Terrible as the Dawn – “Weak” [EP] [Album Review]

It was inevitable that The Body’s influence would yield fresh bands cropping up, with a plethora of cross genre choices to make things interesting. The latest of those, Terrible As The Dawn, have put out their first EP. Question is, why should you care about some grind-post-rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan?

First off, there is absolutely a lot of The Body going on here, vocally and otherwise. However, there are also a hell of a lot of other choices made on this album that actually gave me pause. I don’t say this lightly. I rarely react with my actual face while listening to music, but there were at least two moments on this record that made me furrow my brow into two angry caterpillars.

Because these two angry musicians (see what I did there?) have somehow harnessed the ability to cherry pick and manage to seamlessly blend early grind, ’00s hardcore, screamo, and shoegaze and make it all somehow work. Perhaps that’s not very impressive on paper (I’ll admit, that seems like the kind of dart-throwing many bands are tossing at genres lists these days) but in practice it’s actually pretty notable. One of these moments came part way through opener “Dead”, when the fairly standard grind gave way to shoegaze. Another came when this My Bloody Valentine-esque approach turned into ’90s style screamo at the drop of a hat.

Only thing about this EP: the production realistically makes this a demo. These two need to get in touch with a producer desperately. And while the idea of the singing isn’t unappealing, some more care could have been taken with its execution on the rest of the album. With that said, what’s under the hood is intriguing. It’s just a shame anyone who doesn’t share a real love of lo fi is going to be repelled at first sight on this one.

You heard it here first: be on the look out for future things from these two, should they choose to keep going at it. With enough resources and pain and sweat, this band may very well go on to spawning a compelling chimera in years to come.

Weak Track Listing:

01. Stains
02. Break You
03. Dead
04. Ghosts

Run Time: 23:54
Release Date: August 19, 2016

Check out the song “Stains”