“Agoraphobic Nosebleed meets the Postal Service—that was the dumbest one,” muses Mookie Singerman, lead screamer and keyboardist for Philadelphia metal trio Genghis Tron. He’s rattling off inane descriptions he’s heard from folks trying to summarize the band’s sound. “House music metal was another one,” he says, laughing.
Unappealing as those comparisons sound, they’re starting points for those who’ve never heard the band. Genghis Tron is most definitely metal, with a sound evocative of early industrial, buzzsaw guitars, prog-rock synths and positively evil programmed drumbeats.
Genghis Tron’s last release Dead Mountain Mouth is a masterpiece of schizoid rhythms and heavily processed electric noises, delicate and orchestrated melodies, and apocalyptic jams. The band’s soon-to-be-finished album Board Up the House, its debut on Relapse Records, promises to sound as cathartic and pained as its predecessors.
If Board Up the House sounds especially pissed off and paranoid, there are reasons. The band’s van was recently broken into for the third time this year, and their tour was canceled after tourmate Ben Weinman of The Dillinger Escape Plan broke his foot on a video shoot. The circumstances forced Genghis Tron to return to Philadelphia, where they’ll work odd jobs until the new record comes out. Singerman is temping for a nonprofit organization, which in his words, “sends relief to needy parts of world.”
Bandmates Hamilton Jordan and Michael Sochynsky are in need of work. When Board Up the House hits shelves, Genghis Tron will resume their tradition of herculean touring. “The craziest thing,” Singerman says, about to walk into a Yip Yip show, “is that we were all in college ‘til a year-and-a-half ago. At the end of 2006, we’d managed to play 115 shows, and we were still in school.”
What’s equally as impressive is the respect that Genghis Tron has earned despite their odd tastes in instrumentation and genres. That’s testimony to how weirdly entrancing this music is.
-Mark Sanders
Genghis Tron: www.genghistron.com
Relapse Records: www.relapse.com