(((((OPENmind/SATURATEDbrain))))): MAXIMILLIAN COLBY

Thursday, 9 June 2016

MAXIMILLIAN COLBY

Band: MAXIMILLIAN COLBY

Genres: Punk / Hardcore / Emo / Screamo
Related artists: Sleepytime Trio and Regents.
Country: Harrisonburg, Virginia USA
Years Active: 1993-1995
Song: "Right Right Left"
Album: "Shotmaker split"
Year: 1995
For fans of: Portraits Of Past, Sleepytime Trio, Funeral Diner, Indian Summer, An Arrow In Flight, Bright Calm Blue, Ecorche, Ethel Meserve, Secret Smoker, Hoover, Closure, The Last Forty Seconds, Ruhaeda, Mohinder, September, Coma Regalia, Lincoln, Shotmaker, City Of Caterpillar, The Exploder, Anasarca and Montcalm aka PROPER SCREAMO.

Label(s): Irony Records / Rent-A-Records / Nervous Wreck Kids / Whirled Records / Lovitt Records
This post's artist is from the June 2016 Mix. This is track #11.

You can download: the June Mix#6 right here or get the new July 2016 Mix#7 here.

MAXIMILLIAN COLBY predate every other "screamo" band on this blog. Perhaps emo/hardcore or screamy hardcore would be a better genre classification considering this stuff was released way back in 1994 and 1995. The band played a somber, expansive and sometimes chaotic brand of very early emo and resided in Harrisonburg, Virginia and later went on to form Sleepytime Trio, who sounded similar in many ways but ended up being much faster, shorter and more violent than their predecessor.

I first got into the band after picking up their split with Rye Coalition on ebay and being pretty impressed with their contribution of "One Gallon Alda". After picking up the 'Discography' cd from Lovitt Records on Interpunk I was a fan for life. I find that MAXIMILLIAN COLBY was very consistent throughout their releases and never released a bad song. You've got mostly instrumental jams ("New Jello", "Balance" and "Anacin"), spastic screamo with chill bits ("Shoot Hypotenuse", "Last Name", "Sparcely") and massive bouts of progressive hardcore ("What's the Matter, River", "Sifelaver" and "Right Right Left") and a bunch of other good tracks, such as "Petty Fix", "I.T.T." and "One Gallon Alda".

I should quickly talk about my favourites. Getting spastic from 1:00 onwards, "Last Name" goes ballistic and then stops briefly at 1:25 to catch its breath, and then pulverizes the listener with more Ruhaeda-esque dark and screamy hardcore. "Right Right Left" is almost seven minutes of dreamy, rolling, building and epic screamy hardcore. At the halfway point the song holds on as the only remaining element of the song before everything else meets back up out of nowhere. Continuing on its ascent, the track shifts at 4:40 to a slower, perhaps even more brooding instrumental meandering that wanders about until the 6:52 end. "Sparcely" is so Portraits Of Past...or rather, Portraits Of Past is so "Sparcely" and is also reminiscent of early Funeral Diner as well as Hoover. After a lengthy, ambient, instrumental jam that concludes at 3:54 that sounds like Sleepytime Trio and/or City Of Caterpillar, the track finishes up sounding like The Exploder with more than one person screaming their faces off.

If you haven't delved backwards into MAXIMILLIAN COLBY by now, the time is nigh. Despite being more than 20 years old their music still sounds amazing, goddamn.

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DISCOGRAPHY

1994 - Maximillian Colby 7"EP
1994 - Rye Coalition split 7"EP

1995 - Shotmaker split 12"LP

1996 - Discography cd compilation (download here)

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(1995) MAXIMILLIAN COLBY - "Last Name" (from 'Shotmaker' split)