The story of how I first heard of KEN Mode might be the most unusual "how I got into a band" stories yet. Back when I lived in Cardiff we had a friend called Roscoe, who was an interesting character. "Character" is an appropriate word, because I was never sure we were really seeing the actual Roscoe. One thing he got really into was making fake Facebook accounts of different people and having them interact with each other, albeit in quite tangental ways. There was a retired Swiss tennis pro who I think was having an affair with the girlfriend of another character. It was all very complex. I was never sure he actually had a job because the various Facebook profiles looked like they took up a lot of his day.
One night in Le Pub he introduced us to a game he called "Fish Band Names", where you had to replace some part of a band's name with a fish ("And You Will Know Us By the Whale of Dead", for example). This kept a handful of us entertained for most of the night. I think there was a hardcore show on, but we spent most of the night downstairs thinking of Fish Band Names. Over the following week more of these got sent around by text message, and the game eventually became Bread Band Names (which wasn't easy).
A few years later I saw some people playing Star Wars Band Names on Twitter and sent some highlights to Hugh, who'd also been there that night in Le Pub. He replied with a couple of good additions, including "Obi-Wan KEN-Mode-y" which became the first time I'd ever heard of the band KEN Mode. Of course, a shorter version of that story is "Hugh mentioned them to me", but where's the fun in that?
A year or so later, KEN Mode were touring and playing The Black Heart in London, a venue I always really enjoy visiting - I like metal bars and they tick all the boxes of being a metal bar well - solid metal on the jukebox, good beers, great band posters on the wall and genuinely interesting gigs upstairs. I'd moved to Oxford by that point, but made the journey back to London for the show.
I'd listened to some KEN Mode in the time between Hugh's Star Wars pun and then, but not properly got into the band. Five years later, I still wouldn't say I'm properly into the band, but that's because it's hard to break your way into their particular style of noise. I like what I've heard a lot - their 2018 album made it into my top-ten albums of the year - but I just never see their records around. I can understand why though, not many shops I often visit sell a lot of metal, and less so noisy, niche Canadian noise-metal. I'd definitely buy more of their albums if it was easier.
At the end of the show, feeling thoroughly pummelled and beaten by the music, I decided to buy an LP. They had released five albums at this point, and had at least four of them on the merch table. I did what I often do in these scenarios and just picked one at random (but asked for it with the confidence of someone who definitely knew they wanted that exact album). The one I picked happened to be this copy of Venerable (which I now know is the 2012 French reissue with different artwork, which looks great).
This turned out to be a great choice, because the single most memorable song that night was one called Never Was; by chance I'd picked the album with that song on it and I was very pleased when I played it the next day to discover that fact. There are other great songs on there - Book of Muscle and The Irate Jumbuck in particular - but Never Was is a step above. Over the course of 8 minutes they verge on doom metal with a slow repeating riff that Shellac would be proud of and whispered verses leading you into a false sense of security before the crushing chorus of "No God / Never was". In that chorus it's hard to believe that all that noise is the work of just three people.
Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £10 new
Bought: Gig, London
When: 14/10/14
Colour: Red
Etching: none
mp3s: None
