Comeback Kid

Broadcasting…

[4/5] Comeback Kid’s 2005 full-length Wake The Dead turned heads by injecting new melody into the fast-paced, shout-heavy hardcore previously associated with this Winnipeg band. So when vocalist Scott Wade quit CBK in 2006, his immediate replacement by founding guitarist Andrew Neufeld left fans wondering what other changed continuity for CBK; the result is 11 tracks of pissed, positive and highly listenable melodic hardcore. As fans have come to expect, thunderous pitched screams hurtle atop melodic vocal bursts, recalling bands like Bane and Ensign. Neufeld’s vocals are similar and often superior to those found on the band’s previous recordings, and the songcraft on Broadcasting… reveals more skill than anything CBK have previously offered. The result is simultaneously forceful and magnetic. Yet despite slick production courtesy of Bill Stevenson’s Blasting Room, CBK certainly aren’t kid-friendly enough to be considered a gateway band-but we’re recommending them anyway. Finger point-go! (VICTORY) Ronen Kauffman

ROCKS LIKE:

Bane’s Give Blood

With Honor’s Heart Means Everything

Stretch Arm Strong’s Rituals Of Life

IN-STORE SESSION with frontman ANDREW NEUFELD

Winnipeg is quite far from most cities. How does geography affect your band?

It definitely makes it a lot harder being out in the middle of nowhere, but it just forces a band to be a little more proactive. If you want to do something, you have to go all out to make it worth your while-because it takes a little while to get to the next city from where we are. It’s obviously a lot harder than if we were from Los Angeles or New York City or something. When you say, “Hey, I come from Winnipeg,” everyone’s like, “Where?”

Broadcasting… is your recorded debut as Comeback Kid’s frontman. Describe that transition.

We had been touring for a year after Wake The Dead came out, and Scott just had some other stuff in his life that he wanted to do. We were faced with the decision of whether to keep going without him or just quit altogether. We decided that we really wanted to keep playing. So he went home, and I just picked it up from the next day on. We got a friend to jump in and play guitar. It was definitely a little weird, and we were pretty nervous about it. But I feel confident in the change.

You were associated with a well-known Christian hardcore band, but have since gone out of your way to define CBK as non-religious.

With us, there’s two guys that are Christians and a couple of other guys that aren’t. I started Figure Four when I was 16 years old, and right now I’m 25. And I definitely have a very different mentality than I did when I was 16. We don’t want to be lumped in with [religious bands] because it has nothing to do with the band. There are five of us that do this, and all of us are so different. We don’t agree on everything, but for some reason we play music together.

Bands playing more traditional styles of hardcore often get accused of slinging re-hash. Is there friction between innovation and staying “true”?

When we started the band, we didn’t know what genre it was going to be; we just started writing songs. We’ve never been fundamentalist type of guys and always listened to lots of different stuff. And with this new record, we weren’t really trying to sound like anything. We’re trying to think outside the box and keep it energetic and in your face. It’s about finding the balance with everyone in the band and making sure everyone’s into what we’re doing. We’re doing it so we can enjoy it ourselves. -Ronen Kauffman