all it, if you like, Rival Schools syndrome: hardcore band members tire of breakneck tempos and larynx strain, split off in their own direction to form a band certain to draw a sizeable crowd due to the presence of “Ex-...” on the mimeographed flyer; a lot of the kids who arrive will be sworn devotees of the band members’ hardcore band, having worn the oxide of a C90 of certain crucial 7”s or an LP that their moody friend gave them back in art class: these are the ones who’re going to enjoy what’s going on, while chances are the others will be wondering why these wiry, broken-nosed, pushing-30 guys with full tattoo sleeves are playing such wimpy indie rock.


Unfortunately, ex-members-of bands and band-side-projects from the punk genre have too often veered into generic, uninspired takes on, yes, indie rock. Maybe it’s because musicians weaned on punk finally expand their musical horizons a bit and like what they hear—see also a certain deadly, misguided fascination with hip-hop and dance music which at least hasn’t produced anything nearly as bad, or at least as widely heard—just a bit too much. Or else they’re just trying to change with the times and to play something more marketable, be it emo or post-rock, though they’ll almost certainly tell you otherwise (word on the street is that a certain “rock revival” band in your town just might be comprised of former ska dudes).


City of Caterpillar are the members of the eight-man punk phalanx Pageninetynine who, well, really like Godspeed You Black Emperor! That much I can say for certain. But while this could prove deadly (at its worst, I’d imagine brutally interesting third-rate GYBE!-offshoot knockoffs with the occasional synth-horn fill, blast beat, and bit of Cookie Monster scream-metal juxtaposed awkwardly in) for all the wrong reasons, I am overjoyed to report that such is not the case at all. In fact, this release tops everything I’ve heard from the (purported) parent band.


The secret of CoC’s success is an expert sense of timing. Pg. 99 certainly knew how to deliver a great bit of nightmarish hardcore, with their overstaffed lineup spinning off lurching riffs that turned into gore-soaked, absence-of-space bridges that always resolved themselves in a suitably explosive manner, but this wasn’t exactly functioning in a genre that rewarded experimentation and deliberate pacing, though Document #8 finally did more than hint at broader horizons, particularly on the epic expanse of its closing track, “The Hollowed-Out Chest of a Dead Horse.” And so it was that in which it became clear, in the opinion of this reviewer, that a lateral shift became necessary. The stunning result is a carefully thought-out album that knows the value of its brief detonations of chaos, understands that a multi-part song need not collapse into alienating conceit, and tosses in just the right amount of tremolo to make its cavernous guitar-and-drum-march buildups raw and suspenseful.


The first half of “A Little Change Could Go A Long Ways” boasts nothing particularly unusual in terms of structure (a Godspeed-esque guitar intro that accelerates as it’s bound to hit its terminus), but by the time things reach their thrashy, exhortative height, it becomes clear that CoC has finally fulfilled Afrika Bambaataa’s dream and found the perfect beat. Well, sort of. But there’s no discounting the value of a a sudden jump-cut to astonishingly loud hardcore that ends as soon as it’s begun, layers of distortion falling away until the listener’s left to comprehend a skeleton of what came before, then blazing back to full-on chaos in a perfectly executed bit of eye-of-the-storm madness. The same goes for the dizzying double-time interludes in “Maybe They’ll Gnaw Right Through,” which pulls off the often-daunting task of maintaining jarring punk ferocity while incorporating a more melodic sensibility.


For this album is punk music that’s unafraid to experiment with elements that would seem to belong to its very antithesis, the product of a band unafraid to dilute its musical essence by its refusal to stay in one place for too long. I guess it’s possible to level charges of calculating dalliance at the band, as is the case when any artist’s album sounds like it could be the product of at least two others, but such claims become laughable when you consider just how powerful and well-executed are songs like “And You’re Wondering How A Top Floor Could Replace Heaven,” which contains a gentle, cascading, and almost intimate interlude at least as long as its other tactical onslaught, an aggressive blend of early-Unwound guitar, tribal pounding, and snaky bass. Neither is anywhere near as effective as it would be without the other to serve its complementary function. Similarly, the delicate, circular section that begins the relatively brief “A Heart-Filled Reaction To Dissatisfaction” (which, like “Minute Hour Day Week Month Year,” also boasts touches of tremolo) is a thoughtful, distinguishing touch.


But despite the fact that its songs can be polarized into “the slow, sort of ominously pretty parts” and “the moments of distortion-soaked delirium” in text is an extremely poor representation of how this record sounds. When digested as a whole, it comes off as a creative, diverse, remarkably well-integrated work, that of the rare band whose experimental collisions succeed in opening up new pathways, regardless of any purported genre.