Converse Rubber Tracks x MetalSucks 2015 Preview: Dendritic Arbor
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 Pennsylvania’s Dendritic Arbor.
Although genre classification has become ridiculously specific over the course of the past ten years, one phrase you rarely hear is “blackened grindcore.” This is probably because, a love of loud, fast music aside, the two genres’ aesthetics are very much at odds. Black metal bands revel in theatricality, while grind bands largely shun it; black metal bands are angry about organized religion, grind bands are angry about political corruption; black metal bands act without thinking (church burnings, murder), grindcore bands think without acting (known instances of grindcore musicians doing any of the fucked-up shit described in their songs: 0). Can you imagine Napalm Death passing around an animal carcass at one of their shows? Can you see Watain writing lyrics about human rights? Yeah, exactly.
This is a big part of why Dendritic Arbor are, without a doubt, one of the most exciting young up and coming metal bands out there today. The only real way to describe their album Romantic Love — which I strongly believe is one of 2015’s best releases to date — is to call it “blackened grindcore.” I have no idea if these dudes are vegan socialists or atheist anarchists, but I know they’d seem just as at home on a bill with Wormrot as they would on a bill with Deafheaven.
And I’m not even really sure that this description does their unique brand of noise justice. So let’s try this: imagine if your entire body were on fire, and then someone put that fire out by dousing you… with boiling tar. The contrast in pain between dry heat and wet heat. Concern that you’ll be burnt to a crisp replaced by concern that you’ll be melted into a puddle. Your flesh turned to the cheese dripping from a pizza, your bones turned to ash.
That’s what Dendritic Arbor sound like.
Do yourself a favor and listen to Romantic Love below. You can hear more of Dendritic Arbor on their Bandcamp page.
