From El Paso, Texas, Know//Suffer wields a dark strain of death metal-infused hardcore, thick with shifty rhythms, nasty pick scrapes, and double-bass flurries. At the helm, frontman Toast Williams bucks all expectations of the genre with a vocal approach that is earnest and yearning and rife with poetic lyrics navigating personal and political struggles; in a sea of vocalists aspiring to inhuman levels of toughness, Toast steers the other way, back toward humanity.
Know//Suffer’s mix of these two opposing elements – mosh pit terror meets heart-on-sleeve vulnerability – sets the band apart from the hordes. It is as if the brute force of Code Orange and the emotional depth of Burn were united under one Texan roof.
“Flip a coin until the thumbnail is rubbed away / Telling myself there is more to life than these heads or tails outcomes / Said, meditate to find inner peace / Pace a perfect circle as blood and pain leave / Learning and ignoring the agony of an empty bed,” Williams bellows on “Thumbnail.”
“We’ve never strived to sound like anyone else and we don’t really compare our music to any other band,” says guitarist Jerry Griffin. Rather than admitting any musical influences at all, the K//S crew claim to find all their inspiration through daily life in their hometown. “Black Power and Brown Pride came together at a critical moment to make this band,” states Williams. “El Paso is a melting pot. Anything can happen. When chaos knocks on your door you can either embrace it or run from it.”
Written and recorded entirely during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Great Dying is Know//Suffer’s best work to date. The EP was recorded, mixed and mastered by Hector Meza at XBCX Recordings. The cover art was created by Taylor Bates, whose work has adorned albums by Black Sheep Wall and The Number Twelve Looks Like You.
Silent Pendulum Records boss Mike Kadnar states: “I met the gentlemen in Know//Suffer about 3-4 years ago while on tour with The Number 12 Looks Like You. We kept in touch after the tour and then next time we rolled through El Paso, Know//Suffer opened for us and blew me away. It’s a pleasure to be able to release their album now and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for this young and unique band.”
