The James Dean Trio

Item: Getting Scary
Author: Ben Bishop

Getting Scary

(2003)

Reviewed by Ben Bishop

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Label The Record MachineDecapolisFebruary 2004

experimental hardcore metalcore

It's tough work trying to find a hardcore band that can hold their own against Converge and probably even more importantly, the Dillinger Escape Plan, when it comes to musicianship in the guise of controlled chaos. Such a vast portion of today's hardcore/thrash/metal/screamo/whatever you want to call it music is influenced by the creative legacy of these two giants and a handful of others like them. Fusing the freedom and dissonance of jazz, the energy and vocal patterns of hardcore, and the speed of heavy metal these groups are rare because of the amount of musical ability and songwriting vision demanded of their members.

Add the James Dean Trio to the short list.

This Kansas City five-some's got it going on. But not in the checklist sense. Yes, the sometimes token 'jazz' element is present. But where brief escapades in interesting time signatures or fuzzy instrumental respites in the midst of heavier songs may seem trite on other albums they aren't easily dismissed here. I may not know my Lydian scale from my Aeolian, but these guys have clearly spent some time in the wood shed figuring out the accompaniments to John Coltrane songs by ear, not playing video games and endlessly repeating Dookie or Never Mind the Bollocks...the price of which is paying off now while so many of their abysmally armed contemporaries struggle to play anything other than open E. As for energy; the album has it. Partly in the form of a raw black metal vocal left fairly high in the mix though not overbearingly so. Obviously a matter of taste, it's on the opposite end of the spectrum from Jake Bannon's shriek. Song titles range from silly; 'Smee, Get in the Boo Box' and 'I'm Blackanese' to opaque 'Who Stole the Magnesium?' or 'You Better Axe Somebody'.

Fortunately for the overall tone of the piece any further obvious silliness is avoided. The lyrical content is personal and confessional, and the sound clips which dot the album are rendered into commentary by their quintessential nature (a 1950's recording of a woman leading exercises) or the layering of other more mysterious sounds or clips behind them. All in all an excellent and original effort from a band engaging in a genre which is at present completely overrun with incompetency and lack of vision.

3/4