Reviews

There is an interview in a Law of Inertia magazine from a few years ago where Matt Fox from Shai Hulud is being asked about emotional music. He says, “I think we have a lot of heart, but I don’t think any band out there has more heart than Bane. They are definitely not emo but when they get on stage there is an emotional energy there not found in almost every other band.”  Nothing proves Matt Fox more correct than The Note, the first new batch of Bane songs since 2001’s amazing Give Blood. The Note is a straight up hardcore album at first glance, but a closer look reveals a sadness, a frustration, and a coming to terms with the ending of things. Gang vocals and major chords are the facade behind which an aging band veils their uncertainty, unsure if there is still a place for them in the young kids game of punk music.
 
Anthematic tracks like My Therapy will surely be causing pile-ups and sing alongs at bedrooms and at shows from coast to coast, but even this, the highest charged song contains little flecks of mourning.  “The years have come and multiplied/ So much of me has been washed out with the tide,” vocalist Aaron Bedard says before concluding “You have set me free.”
 
The best track on the album, the best Bane song since Can We Start Again, is Don’t Go - a funeral song dressed for a party. Bedard beautifully illustrates his wishes and fears in front of a rousing drumbeat with punchy guitars punctuating his wordy pictures.  It ends with the most haunting chord progression in posi-core and the soul-clutching epitaph “Oh please don’t bury me in the rain.”
 
Two criticisms: the layout of The Note comes nowhere near offering the same depth and interest that Give Blood’s booklet did.  And the song One For The Boys, while a serviceable hardcore song is entirely about poker.  Not metaphorically, like Ante Up was,  it’s just about a game of poker.  Lame.
 
Bane has crafted an amazing album, moving with skill from songs questioning their very relevance to other songs forcefully proving their continued importance.  The song Hoods Up moves from these extremes in a space of just a few seconds, raising fists with the chants ‘TELL ME that this is still for the kids, by the kids, about the fucking kids” and then drawing tears with Aaron’s confession “I am not all that sure/ How much longer my voice can hold out.”  but that is the power of Bane: you care whether or not they will make it out on the next tour.  They share their hearts with us, and we share our hearts right back.