Ex Everything

Ex Everything from Oakland, CA

EX EVERYTHING unites current and former members of Kowloon Walled City, Early Graves, Mercy Ties, Blowupnihilist, Less Art, and other notable Bay Area acts from the past two decades. The result of pent-up rage and even terror, Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart showcases the band’s fusion of Dischord-influenced math rock and noisecore; a nuanced rage that refuses to accommodate the passive listener.

Jon Howell’s percussive, angular playing is as impressive as it is baffling, with malformed chords and abstract melodies that still burrow effortlessly into your brain. Dan Sneddon’s drumming is a stampede of frenetic time signatures, deceptively understated patterns and anthemic bashing, while Ben Thorne’s bass roils underneath like a ship’s hull scraping the ocean floor. The band’s true skill, though, lies in how their instruments interlock, the structuring of movements that grow songs from rotted dirges to triumphant war cries, rhythmic tension building until a riff explodes it into something unexpected and completely satisfying. Vocalist Andre Sanabria screams like he’s trying to tear the songs apart, though he manages to find moments of almost Zen-like contemplation. It’s a deft and mesmerizing performance.