Ex Everything – Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart | Album Review

Bay Area post-hardcore quartet Ex Everything deliver a frenetic, discordant and raw debut album in the form of Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart. Whilst some may view them as a simple side project, Ex Everything are their own band.

Initially recording their debut album in February of 2022 and putting the finishing touches on production earlier this year, Ex Everything are primed and ready to unleash their pissed off vision to the world. Comprised of guitarist Jon Howell and drummer Dan Sneddon of the legendary noise act Kowloon Walled City, bassist Benjamin Thorne (Minot, Low Red Land, Tartufi) and vocalist Andre Sanabria (blowupnihilist). With such a wide array of former projects, the band themselves are the first to admit that Ex Everything is very much its own thing, with Howell clarifying “it addresses the part of us that wants to write fast, chaotic, knotty, messy, pissed off music.”.

Album opener and the band’s debut single ‘The Reduction of Human Life to an Economic Unit’ is an absolute belter. Discordant math riffs sink their hooks in, jarring rhythmic pacing and angular, destructive instrumentation seamlessly blend between each other for palpable and joyous tension. The politically charged lyricism powerfully broadcast by Andre Sanabria’s unhinged vocal performances are the cherry on top. By the time the final breakdown rolls around the band are suddenly reminiscent of the monolithic abject suffering of AMENRA. 

‘Exiting the Vampire Castle’ sticks to a slightly slower pace, conjuring a hypnotic atmosphere, tom led rhythms paired with a snarling beast of a bass groove and a spoken word vocal delivery that has seething anger bubbling underneath the surface. The song builds slowly but surely as it goes along to an unhinged climax that is sure to have a live audience eating out of the palms of Ex Everything’s hands.

‘Detonation in the Public Sphere’ is as explosive as the title suggests, the shortest song on the album by a significant margin at just over ninety seconds. An angular guitar driven dissonant hardcore interlude, that, whilst enjoyable, at times can be a little piercing with its high-pitched melodies. Bringing the sludge in spaces with, ‘A Sermon In Praise of Corruption’ doesn’t feel dissimilar from ‘…Vampire Castle’, but slower with an fiery pay off in it’s chorus, sounding like a twisted combination of Chat Pile and early Mastodon. The grooves in the instrumental are absurd, the intensity refuses to slow down. The dynamic switch up in the second half of the track is a fitting pay off and helps to make for one of the most engaging songs on the album.

Ex Everything bring a very interesting combination of elements to sculpt the core of their sound. It sits between the delicately balanced and forceful noise-scape riffs that Kowloon Walled City are so often praised for, the lumbering hooks of KENmode, the urgency behind Chat Pile and at times the frenzied spirit of Every Time I Die. Just to further stoke the flames of comparison with Kowloon Walled City, the album was also produced, recorded and mixed by Scott Evans, another member of the aforementioned legends. Evans has done a wonderful job capture a raw and unfettered representation of the bands sound. All the performances have a healthy amount of noise and distortion to add to the intense energy Ex-Everything want to bring to the table. Chasing that angular and dissonant sound can be a little aggressive at times, with the high-treble guitar tones getting a little too much at points, but for the most part its executed well.  

‘Slow Cancellation of the Future’ brings back the fast paced math core energy, the album itself seems to keep up the whirlwind feeling of slow to fast from song to song. This feels like what ‘Detonation…’ ultimately should have been with it’s dissonant guitar melodies and frenzied pacing. Once again the instrumental is absolutely absurd, the polyrhythmic clashing of the timings, all the members of Ex Everything really putting their prowess on display here. By the time ‘Feral City’ rolls around, it is becoming a bit of an issue having basically the same two kind of songs, just repeatedly going back and forth. Again, some really nice grooves, the vocals get frenzied towards the climax at the end which is a great performance. It’s a little forgettable and doesn’t really distinguish itself from the other slower cuts here. They aren’t bad songs, but it starts to feel like Ex Everything only have two speeds.

‘The Last Global Slaughter’ brings in a good switch up of styles to keep things fresh. Big opening guitar melody soaked in reverb, the band kick into a hypnotic Tool-esque groove, with the drums slowly slipping in and out of polyrhythmic patterns. Whilst complex, it is restrained, lending to the full prog energy to the start of the track. The intensity starts to creep up further in, the punchier moments timed with the vocal shouts are really engaging. The ending starts to get really bleak, almost slipping into full blown Kowloon Walled City territory, but Andre’s pained vocals on top differentiate Ex Everything’s approach. Album closer ‘Plunder, Cultivate, Fabricate’ moves back to the high energy pace for the final track. After the violent introduction, it breaks into a really catchy little math-core passage. Very frantic, chaotic instrumental performances and rhythmic timings, its all over the place in the best way possible. It doesn’t let up for the whole run time and keeps things high energy for the finale. 

Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart is a great introduction for Ex Everything, their particular blend of noisy, sludgy, math tinged hardcore chaos hits more often than it misses. It felt as though the pacing wasn’t quite right at points, the almost routine shift back and forth between faster and slower paced songs felt a little off. Regardless, the anger behind the band’s message is cathartic in its staunch authenticity, with the music reflecting that affect as well with its volatile energy.