EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Dead Hour Noise – “Sleeping Dogs”

This is probably a somewhat naive perception, but as someone who grew up in California, I’ve always romanticized the Midwest as a place where underground scenes seem to flourish. It seems like the Midwest has always enjoyed an abundance of incredible bands, with notable scenes in major cities like Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and their surrounding suburbs. Michigan, a state that gave us See You Next Tuesday, Sender Receiver, The Armed, and Cloud Rat, has in particular seen a surge in chaotic underground artists in recent years. Dead Hour Noise, a 3 piece mathcore from Lansing, are one such band.

Founded in 2013, the band performed a 5 piece until 2017, releasing 2 EPs and a single that same year, which was featured on our companion podcast. Now Dead Hour Noise have returned with their debut LP, which is, quite frankly, unexpectedly massive in its scope coming from a band who haven’t exactly been prolific in their 7 odd years of existence. As if sensing the time was right for their long overdue full-length effort, the band have delivered 11 tracks of mathcore, hardcore, and grind, and today we have the pleasure of bringing you the full exclusive premiere of “Sleeping Dogs.”

“Sleeping Dogs” is the band’s most ambitious effort to date, with a run-time of nearly 45 minutes and several tracks clearing the 5 minute mark. This almost comes as a surprise considering the band have thus far only delivered 2 EPs and a single over such a long period of time, but Dead Hour Noise have not failed to deliver quality on their debut LP, with an agreeable pacing that starts more chaotic, gradually grows more restrained, then does it all over again.

Tracks like the concise opener, “Scatter,” immediately show an improvement over past production and song writing, with sickly earwig staccato riffs and sparingly used dissonant chords.

“The Texas Effect,” track 2 and the leading single, is one of the band’s more well rounded efforts yet, leading with the familiar mathcore-type vernacular we all know and love, before taking a more deliberate approach, showing the band also have the restraint to just lock in on a groove.

Track 7, “Remorse,” sees the band showing their hardcore roots a la seminal artists like Converge, with its start-stop southern fried breakdown and vocalist Colin Spencer’s rasping bark.

“Audience Joins Murder” and “Iris,” the album’s penultimate and final track respectively, both clear the 6 minute marker, with the former almost full blown sludge in its aesthetic (a classy move to wrap up an album, see Robinson and Destroyer Destroyer), almost as if the band had not one but two epic and paced closing tracks for this album but simply could not chose just one. However, “Iris” manages to be the more active listen, hammering home some more last minute blast beats before the album’s final chanted refrain: