After catching noise rock duo ’68 at a show in Montreal back in 2015, I was already familiar with their loud, frantic rock sound from watching them assault the drum equipment and stage while performing. The album’s opening track, With Distance Between, starts off more like a spoken word monologue with random guitar pickings before the off-beat drumming enters, and the song gradually transitions into a second half that is harder and more riff-driven while still maintaining an off-beat and half-time rhythm.
Removed Their Hooks’s tone and musicianship are wildly erratic, but somehow it works as a whole. As we enter Removed Their Hats, we are once more welcomed with a song that has a half-time vibe and is accompanied by powerful riffs and percussion. Josh Scogin, the band’s lead singer and guitarist, exclaims, “Let’s take it for a walk,” which sparks a breakdown in the middle of the song that finally fades to guitar picking before the song ends on a high note.
Within the Hour, They Were No More, which came last, was possibly my favourite. It drives throughout and starts out heavy before amplifying with distortion. The song then abruptly stops, allowing the percussion to almost completely drown out the lyrics before pausing and switching to a louder sound in the final few seconds. The listener is left to ponder the narrative between two seemingly unrelated fishermen after reading the song titles in order from beginning to end:
A number of the tracks stood out more than others, while others seemed to have the same vibe and had a similar sound and feel. After listening to their three previous albums, their most recent offering fulfills every expectation a fan would have of ’68. That’s up to you to decide whether that’s a good or terrible thing.
