On Repeat Rust Belt Sermon's Soliloquy: Drive Like Madison

While Madison’s Rust Belt Sermon isn’t blasting through any of the sonic boundaries that post-hardcore legends Drive Like Jehu expanded in the early '90s, the band (which plays Wednesday at the High Noon Saloon) finds something sincere and lively in that well-stomped ground. What fuels RBS’ first full-length, Soliloquy, is the sociopolitical angst of vocalist-guitarist Shawn Bass, whose howls leap through screeching layers of guitar like a flaming tornado-kick to the face.

Bass flips between screaming grittily about smashing cultural boundaries (“Abject Devotion”) to the melodic grumble of “Genovese.” Bass builds into the chorus on "Genovese" by screaming through a self-rigged telephone receiver, which he uses in the live setting as well. Equally dynamic is the fractured maelstrom of riffing Bass crafts with fellow guitarist Steve Stanczyk. The chorus of “Epilogue” is the sonic equivalent of an inpatient’s oxygen tube being squeezed and released, opening the airways with jagged melody and then clogging them with atonal shards. The band milks plenty of tension from the up-and-down volume control of “Cost And Function” and album-closer “In Your Silence.” Sample-laden ambience crawls uphill toward volcanic blasts of guitar noise and scattershot rhythms, combining post-rock sensibilities with explosive bursts of power violence.

The pummeling rhythm section of drummer Patrick Holten-Young and bassist Pete Leonard couldn’t be more perfect for the RBS model, as both often succeed in doing the wrong thing the right way. Leonard tilts the songs sideways with seemingly deliberate sour notes, and Holten-Young hammers away at slanted rhythms where a more straightforward pummeling would be expected.

What ultimately gives Soliloquy its biggest push (and makes it a hardcore record) is the socially conscious focus of Bass' lyrics. The articulate screamer does a fine job of straddling the line between preachy and cheesy, without falling into either side. “The things you put into your head are there forever / You forget what you want to remember / And you remember what you want to forget,” Bass insists on Soliloquy’s mightiest cut, “Siren World.” Along with The United Sons Of Toil, Rust Belt Sermon helps fill an all-too-vacant slot for local post-hardcore. Soliloquy captures RBS' much-needed passion with brains and earnestness.