Band:	KEN Mode
Album:	Void
Style:	Hardcore, Noise rock
Release date:	September 22, 2023
A review by:	RaduP

01. The Shrike
02. Painless
03. These Wires
04. We're Small Enough
05. I Cannot
06. A Reluctance Of Being
07. He Was A Good Man, He Was A Taxpayer
08. Not Today, Old Friend

Once you activate KEN Mode, you will unleash noise, nausea, and misanthropy, but there is no return.

It is always a bit weird reviewing what seems to be part two of a duo of albums, the "companion piece", the "Doesn't seem to matter what I do / I'm always number two", because now you cannot review this in a void. No pun intended. Last year's Null was somewhat of a change of pace due to how the pandemic influenced the vitriol already present in KEN Mode's music, but also due to the expansion of the sound palette due to the permanent addition of Kathryn Kerr on saxophones, synths, and other assorted instruments. That was the context which gave birth to this pair of albums, Null & Void (not to be mistaken for the Icelandic black metal album of the same name), and it became pretty clear that Null was an absolutely angry album, one that also upped the ante on the no wave and industrial influences.

And now the companion piece, Void, takes a slightly different approach. The two aren't necessarily diametrically opposed and there's plenty of yin in the yang and the other way around, but you can see Void as the more moody and depressing alternative to Null's anger. I've seen it described as a defeat. The songs are slower and the heaviness feels more like an opponent rather than something that you're supposed to emotionally resonate with. Describing it as more desolate and nihilistic comes as an understatement, even if the album isn't really very on-the-nose about this shift in mood. It's just something you notice as it wears out your soul with each listen. It's not like they were the epitome of life-affirming before, but something about the way this album feels really drives home the "We're never going to be okay" lines being repeated in "The Reluctance Of Being".

How this is achieved musically is through a shift as well. The industrial/no wave influences are toned town and what replaces them is a more crushing kind of atmospheric sludge / post-metal in the vein of Isis and Rosetta. The way the bass-heavy grooves of this album work within the noise feel less Swans and more like something you'd hear on The Galilean Satellites. The saxophone does its job of providing some anxiety inducing sounds, but I feel like it's the synths that really drive the post-metal atmospheres on this one as far as palette expansion goes (especially soaring on "We're Small Enough"). The non-metal noise rock sound feels more influenced by math rock and post-rock this time around, culminating in a Slint-ish \ approach for the closer that dials back the heaviness for some bass-groove / soaring saxophone led despair.

Having the two albums side by side now, it's interesting to hear how the moods and the sound influences contrast each other to show a KEN Mode still this incredibly versatile two decades after their debut.