Playing Enemy
Cesarean
Escape Artist
A metalcore gang drawing angular influence from The Jesus Lizard, and thus, their forebears, The Birthday Party, the most blindingly brilliant band to ever walk this mortal earth? Nice. Not all that surprising, really, considering Playing Enemy were formally monikered the equally ace Kiss It Goodbye, a heady/heavy bunch of streetcleaners themselves, three years previous. Playing Enemy’s debut as such, Cesarean finds the POWER-trio now splitting the difference between Candirian dissonance and gutter-entrenched skronk, twisting knives into the defenseless listener and then onto themselves, drummer Andrew Gormley deliberately skipping both beats and meals to deliver mind-fucked meters. But it is that latter element • the Skronk • that gives the album such a chemically addled character and sets the trio apart from all those who murder E chords, imbuing the proceedings with a Great Night Out Gone Wrong sleaziness previously unbeknownst to shorthairs enrolled in anger-management classes (i.e., metalcore). The enemy is convention, and the cards have been capably played against it here.
Escape Artist, PO Box 472, Downingtown, PA 1933; http://www.loudnet.com/escapeartist
