By Nolan Lewis
Being lumped into the math/noisecore circles including bands such as Dillenger Escape Plan and Converge, Ontario’s The End is taking the genre and catapulting it forward. The End takes their listeners on a brain-bursting trip that’s brutally heavy and discordant, yet darkly ambient and melodic. It’s a journey deep into the crawling walls of the haunted Dividia Estate.
Within Dividia is only the band’s second release, yet it depicts the innovation and depth of The End and their music. The distorted guitars are both brutal and delicate, the percussion pounds in an organized chaotic rhythm, the vocals are ferocious and the ambience dark and chilling. It is a quasi-concept album focusing on the fictional manor, Dividia Estate, as well as its deeply disturbed residents. The story starts with a description of the dark unforgiving manor, shut off from sun, time and the sublime in the track “These Walls”, and concludes with the burning of a corpse on a track “Of Fist and Flame”. And in between we’re caught in something disturbing that lures and engulfs.
The End stands apart from any other band in a shadowy, sinister sounding world both indescribable and alluring. With this deeply profound piece as only their sophomore release, the future of The End and of heavy and progressive noisecore is looking gloomy, fierce and chaotic. It’s exactly as it should be.