The Not Just a Phase group chat has been subjected to an on-going debate regarding genre designations. The resurgence of metalcore and its influence on screamo (which is a story as old as the genre) and just what is emoviolence and what separates it from blackened screamo? On the one hand, we love to be able to lump something into a category, providing us a clean path, even though it isn’t linear. That said, quite often there are moments where we couldn’t care less about the genre and we’re more interested in the total package and whether the combined parts make something that moves us. 

Lansing, Michigan, home of Michigan lawmakers and the subject of our review today: Dead Hour Noise. Why the elaborate preamble to dive into the band in such a manner? Dead Hour Noise bring a distinct metalcore flavor to the dinner table. But it’s a really weird holiday dinner, all your vegan cousins are there so there’s tofurky and seitan side-by-side with fresh wild game — it is Michigan, after all, half the people might just believe the state motto is “Hunt, Fish, Camp.”

Dead Hour Noise is the cornucopia. The myriad influences that find home on the recently released full-length Slow Burn are the gift this crew brings to the dinner table. 

My introduction to the band wasn’t a review of this record, but rather catching them on a bill that featured Michigan screamo bands Norfair and Abuse Repression supporting Midwest legends, Usurp Synapse. Dead Hour Noise brought a different kind of intensity and proved to be just the right palette cleanser for the headlining act. This isn’t to give all the flowers to the other bands, but to highlight the glue that Dead Hour Noise brought to a mixed bill. Dead Hour Noise was the unexpected guest your cousin brought who was covered in tattoos. 

Dead Hour Noise has been writing mathy metalcore for a decade but they season it well with influences from grind, crust, hardcore, ambient metal (I fuck with synth pads in Solstice heavy), and even a touch of sass. Album opener Mourning Doves opens with an aggressive, driving riff and quickly devolves into a mess of frenetic snare hits and double kick. I’m trying to nod my head and riffs are darting here and there. Guitars chug around, moving the tracks forward, with quick guitar stabs and high-note runs that help us flit about. 

It’s difficult to envision the trio hunkered in some basement preparing to record, considering how they’re going to fit this bucket of riffs into a single album, but apparently that is how the the magic happens. "Sometimes we stumble into a riff while warming up, sometimes I bring a more developed idea and we go from there. Nick and I pass it back and forth and drill it while Collin observes and writes. Once it takes shape and Collin can phrase over it we run it to death until it becomes whatever it's gunna be," their guitarust Ed tells us.

Digging into the recording process Dead Hour Noise is a band both comfortable with their craft and their abilities to deliver quality music while remaining open to new, exciting, and experimental. In discussing the recording process with the Not Just a Phase crew this become abundantly clear as Ed shares some of the more unusual techniques from their basement recording sessions: “We improvised a cheap furnace filter laying around as a pop screen and mic'd the drain pipe underneath my toilet for some ambience. The basement itself is really the fourth uncredited member of the band on this record.” 

“I FOUGHT A LOT OF UPHILL BATTLES, HAD TO START FROM SQUARE ONE ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS, AND GENERALLY HAD TO ACCEPT FAILURE. A LOT.

WHILE PREVIOUS RELEASES MAY HAVE HAD MORE OF A DIRECT MESSAGE AND CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, THIS ONE WAS MORE OF A DIARY OR OPEN LETTER.

SLOW BURN IS AN ALBUM THAT WAS BORN FROM THE NEED REBUILD AND THE PERSEVERANCE TO DO IT. IT’S FOR ANYONE THAT IS GOING THROUGH THAT PROCESS NOW.”

- COLLIN @DEADHOURNOISE

Perhaps it is the comfortability the band is afforded by recording with long-time collaborator and former guitarist Cody Hobbins which encourages the sonic exploration in 41-minutes of music spanning 11 tracks. Moments like Collin’s sassy vocal delivery in Voices reminds me of the Blood Brothers and their ability to subvert what it meant to be in a “hardcore” band. Meanwhile, the gurgling soundscape at the 4-minute mark in Arson, which is followed by the bands syncopation and vocals drenched in reverb, tip tracks in favor of something more than run of the mill metalcore. This isn’t something devoid within the genre, but it is the band adding more flavor to already power music. 

As a closing thought to the aricle and our discussion, Ed says “It feels pretty silly talking about our music right now. It feels unimportant. There's an impulse to shelve it and get serious about life in an unfamiliar way, I know that’s BS though, we still gotta be people. People gotta create.

Music is a small part of our experience anyway. This creation, Slow Burn, is catharsis. It is the culmination of years of our shared experiences. Here we come to understand how those experiences shaped Ed, Nick, and Collin through their music and we are grateful for this.”

Slow Burn is out now out on all streaming platforms and the physical release is available from Zegema Beach Records and The Ghost is Clear Records. 

Dead Hour Noise is Collin on vocals, Ed on guitar, bass and backup vocals, Nick on drums.