A band featuring members of Rochester, NY heavyweights Sulaco, Burn Everything and CHRMR? Who play “noise rock, post-hardcore, sludge metal”? Who spread negative sunshine via their moniker, Feel Worse? And spread the sarcasm on thick with the title of their debut album, This Will Weigh Heavily On Your Annual Performance Appraisal (which reeks of a heavy Bright Sunshine’s Executive Power Supreme vibe)? Yes, please! Sign me up!
Self-released last month, This Will Weigh Heavily On Your Annual Performance Appraisal is a calamitous, yet understated, collision of broad stroke extremity and experienced nuance that nods to Kowloon Walled City, Melvins, Shallow North Dakota, KEN mode, the Antikaroshi and all the “personal distress, regret, pain, and suffering” that make life worth hating which you can check out via a stream of the record below. When we asked the band for a quick blurb about their new record, in true sardonic fashion, they sent the following:
“Angst is for young people, but frustration is for grownups. If you want to know the difference, look no further than This Will Weigh Heavily On Your Performance Appraisal, the debut release from Feel Worse. Over the course of seven acutely agitated songs, Feel Worse remind us, in the most thrilling way possible, that everyday doldrums are even more enervating than the things we rage about in our youth. Over a roiling churn of riffs and moods, Feel Worse swing effortlessly between metal, post-hardcore, and post-rock with splashes of black metal and sonic experimentation thrown-in for good measure — not delivering gut punches so much as pressing on the bruises and brooding over the persistent ache. It’s not that frontman/lyricist Jason Leone actually sings about mundane subjects like corporate jobs, family challenges, or the demoralizing slide into getting old. In fact, Leone observes life through the eyes — and the pen — of a surrealist poet. But rest assured: his hallucinogenic verses about stomachs with mouths and turning into an orb are suffused with the kind of awareness that can only come with experience. Likewise, this is music completely untethered by any sense of obligation to pin itself to one style or another. With members of long-running metal/grind/heavy rock outfits like Sulaco, CHRMR, and Sully, Feel Worse are just as likely to draw from the likes of Slint and the Jesus Lizard as they are from Melvins and Converge. We all grow up on a steady musical diet of piss and vinegar. We freeze our heroes in our minds as the people they were in their twenties, and then we watch as so many of them lose their edge with age. The work of veteran players who’ve spent a lifetime steeping in various pockets of music, This Will Weigh Heavily On Your Performance Appraisal shows us that maturity need not dim one’s fire. On the contrary: wisdom can be galvanizing —terrifying, even — especially when paired with a sharp musical attack. There’s an existential burden that comes with paying attention in a world that wants to send you spiraling. Feel Worse strike a captivating balance in that space between losing your shit and keeping your wits about you. In the fullest sense of the word, This Will Weigh is heavy stuff made by a band intent on pushing the bounds of what heavy music can sound like. After all these years, finding new expressions gets more and more difficult, but Feel Worse make it sound easy.”
What think you?
This Will Weigh Heavily On Your Annual Performance Appraisal by Feel Worse
The post Full Album Stream: Noise Rockers Feel Worse Get Brusque and Bitter With <em>This Will Weigh Heavily On Your Annual Performance Appraisal</em> appeared first on Decibel Magazine.