ALBUM REVIEW: Social Mobility – Knife Planet
London’s KNIFE PLANET are a band that possess a distinct and abrasive sound that is not only more feral and coarse than the majority of their peers, but fully atonal at points. Blending together elements of black metal, grindcore, noise and industrial within their varied sound, much of their nauseating and stringent offerings can perhaps, to make the closest musical comparison, be compared to that of acts like GNAW THEIR TONGUES, creating something that is impressively murky, oppressive in its heaviness and genuinely bleak throughout. Their latest record, Social Mobility, is no a great compilation of the bands strongest work up to this point, and serves not only as a great record in its own right, but a great introduction to the band.
Feast Of Threes is an incredibly coarse way to start this record, with grating guitar work and a musical core that is near impenetrable, being so harsh and indebted to a combination of raw black metal and industrial music that it’s genuinely hard to hear much of what is going on, save for some meaty rhythms and dense, clanging percussion, with caustic, snarling vocals providing a sharp and biting contrast to the soupy sound of the rest of the music. Cloak takes a more stringent strain within the electronic side of this albums sound and accentuates it, with the dull thump of the drums and nauseating, claustrophobic sound shying away from the noise-inflected style of the albums opener whilst still remaining unflinchingly fierce.
Dagger sees the combination of searing vocals and rumbling beats stray even further from the black metal template that inform the last two tracks, although a bleak edge is still very much present. The Warrant continues in much the same fashion, with weighty, droning synths creating a murky backdrop to stinging rhythmic bursts and feral vocal deliveries, beefing up the underlying groove and allowing for something that sound, in spite of its bellicose components, much warmer. Collect uses the authoritative electronics to craft something that is, arguably, a DSBM track, complete with tremolo-picked leads, frenetic drums and throaty, tortured vocals, coming across like some twisted blending of XASTHUR and SWANS.
NIHIL ULTRA takes the harshness that has been at the heart of this album to new heights, with a significantly more distorted approach and muscular bass hooks developing a much more coherent and even structured sound, stripping away much of the noise influences and introducing a palpable ambience in the mix, resulting in something decidedly catchier than what has come before it. Door Closes Behind again makes much more prominent use of a thick bass undercurrent and tight, almost militaristic beats to create an offering that’s got a lot more form and focus to it, with only the rabid bark of the vocals hinting at the chaotic, opaque quality of the records first half, relying heavily on the robust industrial passages that have been at the backbone of many of these songs, along with crashing cymbals, so carry the majority of the music.
You Cannot Stop The Sewer, a short, sharp shock of gothic pomp that sees a cleaner sound take centre stage, peppering in some of the denser elements of the preceding two tracks to add some heft, but proving to be a massive departure from the bestial intensity of earlier songs. The Room Of Chairs returns to the fuzzy, impactful sound of NIHIL ULTRA and Door Closes Behind, but crucially lets some subtle dungeon synth moments creep into the mix, providing brief, but brilliantly measured, breaks from the noisy and strangled sound that makes up the bulk of this effort, closing the record on a song that brings together parts from both extremes within KNIFE PLANET‘s sound to craft something varied, but still gratingly coarse.
For those who are already well versed in the band’s back catalogue up to this point, this is a great summation of KNIFE PLANET‘s strongest work with You Cannot Stop The Sewer being included as the sole new piece of music, with everything else coming from records released between October 2020 and July 2024. But to those who are only just discovering this band and their near impenetrable sound, Social Mobility is a great place to begin delving into their work, and shows just how much the band’s style has altered and refined in a relatively short space of time. If You Cannot Stop The Sewer is anything to go by, KNIFE PLANET‘s musical approach has shed much of its grimier, cacophonous edge and shifted into a purely electronic/industrial hybrid, albeit a fairly weighty sounding one. Whether KNIFE PLANET opts for a more polished sound in the future or retreats to atonal, noisier elements, whatever they produce next is sure to be singularly impressive.
Rating: 8/10
Social Mobility is out now via Fiadh Productions.