Captured Howls presents a journal of observations, a linguistic art piece… a blog on arts, music, and cinema

Canada’s Rebuild/Repair Pulls From The Darkest & Loudest Corners For Roaring New Album

Rebuild/Repair has crafted a solid heavy rock album in their 2018 LP There Is No Place Left For Me Here, but at the same time, it’s so much more. Paying close attention to this heaving and pulsating — and almost menacing — monster of an album can prove worthwhile.

The release presents a dredge along the bottom of the swamp of human emotion and ambition, presenting a swirling mixture of that ambition and a certain kind of exhausting – and perhaps exhilarating – anger. Rather than just focusing on going forward, forward, forward, the release represents an endeavor into the chaos of “post-anger.” Its “genre” – although that word sucks – might as well be termed “post-exhaustion.” It’s the swirl of emotions of a speaker who has, quite simply, had enough. They’re not determined to do something or pushing their lofty ambitions. They’ve just had enough, and this album contains the chaotic result. That incorporates a range from somber resignation to furious lashing out.

The band rests this core on a musically solid foundation. Listening to the album, you at times feel the emotion of wanting to metaphorically pull at your hair or something, but at the same time, you want to dance. Their presentation is sludge-y and loud, and yet the band maintains an obvious common strand of musical ambition. In other words, it’s loud as hell, and even sort of all over the place, but it makes sense. The emotions tie the album together, but so does the music itself. The band constantly, throughout the release, returns to a place of thrashing against boundaries in whatever direction they please.

The release is a welcome addition to the palette of albums available out there along these lines, with its own thoroughly unique contribution to put forward. The band has crafted something engaging and kicked past the realm of dully forgettable “rock,” taking on and presenting something much more.

5/5 Stars

It’s out September 28. Check it out below.