before the Firing Suad has created a short but sweet album that is one of the finest releases of 2006.
Stand Before the Firing Squad-Noise Machine
When first listening to Stand Before the Firing squad this last summer via Myspace, I was unimpressed. The California four-piece sounded like a generic grind/spazzcore band, with high-pitched screams, blast beat-style drums, and noodly guitar and bass work. The sound was solid, but I couldn’t distinguish the band from the hundreds of others of the genre. I had completely forgotten about Stand Before until I saw their debut album, Noise Machine, on sale at Tower Records. The sticker on the cover of the album said “For Fans Of: Converge, The Mars Volta, Refused”, and since The Mars Volta and Refused have made two of my favorite albums of all time, I decided to give it a shot, considering the album cost me only five dollars. Unknown to me at the time was that I was holding a 22-minute long epic consisting of beautiful ambience, jazz, and noise manipulation surrounded by hard-hitting technical grind.
Although Stand Before has very spastic moments, they are not technically grind, with most of the material on this album being relaxed jazz-like instrumental tracks and percussion-oriented noise rock with overlaying samples. The tracks all flow into each other, making this almost like a single 22-minute track with 10 movements, almost like the five-part “song” Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta, except instead of connecting the tracks with electronic interludes and field recordings, the songs on Noise Machine are for the most part connected musically, with a groove-oriented jazzy “intro” leading in to a spastic grind section with little to no warning. A great example of this would be the first two songs, Light ’em Up and Knock ’em Back and When Long Days Run into Late Nights, with the former being a smooth jazz section that generally builds up in a post-rock like fashion leading in to an almost anathematic punk riff that segues in to the spastic sound Stand Before is known for.
The instrumental aspect of Noise Machine is astounding. The whole band can impress with technical skill in styles varying from post-rock to grind to latin and jazz. The guitarist and bassist are not only good at creating meticulous riffs that interweave with each other but also at creating a thick atmosphere with simple yet emotionally powerful chord sequences and arpeggios focused on beautiful tone quality. They are able to leave a good impression on the listener without using too many effects like other guitarists and bassists of the scene.
Though the guitar section is wonderful, the most impressing delivery is from the fantastic drummer. Straying from the typical blast beat found in most grind bands, he is all over the kit, and does not rely on double bass style drumming or a cymbol and snare combo like Zach Hill or Jon Theodore. The drummer can establish a latin or jazz groove as impressively as the top drummers and abruptly switch playing like Jon Theodore keeping together some of the most spastic, most oddly-timed songs in the Mars Volta’s catalogue.
Stand Before the Firing Squad is one of the overall best bands that I have heard in a long time, and I believe they are going to become the next Refused or At the Drive-in, they are taking grind core which is essentially an evolution of punk and changing it even further. I can’t think of anything bad about the album besides the fact that it is only 22 minutes long, and that a lot of people won’t like this because of the more spastic sections. Noise Machine is sure to become a classic in my book, right beside Frances the Mute and New Noise. I would recommend this to any open-minded fan of intelligent and progressive music.
Recommended Tracks:
Beats
Eloi, Eloi
13th Song
The Shadow’s Whisper
