I’m 37 years old and I consider myself to be a bit of a hardcore music historian, which is a more slick way of saying I’m a nerd who spends a lot of time alone reading about all things punk rock and hardcore. Being that I first got into hardcore in 1995 I missed the Bad Brains, a band who so many people and bands credit for opening their ears and eyes to something they had never heard or seen before. Going back to the nerd historian label, I have read just about everything there is out there about the band, but that’s not the same as being there. I was, however, fortunate enough to be introduced to a band very early on in their career who was unlike anything I’d heard before that would open my mind the very same way that the Bad Brains did for so many others before me and that band is Candiria.
Before the days of Spotify, YouTube and Amazon recommending things for us to check out based on the other things we like, real people did this for each other. Back in 1995 when I was first getting into hardcore I didn’t have one specific guide- be it a cousin, kid from the neighborhood or degenerate uncle- who would let me rifle through their record collection and the internet was in its’ infancy so I had to seek guidance through this new (to me) world of underground music in a variety of ways. My brother had a friend who was into hardcore who would introduce me to bands, I’d take note of the t-shirts other hardcore kids were wearing at shows, I’d scour the thank you lists of the albums I liked, etc. I discovered Candiria through a local New Jersey band who I loved called Bloodrust. I was talking to their guitar player at one of their shows and as we looked through Rick Ta Life’s cd distro he picked up Candiria’s Surrealistic Madness and told me that it was an album I should definitely check out. He described it as a mix of death metal, jazz and hardcore and it was unlike anything he’d ever heard before. Sold! I didn’t like death metal or jazz but if the guy from Bloodrust loved it and I loved his band…well that was all the math I needed to solve this equation. I took home my new cd, popped it in my boombox and promptly had the living shit scared out of me. And I liked it. I didn’t understand the music, as it was the most complicated, challenging stuff I had ever heard (and probably still to this day), but it compelled me to keep listening and here I am, over 20 years later, still listening and still having my mind blown by the Brooklyn based outfit.
There is no indifference with Candiria. People are either going get it or they’re not. You’ll never hear someone answer “they’re ok,” when asked whether or not they are a fan. The people who like Candiria, fucking love Candiria and it’s almost like our own little club. If I come across someone who is into them I immediately feel a kinship to them. It must be what those douches in Porsches who are all so happy to wave at each other on the highway must feel. I also feel that Candiria kind of ruined most hardcore for me. Each of the members are so unbelievably good at what they do, with unbelievable being the operative word, that it put a damper on so many other hardcore bands. It wasn’t just how they were playing, it was also what they were playing. To me, hardcore can get a little stale after a while. Earth Crisis put out Firestorm and suddenly every band is doing open E divebombs and seeing who could out-breakdown each other. Candiria sounded like no one else. To hear something truly and utterly unique was truly inspiring. I regularly still put on Beyond Reasonable Doubt, Candiria’s second full length album that was released in 1997 and 21 years later I continue to hear things that I never noticed before. The same could be said about any one of their albums.
Twenty years of listening to a band and seeing them live at least a dozen times apparently doesn’t shield a person from having an asshole moment. In 2016 when I heard that Candiria would be releasing a new record without their original drummer, Ken Schalk, I had my reservations. Candiria was the first band that I saw in which I would spend as much, if not more, time staring at the drummer as I would the other members. He was so technical, he beat upon his drums as if he were mad at them and yet played with such a groove. Schalk was such an integral part of Candiria’s unique flavor that I was convinced he was impossible to replace. So I let the release of, While They Were Sleeping, one of my favorite bands’ brand new albums pass me by. That is until I heard Carley Coma on an episode of The Jasta Show, Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed’s excellent podcast. Carley was such a nice guy and it made my love of Candiria come rushing back to me. The next day while my wife and son were out and I painted a few rooms of my house I had my 36 year old mind blown, the same way my 15 year old world was turned on its head 21 years prior. I’d be hard pressed to say that While They Were Sleeping is Candiria’s best album because when I was younger albums like Process of Self Development and 300 Percent Density, which were filled with pure insanity, were exactly what I wanted at that time in my life. But I can say, with more focus on songwriting rather than on writing the craziest parts imaginable, that While They Were Sleeping is the best record they could have released at this point in their career. It is heavy and, like Candiria always does, pushes musical boundaries that will keep old school Candiria fans happy but is also by far their most accessible album which should speak to a larger audience than their previous albums were able to do. So if you’re a Candiria fan from back in the day and have not yet given While They Were Sleeping a chance, I hope you will do so. And if you’ve never heard Candiria before, this album is as good a place to start as any.
Suburban Bourbon 