Children 'Hard Times Hanging At The End Of The World' album

New York City’s Children are about to deliver an electric shock to the world of contemporary metal. Their debut, Hard Times Hanging At The End Of The World, ripples with speed, precision, and a visceral intensity that is seldom seen in any genre of music these days.

The trio, guitarists Skyler Spohn, Jonny Ollsin (formerly of Vancouver’s S.T.R.E.E.T.S.), and drummer Adam Bennati (of Early Man) put out their first release in early 2008, the 12” single for “Death Tribe.” However, it’s Hard Times that showcases the band in its fully realized form. The band has crafted a set of meticulous compositions, including several marathon-length tracks that stretch past the seven minute mark. Even when Ollsin isn’t wielding his throaty growl like a weapon, the band’s instrumental passages are so lyrical that they paint vivid pictures themselves.

Album opener “Advance Mind Control” begins with the drone of a lone, ominous, outer-space synth before the full band simultaneously launches into attack mode. Spohn and Ollsin’s guitars kicks off their dynamic, album-long duel while Bennati catapults into a propulsive groove. The band steadily charges forward without looking back. Eventually, the track slows down in its final two minutes to morph into an epic ending, anchored by Bennati’s stomping caveman beats. The energy then immediately shoots back to a fever pitch with the breakneck fury of second track “Nuclear Bummer.”

It isn’t until “H.T.H.A.T.E.O.T.W.” that you truly get a chance to catch your breath. The song’s Spanish flavored acoustic guitars concoct the album’s most calm and mystical moments. But by the time the cacophonous final moments of album closer “Time is the Living” arrive, Children will have inspired chin-stroking admiration while melting all the faces in the room.

biography
Reaching back through time to lay hands in the forges of metal, NYC's Children riff out the present with their debut, Hard Times Hanging at the End of the World. Formed through jam sessions by guitarists Skyler Spohn, Jonny Ollsin (formerly of Vancouver’s S.T.R.E.E.T.S.), and drummer Adam Bennati (of Early Man), the group laid waste to clubs in and around the city beginning in late 2006, and have kept shredding onward.

Tradition meets stamina head on throughout Hard Times' six massive tracks. With intricate, narrative dual guitar work and a frenzied, wired demeanor Children bring it all together: thrash advancements, serious girth, familiar passages crosscut with relentless speed, a formidable edge, and self-proclaimed "spiritual conspiracy party riffs."

The story begins in 2004, when a vacationing Jonny met up with Skyler at a Los Angeles punk house called Death Camp. The two started a ten day band called Twisted Wasted with some other guys living at the house. Long after the project was put to rest, and respective paths led back to Vancouver for Jonny and San Diego for Spohn ("I was living on the beach in San Diego. It was boring and I didn't even learn how to surf"), the guys decided to head east. Jonny put S.T.R.E.E.T.S. on indefinite hiatus and decamped to NYC. It was on the Lower East Side where they met up with Adam Bennati while playing records at Motor City (a local bar), and then set up in the basement of the Cake Shop (a local venue) in the daytimes while the cleaning commenced and gave birth to .......... Children.

The band's "Death Tribe" 12" single appeared in early 2008, leading up the album now in your hands. Produced by Joe Blaney (whose hundreds of credits include the Clash's Combat Rock), the band tracked the songs live at Applehead Studios in Woodstock, NY, on all-analog gear and 2" tape for a truly thick, punishing, and fluid sound. "Since they made me track nine-minute runs live, with zero drum edits, it was near torture to nail it," mentions Bennati. Asked about the experience, Jonny adds, "When making a record, it's so easy to go overboard. So we just set out to capture what we sound like live, with a few more bells and whistles. I feel like so much modern music loses its honesty. It's so easy to edit your shit to sound perfect. Just play it live, leave the mistakes and the swings in time and keep it loose"

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Children - Hard Times Hanging At The End Of The World