NEBRASKAHARDCORE.COM in the Review Section
The Sutter Cane/Plosion split titled "at the end of the story Mr.White wished his son was dead again..." was released last summer. I was so excited to get this album since both of these bands were two of my favorites in Omaha. The album starts off with dirge by Sutter Cane, a song with no lyrics. The music of the first song is almost an intro for the rest of the album with its buildups. The rest of the Sutter Cane half is full of high screaming vocals. Sutter Cane is definitely a guitar heavy band. Their songs consist of lots of heavy and sludgy riffs with choruses of blastbeats. All of the songs have at least one breakdown in them which are all real catchy. After the last Sutter Cane song,"What Beauty Surpasses," the album goes into a sample from the movie 12 Monkeys. It then cuts out into a low beat of Blake from Plosion's floor tom and into a beat. The guitars and bass come in to fit the beat and then the vocals kick in. Jon Tvrdik's lead vocals are mixed quit, but you can still hear them well. His voice is deep and bellowing as Jeff Tubrick adds in the higher pitched screams in the emotion filled music. The music itself on this half of the album is full of emotion and not just the lyrics. The guitars just give it a really indescribable emotional sound. In my opinion, this was the best local album of produced in the year 2000, and possibly the best local album of the decade.
No name given - email - Bellikose
HEART ATTACK #28 in the Records Review Section, August 2000
SUTTER CANE/PLOSION split CD
Brutal. This is one crazy CD! For awhile I didn't realize that it was a split. Both bands bring forth some thick metal edged hardcore fury! Both bands lyrics are very cryptic and personal, and very dark. I don't really know what to call this stuff other than awesome. Some parts remind me of Neurosis, some parts sound like Yaphet Kotto. Very cool, very hardcore.
DD (Dance With Rapture/488 Hillsdale Ave./Omaha, NE 68107)
THE READER Thursday, October 5th
Ever since the birth of rock and roll musicians have tried to take the
music to new extremes. Some push the envelope creatively, some
push the envelope sonically, and some just want to shock you. Just
when a style of music seems to have broken the last eardrum and
offended the last parent something else comes along that is louder,
more manic, and more offensive.
Hardcore music in its various
mutated forms over the past twenty plus years has usually set the
limit. When the music industry finds a pure form of this music, and
then proceeds to exploit it and water it down, hardcore music just
seems to mutate some more. Punk, rap, techno-all have it’s
hardcore sub-genre’s, but the style that seems to be making the
most underground waves recently is hardcore metal.
Hardcore metal
can mix personal, social, religious and political issues into the
music, or horror, and violence. Some bands focus on one subject,
while others may try to encapsulate many ideas into their music.
The thread that holds this genre of music together is the screaming,
growling, guttural, vocals, and the loud mostly in your face
instrumentation.
The local Omaha scene has many musical
communities, and a solid hardcore metal scene is among them. The
Cog Factory, and the Ranch Bowl is where one is likely to find the
young audience converging as they listen to bands such as
Bellicose, Creatures Of Habit, 1h87, Hawthorn and Alter Ego. When
talking to hardcore fans about their favorite bands results vary, but
one of the names that comes up often is Sutter Cane. A recent
Sutter Cane show at the Ranch Bowl showcased why this band
seems to stand out in the local hardcore scene.
The band focuses
much of their energy on the musicianship, timing, and creative
aspects of the music rather than just being an aggressive, in your
face, shock band. “Sludgy emo violence” is how lead vocalist and
keyboard player Justin Brink described their sound during a
conversation with the band after their set at the Ranch Bowl.
Drummer Scott Hillabrand added “We went from trying to do what
people wanted to hear, when we first started- what would be cool-to
it becoming a creative outlet for us instead”. The translation of that
creativity live to the audience has a chilling effect. The band creates
mellow haunting soundscapes at random drawing the listener in with
the dark peaceful sound before exploding sporadically into emotional
fits of rage both instrumentally and vocally. Justin mainly performs
the vocals, but the rest of the band usually contributes mic-less
wails and screams at various points in the songs. The unplugged
vocals still come through loud and clear, and create a unique and
down right creepy atmosphere to the proceedings. It’s especially
eerie when Scott is wailing, as you cannot see him singing because
he plays the drums facing away from the audience. “I don’t like
looking out over and above everybody, because I don’t feel I’m above
everybody”, says Scott.
The music can cause emotional reactions
in the audience usually in the form of people slamming into one
another, but all is not safe on stage either. “Me and Justin have an
understanding-if we want to hit each other-so be it-anything goes”,
says bassist and keyboard player Chris Kelly, “Once I poked the
end of my string right through his (Justin’s) lip”. Besides impromptu
piercing onlookers can also expect to see Justin, Chris, and
Guitarist Eric Brouillette discharge their manic energy through
un-choreographed leaps, kicks, and jumps onstage, before the entire
band collapses on top of one another at the end of their set.
The
bands energy onstage translates easily onto their debut recording At
The End Of the Story, Mr. White Wished His Son Was Dead
Again, a split CD with now defunct fellow hardcore band Plosion. At
The End Of the Story… is one of the more highly regarded CD’s
amongst local hardcore fans. The band states they weren’t sure
what was going to happen with the CD, but that they are “proud” of
the recording, and pleased with the response. Sutter Cane also
seem proud to share the recording with Plosion a band they say had
a lot of influence on them. “They were the best band in Omaha”,
says Brouillette.
A quick scan over the list of hardcore metal bands
on Slam Omaha reveals upwards of 40 bands, which shows that
Omaha has a lot to offer fans of this type of music. The members of
Sutter Cane though feel the scene isn’t as big as it could be, and
they hope more kids will get into it. When asked what makes the
hardcore audience different from other local music audiences Scott
stated that “It’s a more friendly atmosphere, more of the people in
the hardcore scene know each other than say if you went to an indie
rock show”. Justin adds “I feel like we can be the biggest asses and
do what we want-I don’t feel like you can do that at other shows”.
According to the band the future of the hardcore scene lies with the
new crop of young bands. Sutter Cane themselves are only in their
late teens, but have been together since early 1998. Sutter Cane
has the recording of a new EP in it’s future with a tentative early
2001 release date.
Even with half of the members living in Lincoln
the band promises to play as many shows as possible in the
upcoming months. Next summer the band hopes to take its brand
of mayhem on the road for a couple of weeks. It will be interesting to
find out how the audiences outside of Omaha react to this band that
not only has the ability to shock but, push the musical envelope both
sonically and creatively.
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