Expose

 

Expose is a mysterious band from Los Angeles, California, which has produced quite a lot of super weird songs since summer 2019.

So yes sorry I won't be able to give much information about the band.

 Both Demos released in July and August 2019 and respectively called E1 and E2 have been put on a single tape (called Demos) by the Californian label 5 Star Limo almost at the same time (August 2019). 

5 songs from E1, 4 songs from E2, these 9 tracks are probably issued from the same recording session anyway. But where the fuck are we here?

It starts fast, dirty, noisy and punk with Motive and Protest, almost experimental noise punk if I may say... a bit electronic as well... like Kraftwerk, Devo and Discharge jamming together in an unsanitary basement... 

  Then it slows down a bit with Max Reduction and Demons and its heavy synth lines, bringing a more classic Devo-ish on speed synth punk touch before reaching the proper new-wave track Deaf Trust... 

After CNS which can be seen as the intro of E2, Now, the next song, comes back to something more punk, a mid-tempo noisy mix with a lot of delay on the vocals and a very linear drum machine pattern... a bit like a slower version of a Murderer song.

Same recipe but so much slower for Arrest. 

 

And here we go slower and slower again with Glue which concludes these demos... a lot of delay, a really "crushed" synth sound, some depressed and distant vocals, sound almost like a slow EBM song!

 

Well it's an interesting start, I am not sure what to say about it, I like it though.

It's free, wild, a bit dirty and crazy... quite arty of course... but why not?

 

A few months later, in November 2019, 5 Star Limo releases a new Expose tape humbly named E.

With these 9 songs including Protest, Demons and Now, Expose continues its journey in the weirdest parts of noisy punk meets EBM meets art and synth.

Faster and more energetic than the demos (the new versions of the 3 songs are also shorter because faster!), the band is finding its way, keeping the atmosphere and the weird, insane and electronically deranged transitions but being more consistent in its use of noise effects and synth. 

 

  Expose concludes this second release with the slow, disturbing and EBMish Dagger reminding us that the new wave / electronic scene influences are not gone.

 

And BIM!

Expose comes back in June with what caught my attention in the first place and is their masterpiece in my humble opinion: their latest self-titled tape.

This time Expose sounds like a real, complete band, forget the drum machine and the EBM / Electronic side, here is some proper and furious noisy punk!

With only 2 songs out of 7 passing the 2:30 min mark, the guys from LA are now playing faster, stronger and louder! Screams all over the place, stomping drums, deafening guitar riffs yes Expose came to turn the place upside down!

Even Owl Sighting which started as a nice little punk ballad turns into total chaos...

The synth is gone for good as well but the arrival of a saxophone is a success and adds an extra touch of weirdness (think of a Lukrate Milk kind of saxophone) and buzzing atmosphere to the galactic craziness.

But this is not just a never ending downpour of noise and fury no! Expose is smarter than that, building slowly but surely the mayhem to come, giving some air to our poor eardrums before pushing them again to the limit, making sure to not let us leave untraumatized...

 

This is the kind of record/band that is pushing the genre to its limits, opening the way to another dimension of punk... thank you for that, thank you EXPOSE!

You can listen to Expose on Rien à Faire #13.

RAF is on FB

And INSTAGRAM