4 out of 5

Label: Hydra Head

Producer: Andrew Schneider

Other Keelhaul releases rock, but ‘Subject’ pushes.  It really has no time for you to catch up.  This doesn’t mean the whole album is played at blazing speeds – quite the contrary, as part of its success lies in knowing when to slow it down – just that the first half hour or so are so tightly coiled that when pushing play, you can’t help but be swept along, jaw dropping at the intense riffage and mad time signature changes, captured with non-abrasive clarity by Schneider.  Alas, the pressure released it does (womp) lose steam, somewhere right past the halfway mark.  The push and pull of quiet to loud ratio seems to slip a little too far below the line (‘Answer the Chicken’) such that, even though the followup tracks again feature almost poppy hardcore guitar slingin’ (fast-paced, distorted, and yet… catchy) and that same mad drumming, it lacks the punch of what came before.  The album purposefully seems to be winding down, though, as we end on an interesting but not strange enough, not funny enough, and questionably pointless answering machine message that then segues into a totes quite ambient piece that you won’t hear if it’s not quiet enough.  Those last couple music tracks – ‘Mash the Sandwich,’ ‘Randall’ – taken individually are impressive and fun, and maybe there was a desire/need to stuff ’em onto the album and not a single, but the sequencing is taxing, and they just blend together at the point they play.

BUT.  Prior to that, the album is all sortsa perfect.  As the Allmusic review notes, opener ‘The Gooch’ is a like a musical crib notes on the world of instrumental hardcore, swirling through the genre with intense loose precision (which is Keelhaul’s delightful playing style – not as calculated feeling as Botch, but not as sloppy rock as something like Converge) and stopping just short of going on too long to launch into the next track, which picks up the notes and builds something new.  Schneider’s production is warm and yet clear, and while it lacks any particular aural thump, it gives the band plenty of space to work and just set their own tone.  The vocals – here and there on the album – are similarly perfect, a nigh-unintelligible hoarse shout that sounds part panicked and part inspired, the words that peek out (though they might be part of a sillier, unclear whole) slotting in with the aggressive mood without souring it by being overly sweary or negative.  The production carries over to the vocals, meaning it somehow sounds perfectly hardcore without ever offending the ears.

‘Subject’ was one of my first non-Cave In Hydra Head purchases, and it set the bar high.  Like many great albums, it has trouble keeping it going for a full 40+ minutes, but the value you get from the frontend of the album is worth more than the last ten years of Billboard top twenty.

(I’m sure I own some of those albums and have said something similar about them, so let’s just leave that comparison alone.)

(But then why am I keeping it in the review?)

(I don’t know, okay?  I JUST DON’T KNOW)

UPDATE, May 2014:

Dear Keelhaul –

I’ve been listening to this album non-stop for the past few days, and I wanted to let you know that it’s actually perfect.  I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings by rating it four stars.  For the sake of… sakeness, I can’t change my ratings, but let it be known that Future Me (Relative To This Review) gives it five stars, and is shocked at Past Me’s inability to fully appreciate the disc.  I was so fucking naive in those days.