MonsterWatch

BIG BUSINESS Big Business is a band. They play heavy rock. On that, we can all agree. Things get tricky when you try to classify exactly where on the musical spectrum the dynamic duos racket falls. I guess psychedelic heavy metal punk rock? I dont know. People always say sludge rock, which I always found to be lazy and kind of inaccurate, says drummer Coady Willis. A lot of our songs are fast, and its not like were playing a half-assed Black Sabbath riff over and over again. Thats been the struggle of the band. Were a band that doesnt really fit into what everyone else is doing.Willis comes from punk rockers The Murder City Devils. His co-conspirator, bassist/vocalist Jared Warren, spent time in noise rock weirdos Karp. Together, they formed Big Business in 2004. The LA-based outfits first three albums didnt quite mesh with Hydra Heads post-metal aesthetic, but their idiosyncrasies caught the attention of another iconoclastic outfit: The Melvins. They recorded three albums, an EP, and various songs between 2006 and 2016 with that iconic grunge/doom/experimental act, all while maintaining their own identity as Big Business. Along the way, they picked up guitarists Toshi Kasai and Scott Martin, but on 2016s Command Your Weather, they returned to their core duo format. They remain in that lineup on their sixth full-length, The Beast You Are.Its just better. We work faster, and we know what were both going for. It gives us more room to be weirder in certain aspects and try different things. It makes sense because thats how we established ourselves in the beginning and how we learned to write songs together, it was just the two of us. Coming back to that lineup felt natural, continues Willis. The two performed everything on the album, which was recorded between the early November and early December of 2018 at El Studio in San Francisco by Phil Becker (Pins of Light, Terry Gross). Willis, Warren, and Becker handled the mixing, with Carl Saff lending his mastering expertise to the final product. Once more, Warren has hacked up some construction paper for one of his unique cover art pieces.With a new, dynamic demoing process leading to the creation of the most songs theyve ever written for an album, The Beast You Are delivers 13 doses of uncategorizably heavy rock music. From the ominous death march of The Moor You Know to the soaring Let Them Grind to the delicate, ethereal Under Everest, Big Business continues to defy listeners expectations. No matter the context of their music, however, one thing remains true: they are definitely still a band.MONSTERWATCH has been leading the PNW post-punk revival since 2017 with their unique brand of upbeat sludge rock. The three-piece drives through their set with ferocity and charisma to deliver a performance that piqued my hunger for what was yet to come. The spell had been successfully cast. - KUPS FM.