Taking their name from a passage in
Henry Rollins' memoir Get in the Van, Juno Award-winners
KEN mode (short for "Kill Everyone Now") are a Canadian noise rock band hailing from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Led by brothers and core members
Jesse and Shane Matthewson, who handle guitar/vocals and drums, respectively,
KEN mode emerged in the early aughts with a sound that combines the industrial/noise emissions of
Swans with the hardcore-laced attack of
Converge. The band rose to the fore of the post-hardcore scene in the 2010s with the acclaimed efforts
Venerable and
Entrench and continued to ply their extreme sonic wares into the next decade with the release of 2022's unrelenting NULL.
Formed by the Matthewson brothers in 1999 with long-time friend Darryl Laxdal on bass,
KEN mode issued a string of demos before releasing their first studio LP in 2003. With a punishing metallic sound, the band expanded on the solid foundation laid down by AmRep titans like
the Jesus Lizard and
Unsane, harnessing those bands' sense of aggression and agitation while considerably upping the intensity.
KEN mode made their full-length debut in 2003 with
Mongrel, released by Escape Artist, which would also go on to release their sophomore effort,
Reprisal, in 2006. A self-released third album, Mennonite, followed in 2008. Two years later,
KEN mode hooked up with the influential metal label Profound Lore, which released their fourth set,
Venerable. The album would prove to be a breakthrough for
KEN mode, who earned the first-ever Juno in the heavy metal category. Their fifth album, the Polaris Music Prize-nominated
Entrench, dropped in 2013 on
Season of Mist. The same label released the group's
Steve Albini-recorded sixth album,
Success, in 2015; their seventh,
Loved, produced by
Andrew Schneider (
Unsane,
Daughters), arrived in 2018. The band officially added frequent collaborator Kathryn Kerr (saxophone, synth) to its roster for 2022's uncompromising and wide-ranging NULL, their first outing for Artoffact Records. ~ Gregory Heaney & James Christopher Monger