The Color of Violence – Youthanize

To put it politely, The Color of Violence is not a band many people will want to listen to.  The group, consisting of From First To Last’s Travis Richter providing guitars and vocals and bandmate Derek Bloom on drums, mixes noise and grind with hardcore and screamo – never really settling on anything concrete.  In other words, it eludes easy description.  What I can say though is that it is a little unsettling and, at times, even disturbing.  From the album’s rather explicit packing and track names, to the discordant melodies and odd sound effects, I have a hard time imagining anyone getting engrossed in this poor excuse for what might be referred to as grind/noisecore.

Their debut album, Youthanize, opens deceptively though, with “rock music” channeling some sort of danceable grind melody – comparable to a more visceral take on Nine Inch Nails.  But after the minute and fifty-four second track comes to a close, the band throws any initial promise out the window.  When the following track, the uncomfortably named “Large Hardon Collider,” starts up, the album erodes into an exercise in brutal but purposeless noisecore.  Sometimes tracks like “Me And Mt Enormous Spiritual Erection” head in the right direction by revealing some slight instrumental differentiation, but the thick blanket of fuzz over everything still tends to ruin it.  The overall effect is that there is so much going on, but so very little to comment on.

But for all of the The Color of Violence’s instrumental misguidance, nothing makes the experience more regrettable than Richter’s vocals.  Time and again he just shouts indecipherably into the mic at various shouty pitches.  Take Richter away and there might be something in the noise for genre enthusiasts, but as it is, Youthanize feels like a mess.

In other words, the album feels like two guys just making noise in various ways for the sake of making noise.  At one point on “God Gave Me Deeze Nuts” you can even hear the suggestive moans of a woman – why?  Probably because Richter or Bloom suggested it, they both snickered, and just flew with it.  According to their bio, that isn’t far off, and the band comments that they wouldn’t care if it didn’t sell any records since they had such a good time in the studio.  I guess I should applaud them for giving listeners a fair warning that Youthanize is a self indulgent trip, but really, there shouldn’t even be an option to listen to this monstrosity.

Sure, noisecore should be unpredictable, but at the same time it should also have a purpose; which The Color of Violence clearly lacks.  Hey, maybe I just don’t get “it,” but even if that’s the case, I doubt many people will.