Review Summary: A glimpse into the future
If you ever want to visit ground zero for forward thinking, militantly DIY punk music it's not in California's crust havens like Aladdin Jr's, in Austin's go-to SXSW hardcore hangout 1808, in Chicago's sweltering basements, nor in converging festivals such as Virginia's I Got Brains or Michigan's Bled Fest. The heart and soul of American DIY lies across the highway from the austere brick and steam stacks of the Budweisser plant in Saint Louis, MO at the LEMP Arts Center. Near extremist in their dedication and preservation of the DIY ethos, LEMP has been an unknown but hardly forgotten pillar of the tour routings of both tour greenhorns and the underground professional alike. Scrawled across its walls are the fading stickers of an entire generation of skram upstarts and post-hardcore revivalists, but if you ever get into a conversation with the owner there is one name that is mentioned more frequently in praise than the others. That name is Native. In their early post-high school career Native not only rekindled the teetering histrionics and razor sharp precision of musical gods Fugazi, they pushed that brand of hardcore influenced noise rock in new, more challenging directions with a shot of carefully aimed technicality. If you think about it, it's no wonder their debut LP
Wrestling Moves created more buzz than a nest of angry hornets, but where many bands fade out due to the pressure and expectations that come with a lauded Sophomore release, with
Orthodox Native have not only delivered, they have proven that they thrive under that constant pressure.
Orthodox is anything but. It bounces of the wall in a violent clash of beauty and noise. It is a stunning collection of intricately pieced together juxtapositions of simple ideas used in complicated ways. The shimmering directness of the clean guitar melds with the ever present cacophony of the hard pounding rhythm section, bluring together in a direct sonic assault on the senses. Anchoring all of it is vocalist and bassist Bobby Markos. His singing occupies the middle space between yelling and screaming and is a constant cadence that single-handedly unifies the surrounding chaos into so much more. This nimble yet powerful display of compositional brilliance never fades. Native are constantly throwing new ideas and out just as fast as the brain can process exactly what is going on making the whole of
Orthodox an unrelenting experience that as soon as it fades out begs for you to press the play button again and again and again.
