The somber and elegant piano figures and disturbing electronic samples supplied by keyboardists Aaron Zilch and Justin Fouler color the song in shades of tones that are alternately melancholy, then schizophrenic. ![]() "Effigy 23" manages several such changes throughout its course, while maintaining a confident central feel through every change-it's deeply heavy but built on a seductive stop-and-start groove that sucks you in, and is laced with sophisticated touches that create an atmosphere in your brain just as the track suddenly kicks you in the solar plexus. Produced using a dictionary full of sonic shock tactics that consistently throw you off balance like a hard right turn at 90 miles per hour, each fresh schism serves to drive the emotional energy inherent in the song even deeper into the gut. The full-on attack of the music is made even more powerful by the sudden dynamic shifts, tempo changes, and surprising intrusions of gentle ambience or electronic noise, or just as likely, silence. While The War of Art is as heavy as music gets, the songs hold a wealth of sonic nuance and detail. And some tracks make Black Sabbath sound like Britney Spears by comparison. Martin tears his lungs out on nearly every song (though often expertly shifting to a mellow Morrison-like croon or a piercing wail). Pure and simple, the force of their devotion comes through on every track. Pushing the ultra-violent chugging guitars of David Rogers and Wayne Kile to the limit (they make the word "epic" sound small by comparison), American Head Charge dissect the mix with sudden shifts in texture and atmosphere that belie the first impression of flying-shards-of-metal onslaught. Soon, the group was holed-up in the basement of producer Rick Rubin's legendary Laurel Canyon house/studio (or the Houdini Mansion, as it is also known),where they worked countless hours over a period of three months on what would become The War of Art-an album aptly titled to reflect the acts of emotional war feeding each track. Along the way, American Head Charge had opened for the likes of Type O Negative, Slipknot, and Powerman 5000, but, it was a slot with System Of A Down that got them signed to American Recordings. Persisting through a shifting series of line-ups over a period of three years, the group built up a huge following in Minneapolis, eventually reaching the point where they could easily pack 1,500 rabid fans into the famous First Avenue (most familiar as the site of the club scenes in Prince's "Purple Rain"). Evolving steadily ("Louder, Faster, Harder"), Martin played keyboards at one point while Chad switched from guitar to bass. Martin and Chad began to share the group's music and lyric writing, often finishing or adding words to each other's songs almost telepathically. ![]() Seizing the moment, they raised themselves out of their own personal hells and devoted themselves to creating a band with born of the raging instinct to survive-all the ingredients of a real American success story. Following their release, bonded and determined, the pair threw their entire lives' energies into working on American Head Charge. Martin had been playing guitar and singing since an early age but never had the confidence to use his talent until he met Chad (whom he thanks in the album's credits for showing him his self-potential). ![]() That act (performed apparently by the same once-famous rock musician who had also, completely by coincidence, intervened on Chad's behalf) led Martin to that rehab in Minneapolis where he met his future bandmate. Growing up in Washington, DC, and the San Francisco Bay area, Martin had started early down the same hard road, eventually dropping out of high school while living in Baltimore, where an "intervention" saved his life. While living in Los Angeles (he grew up in Hollywood), Chad had been in various bands, ranging from glam/metal to Ministry/Killing Joke-influenced industrial metal, and had reached the desperate point of selling all of his gear to feed his various vampire-like vices. The brazen and relentless all-out emotion of American Head Charge may be extreme, but it comes from a real commitment to a hard-earned, last-ditch choice: Chad and Martin met by chance (or fate, as they both say) at a treatment/rehab center in Minneapolis where they wrote their first song together, a project required of Chad in order to secure his release. Ask main-men Chad Hanks (guitar) and Martin Cock (vocals) what drives them to make sounds this impossibly raw and intense and the answer is simple: "If we weren't doing this, we'd be dead." They make music as if their very lives depended on it, which indeed they do. The members of American Head Charge slam home their unique brand of maniacally heavy music with a fury you can't deny.
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