Chicago-based noise/mathrock trio LOWER AUTOMATION today share a new track from their new full-length album titled “Strobe Light Shadow Play”, due for release on November 22 via Zegema Beach Records.
Titled “Genuflect”, this new track is now playing at Heavy Blog Is Heavy (and below), who commented “they play a type of mathcore heavily inflected with sounds and ideas that set them apart from your usual chaotic flock, all condensed into track runtimes that you usually only see in grindcore circles. And the music sort of is grindcore, just focused on creating aggression through a more scintillating, metallic sound rather than filth and grime.”
The new album “Strobe Light Shadow Play” delivers another explosive, frenetic and inventive concoction of mathcore, noise-rock, metal and punk, yet this time the trio decided to push the experimentalism even further. “For this album, we wanted to try some different things than our last one.” Says the band. “It started by just experimenting with a different idea or riff each day, and seeing where that led us. It’s the most experimental and noisiest release we’ve ever put out, but also probably the most melodic. We recorded it in three different spaces in May and June of 2022, and it was definitely the most fun we’ve had recording. Thematically, the album is mostly about things from the past that have knotted and made a huge mess. Things that you can’t seem to let go of.”
Lower Automation bring a more focused kind of talent and speed this time, with fringes of dark, chaotic energy – effectively continuing their desertion of pop themes and industry norms for seldom repeated, intricately scattered motifs. This record is a gauntlet of razor-sharp guitar, jagged bass, blunted drums, and piercing vocals.
Meanwhile, leading single “Information Entrepreneurs and Their Lipsynching Choirs” is still playing at this location.
Some words about their previous efforts:
To me, Lower Automation sound a bit like early At The Drive-In, if they were a little less interested in organizing their chaotic energy into anthemic scream-alongs. STEREOGUM
There are many reasons Chicago’s Lower Automation deserve praise. Definitely towards the top of that list is their building of a wheel in which Botch, Wire, DEVO, KEN Mode, Nation of Ulysses, At the Drive-in and the Dillinger Escape Plan comprise the spokes before it gets punctured by a spike strip built by The Locust. DECIBEL MAGAZINE
Lower Automation are skilled chaos wranglers, and while on the surface this self-titled album is a thrill-a-minute ride, there is so much more hiding beneath. It’s weird enough to be exciting without being alienating – and like the best elaborate machines, the whole point is that it is delightfully unhinged. PUNKTASTIC
As a debut LP, I could hardly expect more from Lower Automation, and even a cursory run through the band’s back catalog confirms that Lower Automation are poised to become one of the premiere bands in the greater mathcore metropolitan area. ANGRY METAL GUY
The album brims with a consistently gripping and unbridled energy. There’s a real raw, live feel too, as though we are up close and personal with the three individuals that make up the band. DISTORTED SOUND MAGAZINE
The band has built upon everything found in their previous EPs and created a fantastic, if challenging, debut record that hints at better things to come from these guys. APATHY AND EXHAUSTION
Lower Automation has delivered a quirky yet aggressive record in their self-titled LP that should have the world of ‘core buzzing. Like many of my favorite records they’ve pulled together many different strains of the post-millenial metal/hardcore/punk sound world into a coherent if zany musical expression. NOOB HEAVY
From start to end, Lower Automation is an absolutely chaotic post-hardcore-tinged record that I’ll be listening to for a long time. A CERTAIN TASTE
