--Nothingface--
Matt Holt - vocals
Tom Maxwell - guitar
Jerry Montano - bass/keyboards
Tommy Sickles - drums


Fans and musicians alike have "that one band," the precious group whose music miraculously sparked some force inside the heart, thus turning them into a diehard fan of heavy music for the rest of their natural lives. For today's crop of developing, impressionable hard rock lovers, Nothingface will be "that" band. The Washington, DC-based quartet's TVT Records debut Violence will become a benchmark for loud music in 2000, a yardstick by which future heavy-with-melody albums are measured. Don't even entertain the thought of deeming this music "new metal." The transcendent
Nothingface sidesteps trends of rapping, guest appearances, and cover songs. Vocalist Matt Holt's voice is so stunning and assured, he doesn't need to rely on rhythmic talking to convey a point. Guitarist Tom Maxwell is such a talented, incomprable axeman he's been endorsed by Gibson, stroking, of course, a gothic looking black guitar. Bassist Bill Gaal grew up playing Yes, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, not Korn. New drummer Tommy Sickles turns into a fiend behind the kit. Based on those factors, Violence invents its own genre; it's not like anything else out there. To some of
you, Nothingface is a new band. But Nothingface has scratched and clawed its way to the top since its inception five years ago. According to Gaal, "We wanted to build up a hardcore, base following, learn what it takes to be a band on the road, appreciate things from working hard, not having them handed to you." To this already initiated, core group of enlightened, zealous music lovers, Nothingface is a hulking slab of teeth-rattling, diametrically opposed rock that expertly maintains a difficult balance between intense brutality and delicate beauty.
"The Sick" (Nothingface's pet name for their fans) became initiated into the Nothingface experience through the band's first two albums, Pacifier and An Audio Guide To Everyday Atrocity (DCide). Nothingface isn't pretty all the time, nor does it want to be. Holt's vocals are a textbook case of schizophrenia. One moment, he barks voraciously, like his soul has been possessed by demons. The next, he's singing like a seraph, his downright pretty voice taking refuge in your mind long after you've shut the record off. Some of the shocking lyrics might make your eyes bulge, but Nothingface
unapologetically peels the skin back to reveal raw bone. A quick, cursory glance at the lyric sheet of Violence might elicit raised eyebrows. They're laced with images of coldness, celestial bodies, and physical frenzy. Holt admits, "These are the kind of perversions people have in their own minds but don't have the guts to say in front of other people." For example, the line "We all want to see you get kicked in the face" is found on Violence. But for every disturbing image, there is an equally exquisite lyric like "My eyes see everything I want them too / I just don't want them to see you" that is its counterpart. Holt continues, "I have a split personality
when I write. The singing in those lyrics usually come from one point of view. The yelling is the most extreme, irrational point of view. You know when you get extremely angry and you're in a rage, but every couple of minutes, you have a moment of clarity where you are rational but then you go right back into the rage again. That's exactly how my lyrics are and my singing is. Being mad, pausing and being like, Oh Well, and then going back again." It's catharsis. But Nothingface is also like the Howard Stern of hard rock. "As far as people getting offended, [the lyrics] are intended to incite emotion," says Holt. Violence's subject matter is not the stuff of everyday conversation, another quality that hurls Nothingface light years ahead of its peers.
According to Holt, "The Same Solution" is my interpretation on what goes on in a serial killer's mind when he's looking for a victim. It's something that intrigues me." Further commenting, he says, " Make Your Own Bones"means build your own foundation. Just because you think you know somebody, they can do anything at any time. You don't have to be a fucked up person to do something fucked up to somebody." Wow. Did somebody say something about blunt honesty? That's the precise quality that allows Nothingface to wield keys to open the padlocked hearts of jaded listeners yearning for something exciting in hard rock. Musically, Violence is a technical masterpiece. "The Same Solution," "Piss & Vinegar" and "Can't Wait For Violence" are erected by Maxwell's dynamically dizzying
riffs. Songs like the epic, operatic "Blue Skin," which boasts a monster breakdown and enough bipolarity to nurse the wound it inflicts, the moody "For All The Sin," and the engorged-with-rage "Hidden Hands"are a stream of warheads launched at people, places, things. Beware of the fallout. Guitarist Tom Maxwell reflects on an acoustic interlude on the album. "Look at "American Love." In the middle, all of the sudden, it turns into Crosby, Stills, and Nash for like thirty seconds. Who does that?" Of his playing, he says, "I grew up listening to the Beatles, Zepplin, Hendrix. I graduated to Jane's Addiction, Slayer, Mercyful Fate, and Rush. Dave Navarro had an influence on me as far as passion. If you listen to Jane's records, there are some of the most beautiful guitar melodies you'd ever hear. I'm a real "chordy" type of player. I'm not an acrobat stuntman, like 'Check out how fast I can play this
riff, dude.' I am all about the groove and power. You can't achieve that if you're so concentrated on being this guitar god all the time." Drummer Tommy Sickles, who was a friend/fan/roadie of the band, joined Nothingface shortly after the album was recorded. Thrust into a high-pressure situation, he blossomed rather than crumbled. Sickles says, "I love the music so much it takes over my whole body when I play. Hopefully people will feel what I feel when I am playing it."Appreciators of music will be bowled over by the arrangement and delivery of Violence, which was produced by Drew Mazurek and mixed by David Bottrill (Tool, Peter Gabriel, Kid Rock).
Every time you spin it, you'll hear another nuance of sound, a different vocal layer, an eerie calm amidst the thunderstorm. It's an album that is constantly renewing itself, providing listeners with innumerable hours of sonic pleasure. Violence sucks you in on a musical journey, leaving you simultaneously supercharged with adrenaline and drained of every emotion. Violence will school its listeners on how to bare your claws and show off your vulnerable side at the same time. Prepare to join the ranks of a musically aware elite. Relinquish control now. Accept the Nothingface domination that is surely imminent based on the complicated, unparalleled ferocity that is Violence.


*taken from nothingface.net*