Through music we can communicate about experiences and emotions that can be too difficult to speak about, especially to the outside world. While we wear our experiences on our bodies and in our eyes, too often we choose to look away from any pain or suffering we see there. We don’t ask, and we don’t tell. But through instruments and sound we can invite others inside our world to feel and see us for a moment. Listening to their new record American Standard, it’s clear that UNIFORM is opening a door that for most stays closed. Vocalist Michael Berdan writes about it for Quietus:
The following songs are about a lifetime of making myself vomit. They are about the lies I tell myself and the reality of what bulimia nervosa has done to my mind and body. They are about the havoc that my disease has wrought on my personal relationships and the pain it has caused the ones unfortunate enough to love me.
I read this before I started listening to American Standard, but even without the context I would have felt the pain, frustration, perseverance, resilience, and despair that’s rife throughout its run time. Title track “American Standard” is 21 minutes of thundering intensity, bellowing and calamitous, confrontational, with an undercurrent of looming triumph. “This is Not a Prayer” comes in like an audio attack, part man part machine and ready to grind skin from bones. “Clemency” is anything but merciful, although at first it promises more tender treatment, it quickly spirals into brutal destruction. “Permanent Embrace” surrounds me in sounds that swirl from harrowing black metal to vicious sludge to pummelling industrial to expansive post rock — and it’s got elements of all of these but none of them at the same time — and closes out on me like a casket. What an experience. One that I’m relieved to step out of, but one that I’ll return to time and again.
American Standard comes out tomorrow, Aug 23rd, via Sacred Bones — pre-order it here. Their record release show is happening on August 30th at at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC — tickets here.
