Converse Rubber Tracks x MetalSucks 2015 Preview: Expander
Later this month, ten unsigned bands will visit a Converse Rubber Tracks facility in either Brooklyn, NY, or Boston, MA, where they’ll lay down some jams at one of Converse’s completely free, state-of-the-art recording studios. And as if that wasn’t cool enough, bands at the Brooklyn Converse Rubber Tracks will work with producer Will Putney (The Acacia Strain, Suicide Silence, Exhumed), while bands at the Boston Converse Rubber Tracks will work with producer Kurt Ballou (Converge, High on Fire, Torche).
MetalSucks held an open application process in July for bands to apply, then Axl and Vince worked with Will and Kurt to choose their five favorite bands for each city. We’ll be previewing each of the selected bands in the weeks leading up to these recording sessions, so you can get a taste of what’s in store for ya! You can check out all the previews so far here. Today, we feature Expander from Austin, TX.
Expander describe themselves as a “beefy punk/metal band from Austin, TX.” But do they mean beefy as in their riffs are meaty as fuck or that the guys are absolute hunks? We’ll let yours truly judge the latter when the band drop into Kurt Ballou’s Godcity Studios later this month, but you certainly need not have dickbag blogger credentials to recognize the former: Expander straight up rip.
Take a listen to their latest EP Laws of Power — released this past July — and you’ll quickly hear why. Expander channel similar influences as many of the peers in their chosen micro-niche of metal — a little thrash and a little Entombed laid on top of a healthy base layer of hardcore — but they do so with a fiery gusto that so many of those other bands sorely lack. The vocalist’s introductory back in “Wrong Side” is so ferocious that I had to check the windows of the MS Mansion to make sure a werewolf / deranged homeless person wasn’t trying to claw his way in, and the band’s got the riffs and the rhythm section to back him up. Shit’s ferocious.
Listen to the Laws of Power EP below. Expander’s bio also boasts that they like to eat mexican food and crush Coors Light; we’ll see about that later this month in Boston, too.
