Anodyne

Anodyne’s debut, The Quiet Wars, was an oppressively opaque offering of sonic scrapings driven by its corrosive noise rock influences and metallic tangents, hearkening back to the glory days of AmRep-derived noise and abuse, but without tying itself to a specific era. However, with the superb The Outer Dark, Anodyne have refined their sound to new levels of metallic animosity, while embracing ominous atmospheres and shedding much of their noise rock ethos. "I think everyone actually played to the height of their ability on this record and I don’t think that was the case all the time,” comments guitarist/vocalist and lone original member Mike Hill. "This time around I feel that everyone nailed it perfectly.” The Outer Dark pummels and ploughs, at one moment restrained in its attack then throwing in a grindcore run or exploring a more technical metallic slant before descending into a feedback-induced sprawl. "The earlier version of the band had more of an Amphetamine Reptile flavour to the music,” says Hill. "I really felt a drastic change when Joel [Stallings, drums] joined the band, that really put us into the next level, it demanded more of myself and Josh [Scott, bass], technically. We had to really extend ourselves, and that was a positive thing.” The addition of Joel also ends a seemingly endless cycle of revolving members and uncertainty for Anodyne, who despite being stalled and stunted by its numerous line-up changes over the course of their five-year existence, never lost the faith. "My commitment to the music is always there, it’s stronger than ever,” states Mike. "It seems with every line-up change it’s almost a Nietzschean thing, where any obstacle thrown in our way we can overcome and prevail. That’s been the approach every time we’ve had a major change, be it a new drummer, moving to a new city, or midway through the tour realising ‘damn, we’re in the hole.’”