Logo

Suggestions

  • Latest
  • New Music
  • News Stories
  • Interviews
  • Exclusive Streams
  • Music Videos
  • Live Videos
  • Tours
  • Festivals
  • Latest
  • New Music
  • News Stories
  • Interviews
  • Exclusive Streams
  • Music Videos
  • Live Videos
  • Tours
  • Festivals

Logo

Suggestions

  • Latest
  • New Music
  • News Stories
  • Interviews
  • Exclusive Streams
  • Music Videos
  • Live Videos
  • Tours
  • Festivals
New Music

KOWLOON WALLED CITY announce “Piecework”, first new album in six years, new video streaming!

September 9, 2021
1 min read

Oakland-based heavy music savants KOWLOON WALLED CITY have announced Piecework, the quartet’s first album in six years, confirmed for an October 8th release via Neurot Recordings and Gilead Media.

Since forming 15 years ago, the band has increasingly refined its deconstructed approach to noise rock, math rock, and post-hardcore, embracing dynamics and negative space to a degree that few others in the world of heavy music match. With Piecework Kowloon Walled City has managed even greater levels of restraint: songs are bleak and slow, but also shorter and more concise; counterpointing moments of austere beauty with stretches of near silence. While the band has always operated under the MO that less is more, it has doubled down on that ethos for Piecework. Singer/guitarist Scott Evans and guitarist Jon Howell, the main songwriters, self-imposed restrictions to push themselves creatively—“restraining ourselves into oblivion,” as Howell puts it.

Evans was dealing with the loss of his father during the writing of the album. He found strength in the women in his life, especially his maternal grandmother, who worked at a shirt factory in Kentucky for 40 years while raising five kids. The album name (and title track) is a nod to her line of work—and her quiet resilience. The themes of absence and death, surrendering to aging, and familial strength and love are all encapsulated in album artwork by photographer Melyssa Anishnabie—the tattered beauty of an abandoned home reveals the faint edges of where life used to be. Evans likens it to watching a grandparents’ house fall into disrepair. As with all previous KWC releases, Evans recorded and mixed Piecework (his impressive recording CV includes Thrice, Yautja, Great Falls, Ghoul, Town Portal, and many others) and like previous albums Container Ships (2012) and Grievances (2015) the tracks were recorded live at Oakland’s Sharkbite Studios, with minimal overdubs.

Kowloon Walled City

With the gristle stripped away, bone and muscle remain: drums decaying in a room, bass strings rattling, a lonely guitar chord. The negative space amplifies the ruptures of heady aggressiveness that anchor Piecework. Angular guitar notes from Howell skew off the neck, dissolving into space. Ian Miller’s bass lines churn in the muck. Drums and cymbal smashing by Dan Sneddon punctuate dead air. (Sneddon, formerly of Early Graves, makes his recording debut with the band five years after joining.) There’s sadness and anger in Evans’ shouted vocals, but also a desire for something better; hints of perseverance and hope pushing through the resignation and regret. Piecework feels not only like an artistic accomplishment, but a triumph of resolve and vision.

Share this
  • Facebook
  • Messenger
  • Twitter
  • Whatsapp
  • Reddit
  • Email

Tags:

  • gilead media
  • kowloon walled city
  • neurot recordings
  • noise rock
  • post hardcore
  • post metal

Karol Kamiński

DIY rock music enthusiast and web-zine publisher from Warsaw, Poland. Supporting DIY ethics, local artists and promoting hardcore punk, rock, post rock and alternative music of all kinds via IDIOTEQ online channels.
Contact via [email protected]

You might be interested in

FUCK MONEY, Shot by Corey Davenport

Top 5 weird and crazy hardcore punk bands ever, by Justin Pearson

BRIGHT SUNSHINE, by Jessica Weatherbee-Brown

BRIGHT SUNSHINE channel Arizona’s corporate hellscape into crushing noise rock with “Executive Power Supreme”

You might be interested in

FUCK MONEY, Shot by Corey Davenport
July 15, 2025

Top 5 weird and crazy hardcore punk bands ever, by Justin Pearson

SHAPER
July 16, 2025

Psych noise rockers SHAPER emerge from New Hope’s weird and loud scene with “Wrong Star”

DRAIN live at @bloodaxefest 2023
July 15, 2025

In Shorts: New Hardcore & Punk Rock Releases, July 12-15

Signora Ward Records
July 14, 2025

A 38-track tribute to David Lynch unfolds through doom jazz and noir ambient on “The Black Lodge” compilation

ANGELS & AIRWAVES by Peter McKinnon
Previous Story

ANGELS & AIRWAVES teasing new album “Lifeforms” with music video “Spellbound”

Helmet
Next Story

HELMET’s first official live album, Live And Rare, due out this November!

Latest

DROUGHT by Jessica Greif

In Shorts: New Releases, July 16-18

FVRMN

FVRMN commits Suicides for release on July 25 via Sweet Cheetah Records and Steadfast Records

I Am a Spiritual Being Having a Human Experience

TO BE GENTLE’s new monsterous album explores trauma, spirituality, and resistance through a deeply personal concept piece

Ded En

Brooklyn’s DED EN explores post-grief and sonic decay through doomgaze on debut EP “The Gala”

Vegan Weekend X

Vegan Weekend X – a two-day festival in wartime Kyiv brought music, activism, and art together to challenge the illusion of safety

PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING TO IDIOTEQ

As an independent magazine IDIOTEQ supports DIY ethics and local artists of all kinds. With no-ads policy and mission to give independent artists space they deserve, IDIOTEQ is a place to get inspired, learn more about lesser known artists and their perspective. Reporting on DIY music is our priority.

DONATE via PayPal or SUPPORT via Patreon

IDIOTEQ (pronounce “idiotec”) is a phonetic transcription of the word Idioteque – the act of suddenly going into a crazy, seizure like state. A vision of a society, where people are increasingly more obsessed with pointless technology, selfishness and mindless entertainment than life itself.
  • Latest
  • New Music
  • News Stories
  • Interviews
  • Exclusive Streams
  • Music Videos
  • Live Videos
  • Tours
  • Festivals