EXPANDER – Endless Computer (Byte Metal)
I want to see more damn computers in underground music. I don’t mean computers as instruments, we’ve had that awhile, I mean computers for aesthetics. It’s time we begin to embrace our computer lives and accept that, yes, the machines are coming and will take over, and what better way than music that speaks of this coming finality while blasting your brains out? I want it to be like the computer itself, through which the music enters my ears, then mind. I want the tendrils of the liquid cooling system of my PC to burst forth from the clear side, from where I can see all the hardware and from whence emanate blue LEDs. Those tendrils must then burrow into my CNS so that bands like EXPANDER can continue to charge my neurons with raw, fierce, and idiotic power. I must become self-aware like they, I must become part of the real PC world, and only such music can bring me there.
I knew this had to be great just based on the art by Luca Carey. That and EXPANDER refer to themselves as “neuropunk,” so all the references that arise in one’s head make it almost impossible to fail. I mean look at all that creative garbage I puked up there totally stream-of-consciousness. You just can’t do that without good inspiration, and Endless Computer was exactly that. From the start you know it’s true. The drum roll, the crusty riff lead-up, and then it all blasts forth with throat-rattling vocals like a true android champion. I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t matter. EXPANDER have a quite raw sound, and I love the tech-focus, but to contradict myself, partially, what I found most surprising is their underusage of the computer. You can hear the bends in the sound, the warping and futuristic direction, but yet it lacks the expected bizarre electronic atmosphere. The entirety of the aesthetic is restricted to how the band presents the sound, instead of what the sound itself is. This is my only complaint with Endless Computer, it never really sounds fully computer. These guys can tear, and I love the playfulness of their image, but I would personally like to see more of an integration of electronic sounds into the pastiche. I’m not saying go the level of the usual keyboard swirls and insect swarms that we’ve all heard enough of, something else. What that may be I’ll leave it up to EXPANDER to reveal for their next one.
Written by Stanley Stepanic
EXPANDER: Endless Computer
Nuclear War Now! Productions
4.3 / 5
