Cleveland's KNOWSO is another project from the PERVERTS AGAIN/ CRUELSTER camp and it's every bit as demented as you've come to expect from these lads. Dark lumbering repetitive punk incantations driven along by tom heavy neanderthalic drums, chant heavy vocals, and shoulder shaking bass grooves. These boys have a pentiant for off balance hardcore rumblings and KNOWSO is their newest platform in which to do so. 100% TOTAL PUNK! Our take: In case you don’t know, there are three bands—Knowso, Perverts Again, and Cruelster—that share members and have a similar sound, which is one of the weird, most distinctive, and most fascinating sounds in contemporary punk. They use stiff rhythms comparable to early Devo and they share that band’s dark sense of humor, but they sound nothing like the Coneheads or other contemporary bands who rep their Devo influence. You just have to hear them to understand, and either you’ll dismiss this whole crew as total idiots or you’ll hail them as the geniuses they are and greet each new release with Christmas morning levels of excitement. I’m in the latter camp. This music is so unique, but aside from saying it’s great I can never seem to find the words to describe how cool it is. So give this a listen. If you like it, there’s more where this came from. And hopefully this crew will continue to bend our minds for a long time.
