Sometimes you don’t find a certain something; that certain something finds you. In Great Falls’ case, The Bite That Grows Up, the follow-up to their landmark 2023 cut, Objects Without Pain, very much is that certain something.
It’s no coincidence the three-piece’s latest release coincides with the change of season. That time of year when, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, the world seems like a weight on the shoulders. Albums like The Bite That Grows Up and bands like Great Falls don’t carry the burden. They are merely inspired by it. In the Seattle band’s case, they fight fire with fire crystallising an incandescent rage like no other.
Demian Johnston, Nick Parks and Shane Mehling take punk and hardcore to the most extreme places. Their performance, where the bite matches the bark. The kind of battering ram that is the embodiment of an existential crisis, only Great Falls could illuminate such ominous existences as vividly as they do.
Great Falls Interview: “I write these lyrics about a fear of a reality that I see may be coming”
From the first three minutes of opening assault, A Small Weakness, it’s evident. All venom and vigour, Parks’ drumming is like lightning bolts surging from a storm cloud. Johnston’s vocals, so raw in spirit, that you can do nothing but believe the despair that he dispenses. (“I’ve been sent here / But I come by myself / This is why I’m here.”)
While these sermons underline the isolation many of us feel, Great Falls’ black acid walls of sound add new layers of dread to the matter. The dissonance rings in your ears, embedded like tinnitus.
Great Falls - The Bite That Grows UpSo frightening and compelling, it’s hard to see Great Falls topping such a moment. But on Pinned Against Time and Nicotine in the Spine, they do their best to eclipse it. With a frenetic brand of hardcore, the results sees Great Falls applying the blow torch to math-rock, as Parks’ drumming is like a salvo of hairpin turns that scrapes against the guard rail.
Elsewhere, and Worse Than Sleep underlines the horrors it suggests. (“I don’t have the words / Where do I start / I let the words fall out”). It’s like a new low in defeat. So too Hailstone Numbers, which is seemingly composed of musings from Johnston’s scrapbook. Discarded threads, stitched together to form something direct but profound (“When I need a break / Where will I go?”). Backed by Mehling’s bass lines that crunch and groan, the song gathers pace to form a new kind of catharsis.
Through their blistering energy and unbridled shifts in tempo, Great Falls are a band that captures the varying emotions one experiences with each passing minute of the day. The mini-trilogy of Debt Ethics, Buildings Full of Rope and What No One can Give, slamming into each other like a three car pile-up.
Through this three-pronged onslaught, Great Falls perfectly frame these times. For many facing the challenges this world offers, from those anchored in war and conflict to those living in the privilege of knowing that nefarious forces won’t bomb their home or eviscerate their loved ones. Whatever one’s circumstances maybe, the power structures have tightened their grip all across the world. The struggle at both ends of the spectrum, real. Where those in positions of power exist to make the lives of those below them a misery. It’s to the point where you feel as if your mind is slowly falling apart, and on The Bite That Grows Up, Great Falls orchestrate the soundtrack to it.
The Bite That Grows Up is out now via Neurot Recordings. Purchase from Bandcamp.
