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Hailing from Amarillo, Texas, The Gentleman Homicides, are a talented, solid, heavy outfit. They are definitely skilled musicians with a variety of influences. Unfortunately, Understanding The Words We Speak, may not have been the best way to showcase their talents.
Make Way For Math Core!
If you've never heard of a musical genre called math rock, you can consider yourself lucky. Spawned in the '90s, math rock describes an experimental take on rock and punk.
It represents an attempt to play with odd time signatures, discordant riffs and complex song structures. What sounds all right on paper is nigh unlistenable in practice. I had a friend who liked these bands and I often felt he liked them simply because nobody else did.
On Understanding The Words We Speak, The Gentleman Homicide has taken it even further. This is no longer math rock, this is math core. Each song is an amalgamation of heavy riffs that break out with no warning, and stop and start with the force of Mack truck hitting the wall.
I'm no stranger to hard, heavy music; in many cases I am a fan. This is not the case with Understanding. The chaotic riffs and minimal song structures, combined with the unintelligible lyrics of their vocalist Josh, makes listening to this album an experience that is disquieting and uncomfortable. Perhaps this is what The Gentleman Homicide is going for, but I find it all a bit alienating.
What's Wrong With Verse/Chorus/Verse, Anyway?
It's not that they're untalented or unaccomplished musicians; at no time did I ever suspect that they were simply pounding on their instruments or unaware where the next riff or break would take them.
Tracks like "No One Dies Without Deserving Less" even show a melodic side, with what appears to be a bit of a jazz influence. They know exactly what they are doing, and there is a definite method to this madness. I simply do not agree with that method.
In short, this is an album that takes work to listen to. If you have the time and the energy to devote to figuring out what's going on here, then by all means, do so. I, on the other hand, have better things to do than putting work into enjoying an album, and if you're the same way, there plenty of hardcore bands (see my recommendations below) that are just as talented and play songs with structure that is easy to rock along with.
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