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KEN Mode Bring the Hooks and the Hardcore on ‘Management Control’

KEN Mode

With 2013’s excellent Entrench, Canadian post-hardcore act KEN Mode offered all manner of noisy punk characterizations, occasionally letting the songs delve into a more hook-centered structure. For their latest release Success, the group capitalize on those melodic subtleties with directed and near flawlessly executed purpose. While producer Steve Albini deserves credit for his well known “hands-off” engineering approach in giving that dynamic a larger platform, KEN Mode’s achievement with Success is wholly the result of the band providing a broader scope to what up until now has largely been a subtext for their music. Perhaps no more evident is that melodic presence than on “Management Control,” a four-minute up-tempo hardcore anthem that borrows as much from Fugazi as it does Doolittle­-era Pixies. It’s a pairing that for many other bands could just as easily sound disjointed and forced but for KEN Mode works to outstanding effect.

Stream “Management Control” below – out June 16 on Season of Mist Records, and currently available for pre-order – and check the band out on tour next month.

KEN Mode tour dates*:

June 1 – London, UK @ MacBeth
June 16 – Toronto, ON @ The Shop (Parts & Labour)**
June 17 – Montreal, QC @ Turbo Haus**
June 18 – Brooklyn, NY @ St. Vitus***
June 19 – Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie
June 20 – Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups^
June 21 – Chicago, IL @ The Burlington
June 26 – Winnipeg, MB @ The Goodwill^^

* = All dates with Fight Amp

** = w/ The Great Sabatini

*** = w/Pyrrhon, Couch Slut

^ = w/Lo-pan

^^ = w/Pop Crimes (no Fight Amp)