Karnivool
The Hi-Fi, Brisbane
Friday 24 June 2011
Karnivool, what went wrong?
I'm appalled by what I see and hear tonight. Maybe it's because I gave
Sound Awake one listen upon release in 2009 and shelved it under "impenetrable". This, from a longtime fan, who has spun
Themata—the band's 2005 debut—probably more than any other album in my life. The two releases could well have been conceived by different bands: at their inception, this Perth five-piece favoured punchy, engaging hard rock compositions which averaged four minutes in length. Four years later, their ambitions have shifted toward cavernous prog-rock epics which regularly nudge the 10-minute mark. Yawn.
Somewhere along the way Karnivool plain forgot, by and large, how to write hooks. Of the eight
Sound Awake songs aired tonight, only a handful of times do they hit upon anything resembling a steady groove. The standout from that crop is first single 'Set Fire To The Hive', yet even this track is laughably unwieldy. (That bit where the guitarists share a riff that's meant to sound like wasps swarming? Hilarious! Cracks me up every time!) It doesn't help that here's a complete absence of humour on display tonight, and it's seemingly infected their songwriting to the point every song is laced with noodly, 'atmospheric' guitar lines and extraneous 'serious' percussion.
The longer I watch them tonight, the more I become convinced that the source of my disappointment hinges on this last point. On
Themata, guitarist Drew Goddard wrote and recorded all of the drum parts. They're amazing; the title track in particular (which is still the best thing they've ever written), and overall Goddard's percussion was flashy and innovative, but never over the top. Then drummer Steve Judd joined the band full-time.
Every track on
Sound Awake is covered in his percussive fingerprints, and all suffer for it. Rarely can the dude lock into a steady rhythm; he seemingly has to show off by switching between a shitload of unconventional time signatures ad nauseum. It's maddening. I can't be the only one who notices, because his damn constant fills remove any groove that might allow the audience to headbang/mosh/dance. Most of the time, there's just no steady rhythm whatsoever—he's all over the shop with percussive flights of fancy, leaving the guitars to become the rhythmic focal point. Judd's inability to stop himself from churning through every single song like he's auditioning for a drum solo has altered the structure of the band.
Perhaps irrevocably. They play a new song tonight (titled 'The Refusal', according to
this) and again, it's a hodge-podge of rote distorted riffs coupled with a percussive dog's breakfast. It sounds like shit. (Though interestingly, bassist Jon Stockman steps up to the mic to provide back-up vocals for the first time in the band's history.) From up on the balcony, I look around the room and completely fail to understand how anybody is engaging with this music.
Karnivool are all talented players; we get it. Their ambitions lie more toward prog-rock than hard-rock; fair enough. It's healthy for bands to change. For sure; they're certainly not the same band that recorded one of the best Australian debut EPs ever released—2001's
Persona (there was a dodgy, self-titled EP before that, but let's pretend it never happened, okay?). But Karnivool have chosen sonic intricacy over songwriting. (I wish I could say that it was hurting them, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all: this show sold out months ago; a second show in 10 days' time mustn't be far off.) Which is not to say that long songs are the enemy; Porcupine Tree and Tool are two acts who can shoot past the 10-minute mark with interesting results (Sidenote: boy, do Karnivool ache to be mentioned in the same breath as those two bands).
No; the enemy is bloated, unwieldy-for-the-sake-of-it songwriting. Their encore consists of just one "tune", 'Change', which seems to stretch into eternity (were eternity around 12 minutes long). It ends—mercifully—with singer Ian Kenny strumming an acoustic guitar and Goddard faffing around on the floor with what looks like a mini Korg. It's tacky and pretentious. At this moment I realise that the Karnivool I once knew and loved are dead to me. Vale.
Andrew McMillen