"We just want you to sing along, maybe dance with us."
In the midst of a chaotic rage of flying guitars and slamming bodies, Fish With Guns, an Indiana-born four-piece, is often be heard requesting this of the audience.
For the past three years, they have been giving crowds the chance to witness a ripple in the rising of a new incarnation of metal and hardcore. Going beyond the traditional breakdowns and two-stepping, Fish With Guns has joined the ranks of only a handful of other bands who dare to take their music to the technical extreme.
Cathartic, odd-time signatures; car-crash tempo changes; and anti-melodic chords underlie the band's first LP, Closest Without Dying, and its upcoming release, machiNATION.
Lyrically, the band addresses a myriad of issues, from war-hungry Christians to society's indifference to the homeless to pleading for forgiveness you don't deserve.
Dynamically, tracks like "...And the Man with the Yellow Hat" break from ferocity into ethereal soundscapes with singable m