I first heard Quicksand more than a decade ago in the smoky attic bedroom of a kid named Larry. Larry (who would later make national headlines when he and another Canadian kid disappeared into thin air during a trip to the Netherlands) was a much older, much cooler guy, and as far as I was concerned he knew everything about music. We’d been up all night drinking, smoking – doing all the things teenagers do on blacklit weekend nights. We’d been listening to Blur and Throbbing Gristle and Dead Kennedys; we’d been doing shots of vodka and feeding crickets to Larry’s pet lizard; we’d been complaining about school and girls and jobs; but mostly, we’d been talking about music.
“You have got to hear this band, Quicksand. They are completely amazing,” Larry said, as if it were the most serious thing anyone had said all our lives. “They’re slow and grinding, but at the same time they’re catchy. I’ve never heard anything like it before.” He made the universal palm-muted chugging guitar motion: left hand in the air, right hand digging an imaginary pick hard into imaginary de-tuned strings. I knew what it meant, and it was a good thing.
And so, after a few seconds of rummaging through piles of discs and some quick button presses, we were in it. Quicksand’s Slip was indeed like nothing I’d ever heard before. The guitars were thick, slow and intense; the rhythm section punishing and deadly precise; the vocals exactly halfway between singing and shouting. It was the kind of music that made you want to punch a hole through the wall - but at the same time it was familiar and tuneful. You could even shout along to it. It was like a more deliberate, more elegant version of the hardcore I was used to.
Quicksand mapped the uncharted territory between Helmet’s raw power and Fugazi’s blinding sophistication. Songs like “Freezing Process” had parts that wanted to be pop, but the music underneath the melody was too harsh and grinding to let them be.
And the music was only half the story – singer Walter Schreifels, known for his earlier stints with hardcore stalwarts Youth of Today and Gorilla Biscuits, had a voice that was raw and emotional and real. Seeing them live years later, I saw Walter do something that would forever link itself to his vocal style in my brain: during the verses, he’d reach up with both hands and grab his hair, pulling it tighter as the music built up to the choruses, face reddening, as if he were about to rip a chunk out of his head.
Quicksand were a prime example of music that worked not because of what was played but how it was played. The guitars throbbed and simmered, building a tension that almost made you grind your teeth – you could feel the pick grinding the strings in slow, hard bursts. And when the tension became too much, and the fierce, glorious release finally came, it was enough to give you goose bumps.
As track 6, Lie and Wait, broke into its dissonant guitar solo, I was hooked. And from that night on, I’ve divided people into two groups: those who understand Quicksand, and those who don’t.
Though Quicksand had a minor radio hit two years later with Landmine Spring (from their second album, Manic Compression) they never enjoyed a tremendous amount of commercial success. And while creative differences indefinitely stalled the release of their third album during the late 90s, Quicksand’s trademark sound was appropriated by dog-chain and mesh-shirt-wearing mooks and perverted into what would eventually become known as Nu-Metal.
Though I can’t think of a worse genre to have spawned (and for my own satisfaction, I’d rather blame Helmet), Quicksand remain an important (and often overlooked) piece in the 3-D puzzle of rock history. A true “band’s band”, Quicksand have influenced an entire generation of musicians, and firmly bonded the group of fans who saw the genius in the music they played. Slip is, without question, a masterwork of post-hardcore. Thank you for the introduction, Larry.
Recommended Tracks:
- Fazer
- Dine Alone
- Lie And Wait
- Omission
No comments:
Post a Comment