The Rise
Austin’s greatest and brightest new hardcore band has a confession to make.“We’re not really all that into hardcore,” says Stewart Reilly, guitarist for the Rise. “We listen to all sorts of stuff.”
They’re on a hardcore label, their music is fierce and aggressive, and they’re a hit with the hardcore crowd. But to call the Rise hardcore is to sell them short. Last year’s debut, Signal to Noise on New Jersey’s Ferret Records, was a battle cry, an exhilarating fusion of electronics as heavy as Ministry’s The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste and 1998’s The Shape of Punk to Come by Swedish anarchists the Refused, who the Rise embrace as their musical inspiration.
“I think Shape of Punk to Come is the best hardcore record ever,” says Reilly, whose band hears the reference often. “If people want to compare us to them, fine. But I don’t think we sound all that much like them.”
What they do sound like is a scorching ball of fury heading straight for the fiber-optic nerves of today’s electronic global village.
“The Fallacy of Retrospective Determinism” opens Signal to Noise with Cory Kilduff’s distorted quasi-raps about change and revolution over a throbbing electro-industrial line before running headlong into a head-bobbing wall of heavy adamantium riffage. Over the course of the album, obvious attention is given to texture and detail to complement the vaguely sociopolitical cries and hard, energetic thrashing. There’s ample tempo changes and room to breathe between the notes — not qualities one normally associates with hardcore.
Reilly, singer/keyboardist Kilduff, guitarist Ben Hicks, and bassist Daniel Wood, all currently between 21 and 24 years old, started playing shows in August 2000 under their original name, the Teresa Banks Profiles. Sometime later, after drummer Kemble Walters joined the fold, Ferret Records’ Carl Severson took notice and inked them to his label, home to a slew of more traditional hardcore bands.
Signal to Noise came out in April of last year, and the ensuing word of mouth and rave press in American and European underground outlets has propelled the band to healthy record sales and tours with Glassjaw, the Blood Brothers, and Further Seems Forever. The band just finished a two-month stint on the road, and plans to hit the UK for the second time later this month.
The only thing that’s put a dent in the Rise was having every piece of equipment they own stolen from their trailer after a show at Emo’s.
“We didn’t know what to do,” says Reilly. “We didn’t know if we’d even be able to ever do anything again. It took us years to amass the stuff that we had.”
Thanks to help from Ferret, fans, and friends, who organized a wildly successful benefit for the band in December at Emo’s, the Rise continues thrilling their devotees as one of the most infernal rock machines alive today.
SXSW showcase: Back Room, Saturday, March 15, 8pm.
This article appears in February 28 • 2003.