I just received Trapped Inside premasters from Scott Landes, a past

musical collaborator and bandmate. He’s been in the studio this summer

with Mankind Is

Obsolete in Weed, California (I kid you not), working under the guiding

hand of Sylvia Massy. (You may recognize her the producer of TOOL’s seminal

albums, Opiate and Undertow, though that’s far from her only

work). I’m more than happy to be able to share some of this music with you,

hot off the presses, before they hit the road for a massive twelve month

tour. I also managed to put some questions to the band about where they’ve

been, and where they’re going.

Mankind Is Obsolete successfully blends the disparate elements of electronic

and “analog” music (that is, played by humans, not machines) with the

driving energy of live rock and roll. Unlike many of the fusion attempts

I’ve heard in this vein (Linkin Park and Evanescence come to mind), in this

case, it doesn’t strike me as contrived. I imagine that this is precisely

the music that resulted when these people sat down and played their hearts

out together. It is often both tender and raw, at the same time showing the

potential for great progression as they continue to mature as a band.

Musically, we can’t help but wear our influences on our sleeves, and I’m not

about to claim that the efforts of plenty of other similar acts don’t

resonate throughout their music, however this group nevertheless managed to

pull off something incredibly difficult in this day and age:

They created marketable, polished material that’s poppy enough to get radio

play but which retains a soul that most Elektro-Rock 2.0 bands seem to have

completely lost sight of. This band isn’t the result of a focus group in a

board room, and it’s really just good on them that what they produced has a

real potential to find a big audience if that’s what’s in the cards. They

are doing everything independently, and proving that just because something

is DIY doesn’t mean it has to be slap-shod.

The way “Nu” / “goth” Metal evolved like some sort of horrific fungus out of

Kurt Cobain’s corpse, I was certain the rock and roll “dream” might just be

dead. It all smelled of business plans and formaldehyde.

So, some people might put this group in that box, but I’m not catching that

scent. There is no formula, there is no bottom line here aside from making

the music you love, and touring around the country, hammering it out until

you have to crawl into a dark hole somewhere (often referred to as “a

studio”) and do it all over again.

Maybe “the dream” isn’t dead after all.

Check in Tuesday, when I will run another track from their new album and interview the band.

Some other links to check out:

MKIO having fun covering Terrible Lie

MKIO video of Rapture.

MKIO live performance in Vegas, playing Puppet.

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