Back when New Yorkers Ed Gein dropped their last album, the cool and underrated
Judas Goats & Dieseleaters in 2005, metalcore was exciting and the band seemed poised to sit at the top of the heap with their mix of bass-heavy sludge, noise rock, grind and punk. But despite a heavy touring schedule, Ed Gein never got to that top tier and, instead, burned out.
"It just felt like time to take a break," bassist/vocalist Aaron Jenkins tells Exclaim! in a recent interview. "Being in a band is great, but it was taking over every aspect of our lives. You can't grow as a person that way."
Ed Gein held it together enough to recently release Bad Luck, out now on Blackmarket Activities. But with this album, the band have veered away from metalcore entirely, opting for a far more punk rock approach to the songwriting.
"After a while that kind of crazy, screamy stuff just sort of seemed to become the norm," says Jenkins. "Things got saturated and it just lost its intensity... to me, anyway. It got watered down. I feel like in contrast to that our new songs are much more pissed off, much more straight to the point, and much, much more intense... no extraneous bullshit."
But while listeners may be a bit shocked at the album's sound, Jenkins insists it was a natural direction for the band to head in. He says they have always considered themselves a hardcore/punk band more than anything else, especially as far as ethics and ideologies go.
"That's the scene we came from and the one we identify with the most," he says. "I feel like our music has always been influenced by it a great deal too, but definitely this new album is much more so. It's not such a shocking change to us, because to us we've always been a hardcore/punk band."
This relaxed attitude -- and accompanying relaxed sound, if the sound of modern urban tension channelled through a few angry young men can be described as relaxed -- comes through in the band's new approach to, well, everything they're doing, including touring, something no Ed Gein fan should expect too much of at this point, by the sounds of it.
"Ed Gein is not going to be coming through your town on tour 15 times a year like we used to," says Jenkins. "Probably won't be at all."
You can pick up Bad Luck now on Blackmarket Activities.
"It just felt like time to take a break," bassist/vocalist Aaron Jenkins tells Exclaim! in a recent interview. "Being in a band is great, but it was taking over every aspect of our lives. You can't grow as a person that way."
Ed Gein held it together enough to recently release Bad Luck, out now on Blackmarket Activities. But with this album, the band have veered away from metalcore entirely, opting for a far more punk rock approach to the songwriting.
"After a while that kind of crazy, screamy stuff just sort of seemed to become the norm," says Jenkins. "Things got saturated and it just lost its intensity... to me, anyway. It got watered down. I feel like in contrast to that our new songs are much more pissed off, much more straight to the point, and much, much more intense... no extraneous bullshit."
But while listeners may be a bit shocked at the album's sound, Jenkins insists it was a natural direction for the band to head in. He says they have always considered themselves a hardcore/punk band more than anything else, especially as far as ethics and ideologies go.
"That's the scene we came from and the one we identify with the most," he says. "I feel like our music has always been influenced by it a great deal too, but definitely this new album is much more so. It's not such a shocking change to us, because to us we've always been a hardcore/punk band."
This relaxed attitude -- and accompanying relaxed sound, if the sound of modern urban tension channelled through a few angry young men can be described as relaxed -- comes through in the band's new approach to, well, everything they're doing, including touring, something no Ed Gein fan should expect too much of at this point, by the sounds of it.
"Ed Gein is not going to be coming through your town on tour 15 times a year like we used to," says Jenkins. "Probably won't be at all."
You can pick up Bad Luck now on Blackmarket Activities.
