THE BROWNING: "Isolation" is very interesting new music.

The Browning could very well be heavy music’s answer to the Terminator. Whereas everybody’s favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger cyborg hid an exoskeleton under a sheath of skin, the Kansas City quartet—Jonny [vocals, electronics], Cody [drums], Brian [guitar], and Rick [bass]—thinly veil a hard rock edge beneath a casing of skittering electronic dance music, hip-hop grime, metallic brutality, and industrial expanse. That signature style is “back” in a big way on their third full-length album and first for Spinefarm Records, Isolation.

Since emerging with a bang on 2011’s Burn This World and refining their attack on Hypernova in 2013, the group has destroyed stages alongside everybody from Fear Factory to Static-X to We Came As Romans to Alesana to Chelsea Grin to Shadows Fall on national tours. Hypernova would clinch “Album of the Week” honors from Revolver, while their fan favorite video for “Bloodlust” would rack up over 1.8 million views by 2016 as they built an impressive social media audience exceeding 212K Facebook fans.
For Isolation, Jonny wanted to once again evolve the group’s sound, and he began quietly working on music as early as 2014. Along the way, he started to embrace another influence.

“Over the course of the last three years, rock music is primarily all I’ve listened to,” he explains. “I’ve been ingesting bands like Rammstein, Disturbed, and Three Days Grace. My writing swung towards that. I knew this album was going to have more of a rock vibe. Obviously, there’s still metal, but the scope has expanded. The electronics remain a big part of it. Since day one, the whole point was to not only be the heaviest electronic band, but the band with by far the most electronics.”

Armed with the Komplete 10 Ultimate patch set for the first time, he dramatically expanded the sonic palette. The Browning remains his creative landscape. He spent two years diligently perfecting these tracks alone on his laptop. It would happen on the road, at home, and anywhere. He set out to enhance every aspect of the sound. As a result, the clean parts sear sharper than before, while the bludgeoning moments prove more relentless. Bringing Jonny’s vision to life, the first single “Pure Evil” volleys from an ominous goth-y synth into a seesawing guillotine groove and guttural pit-ready chant, “I am pure evil.”

“I wanted to make a new age sequel to our biggest song ‘Bloodlust’ with way better quality and production in all aspects,” he says. “It musically gives our fans that feeling from our first album, but updates it. Lyrically, I wanted it to be dark. The song is sung from the perspective of greed. I think greed and selfishness are the biggest signs of evil. The lyrics explore that.”

After a danceable buildup, “Dragon” breathes pure verbal fire. “That song is smashed with every aspect of what we do,” he smiles. “It’s based off a book I’m going to write. You’ll have to read it to find out!”

“Disconnect” nods to the band’s hip-hop roots and sees Frankie Palmeri of Emmure spit lyrical barbs over a creeping and crawling verse. “Besides rock, rap is what I listen to second most,” he goes on. “It’s always been a part of what we do. Frankie did an awesome job. The meaning relates to the title Isolation. I can’t stand Facebook, Twitter, and any of this crap. I don’t want anything to do with any of it. The iInternet has screwed up humanity and the respect for others. Sometimes, you just want to be alone and away from it.”

Everything culminates on the shimmering and scorching soundscape of “Pathologic.” It’s the ultimate nexus of the group’s genre merging, and it targets the worst kind of human beings head-on.

“A lot of times people will lie to me in order to take advantage of what they can,” he sighs. “They lie for greedy reasons. It’s basically about pathological liars who can’t stop lying.”

Ultimately, Isolation creates a trip unlike anything in heavy music.

“I want fans to listen to the whole thing,” Jonny leaves off. “We really push to do something literally no one else is doing. I hope that’s undeniable after Isolation.”

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Tags:  THE Browning, Isolation   

Sevine E. Levine    September 26, 2016