Is Cell Press a screamo or crust-band? Whatever - it’s goooood!
Montreal. A thriving scene. Lots of thriving scenes. Awesome bands. LOADS of awesome bands. One example would be Cell Press. Their new five-song EP to be released at the end of the month is adding a deep and well-constructed example for modern screamo. They are not playing it safe with this 24-song-monster, whose final track takes up nearly half of the time of the whole EP (and probably one complete side of the cassingle). The first four tracks are all variants of the screamo genre, some a little more on the black metal side, some a little more on the noise side. What really brings them all together is the thoughtfulness with”</i> one notices that they use the same riff as intro and as outro. Or the final track “My Son will No the Truth” which they never want to play live – it’s more of an experiment with each musician adding one layer to the song without knowing what will be added next. And all of it is based on an 11-minute solo by drummer Mark McGee, who taped the solo and on the next day each musician added his part single-handedly so that in the end the band came up with a monster of a subdued noisy ambient track that never seems to find its course. But this sheer aimlessness makes it even more intriguing. Or the third track “Black Out in Verdun” which is right in the middle between Helmet (the drumming and the bass!) and some early HydraHead bands (the vocals and the dirty, meaty riffs!) - here the band is as close to noise-core as it gets. To put it in a nutshell: Don’t miss on Cell Press!
