KEN MODE – Success – April 23, 2015

KEN mode are now streaming the second new song taken from their forthcoming sixth full-length ‘Success’, due June 15th (and one day later in North America). The power trio from Winnipeg, Canada is exclusively premiering the song “These Tight Jeans” via NPR as official media partner here. All forthcoming KEN mode live dates in Europe and North America are listed below.

KEN mode comment: “‘These Tight Jeans’ is a post punk-rock tribute to the absolute insanity of the ‘hater’ culture that plagues the media, social networking, and our daily lives as human beings alive in 2015”, explains frontman Jesse Matthewson. “The first line of the song says it all: ‘I would like to learn how to kill the nicest man in the world’. Stop disrespecting each other and go run a marathon, do some push-ups, read a book, create something: get a life. Life’s too short. Guest vocals came from our friend Jill Clapham, and channels plenty of feel from 80’s post punk and garage rock coupled with our usual bite.”

‘Success’ is a bold move towards sounds that originally inspired the band at the beginning sixteen years ago. KEN mode have already proved this claim by releasing a video for the opening track “Blessed”. The album can already be pre-ordered in various formats through the Season of Mist shop.

KEN mode recorded ‘Success’ with legendary engineer Steve Albini (NIRVANA, THE JESUS LIZARD, PJ HARVEY) to capture the material in a fully live and analogue session in the band’s hometown in November 2014. This set-up brought to fruition the most raw, rock and roll sound this band has ever put forth.

KEN mode have already revealed the cover of ‘Success’, which was created by acclaimed Winnipeg based fine artist Randy Ortiz. The artwork can now be viewed below along with the tracklist.

Blessed These Tight Jeans The Owl I Just Liked Fire Management Control A Passive Disaster Failing At Fun Since 1981 A Catalog Of Small Disappointments Dead Actors

KEN mode have previously announced a second European tour after their just ended road-rage with Swiss post-hardcore act Cortez, which happens before the Canadians will embark on a journey through North America. A list of all shows can be viewed below.

25 May 15 La Louviere (BE) Taverne Du Theatre
27 May 15 Copenhagen (DK) Kb18
28 May 15 Hamburg (DE) Astra Stube
29 May 15 Paris (FR) OTB Festival
31 May 15 Bristol (UK) Temples Festival
01 Jun 15 London (UK) Macbeth
02 Jun 15 Lille (FR) Peniche
03 Jun 15 Sint (BE) Jeugdhuis Job
04 Jun 15 Caen (FR) TBA
06 Jun 15 Poitiers (FR ) Less Playboy Is More Cowboy Fest

NORTH AMERICAN DATES

16 Jun 15 Toronto, ON (CA) The Shop (Parts & Labour) (+Fight Amp +The Great Sabatini)
17 Jun 15 Montreal, QC (CA) Turbo Haus (+Fight Amp +The Great Sabatini)
18 Jun 15 Brooklyn, NY (US) St. Vitus (+Fight Amp +Pyrrhon +Couch Slut)
19 Jun 15 Philadelphia, PA (US) Kung Fu Necktie (+Fight Amp)
20 Jun 15 Columbus, OH (US) Ace of Cups (+Fight Amp +Lo-Pan)
21 Jun 15 Chicago, IL (US) The Burlington (+Fight Amp +Gobo’s Cvit)
26 Jun 15 Winnipeg, MB (CA) The Goodwill (+Pop Crimes +Teethmarks)

Rock, noise, math, indie – KEN mode offer a root to it all on ‘Success’, locating a common ancestor that’s behind all that they do and have done as a band. It’s one seriously fermented sound that pervades these recordings, a goldrush of skewed rhythms, corrosive riffs and scorching pickup abuse, so diligently pulled off and inherently important to the band. Their path first appears to be one of complex inspiration, but a lineage soon becomes clear, lighting up a way through concentric circles of legacy that encompasses the full spread of inventive heavinesses that fed in to the grunge estuary, and out in to the open sea of independent labels in the final decade of the last century, where KEN mode first appeared.

‘Success’ is a funny concept; in its rawest, most pure form, it is entirely relative, and this was the subject KEN mode chose to approach their new album with. Sonically, and lyrically, a shift has been made from the classic spitting of metallic hardcore tinged vitriol, that the band has become known for, to a rawer, more mature, even humourous indie rock aesthetic. In April 2014, the band set out to pay tribute to where they’ve come from: a salute to both their Canadian Prairie roots, and a time when they first started to care about making music; the burgeoning ‘grunge’ and Touch & Go/Dischord scenes of the late 80s/early 90s, with bands like NIRVANA, BIG BLACK, COP SHOOT COP, THE COWS, CIRCUS LUPUS, and DRIVE LIKE JEHU warping their teenage minds. Lyrically, the band’s fascination with comedy spirals around classical western concepts of “success” – from employment, sex, marriage, religion, socio-economic standing, and particularly the many perceptions people have of how they, and those around them, happen to fit into the world.

Frontman Jesse Matthewson describes his upcoming work as being “a decidedly stripped down northern noise rock apocalypse to be unleashed on the world. Time to take this back to our roots.”