The Callous Daoboys rediscover the mirth in matchcore
ALL TOO OFTEN, when you see bands that specialise in quirky songtitles, their wordplay proves more entertaining than their music. This isn’t true of The Callous Daoboys. Their third album has tracks called The Elephant Man In The Room and Beautiful Dude Missile, these madcap monikers complimented by some of the most insane yet compelling mathcore to come from the US since The Dillinger Escape Plan broke up.
The Atlanta rabble use a six-piece line-up, spoken word and an onslaught of samples to bring their lunacy to life, with all three raging unabashedly on opening salvo Violent Astrology. Following the sounds of record scratching, barely 10 seconds of polyrhythmic percussion, squealing guitars and seething vocals strike. Then there’s a funky bass lick. Then there’s a metal break exacerbated by ranting and the stabbing violin notes from Psycho. It’s batshit – but you remember all of it.
And that’s just the first song. Field Sobriety Practice is a surprisingly slow burn that escalates from swaying funk music to an apex cacophonous enough to make Converge want to pack it in. Meanwhile, Title Track unloads a dollop of baroque pop pomp, plummeting from rage in alien time signatures to clean-sung 4/4 loveliness. What Is Delicious? Who Swarms? switches between melodic music with jagged guitars and deathcore beatdowns, before Star Baby commences with a screaming parody of those old “I want my MTV” ads. Every entry is hectic in ways that the album’s hitherto unimagined.
As a result, Celebrity Therapist deserves to go down as an idiosyncratic starmaker. And, in an era where the likes of Rolo Tomassi, Seeyouspacecowboy and Pupil Slicer are helping mathcore reach its healthiest state in 20 years, The Callous Daoboys seem perfectly placed for breakout success.
FOR FANS OF: Rolo Tomassi, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Mr. Bungle