There’s a gambling parlor I like to hang out in downtown on the corner of, well, actually, don’t worry where it is, it’s downtown. What’s important is I was hanging out there a few weeks ago betting on dungeon ping pong, that’s ping pong played in near total darkness, when suddenly I found myself hankering for a libation. I go over to the room where they serve the watered-down beer and found a fight had broken out between two tweakers. One of them had the other pinned against the bar and was smashing glasses over his head; people were cheering and making wagers on the winner; they had even put some hardcore music on the speakers for ambiance. The song caught my attention, so I climbed up on the bar and held my phone up to the speaker to try to shazam it when suddenly I realized the crowd's attention had turned from the fight to me, like I was the asshole in this situation. Jokes on them, I left unscathed and put on to Split Chain’s new album “Motionblur.”
Split Chain is, of course, the iconic hard rock group out of Bristol, England. These dudes came together over a shared love of thrashing guitars and pounding beats back in 2023 and have been hard at work reshaping the hardcore landscape ever since. In their three-year tenure they have put out a whopping fifteen singles, an EP, and a full-length LP. That LP, this is “Motionblur” we’re talking about here, has now been reissued in a deluxe format. This deluxe version features three tracks which were absent from the initial release—"Untitled," "Sylvia (I won’t belong to you)," and "Scatterbrain"—as well as rerecordings of every track which came out on the initial release, now featuring supporting acts like Ritual, NODDING OFF, and Grove Street.
“Motionblur,” both the deluxe version and the standard issue, is an album to rage to. It’s an hour and twenty minutes of fast-paced rock screaming out of your speakers. It’s a vicious mixture of over-driven guitars, explosive drums, and gravely vocals, which implores you to fashion a shiv and go find yourself a fight.
Thus far I have been referring to the album as both hard rock and hardcore; however, these are generalizing terms much the same as alternative. It doesn’t mean anything; it’s more of an attitude. Putting an exact label on “Motionblur,” or Split Chain at large, is somewhat difficult. It’s sort of a Frankenstein, the monster not the doctor. The guitars undoubtedly nu metal, the drums are metalcore, the vocals are grunge, and the arrangements are punk. You’ll hear other journalists calling the album shoegaze, which I wholeheartedly disagree with, grungegaze, or even post-metal. The band calls themselves dreamo, but for our purposes we’ll just call it Franken-rock because any other label fails to capture the true spectrum of musical stylings Split Chain commands.
Call it what you will, or call it franken-rock, the point stands that “Motionblur” is a heart-palpitating record. You hit play, and “Under The Wire” begins with a sample of the band knocking some shit around, then a spectral glassy synth note rises only to be knocked out of the sky by ripping and a bombardment from the rhythm section. You will not get a break all the way through to the fourteenth track, and then, when you’re finally catching your breath, the rerecordings come in for the kill. “Motionblur” is a record that demands to be played at max volume pumped out of a squealing amplifier until the speakers give out and all it can produce is a shuddering whine. It’s music for speeding along a dark highway at night, for chucking a brick through the window of your favorite liquor store, for pinning a crack head to a bar top and shattering dirty cups over his dome until some long-haired freak climbs up on the counter and ruins the vibe with his antics.
If you missed the initial release of "Motionblur," this deluxe version is your chance to right your wrong. You can find it streaming wherever you get your music fix now, right now, so go give it a listen. By the time you reach the end, you’ll have found yourself absentmindedly carving a small wooden stake with intent to maim. The music gets to you, under your skin; it gets you excited and ready for action, whether that be good or violent, well, that’s for you to decide. Now if you’ll excuse me, dear reader, I have to make a break for downtown. Dungeon ping pong starts soon, and I need to get my wager down before the ball hits the table.
