During this point in my life, I'm a bit fearful of aging. Anxiety doesn't enter my mind at the thought of entering the elder stage; I'm often told that I have a long road ahead of myself in terms of taste development, and at times I'll receive the "when I was your age..." narrative. My concern is in the fact that I don't want to travel down that path. The sensibilities that I've accumulated in aggressive music are something that I don't want to dwindle. Many folk seem to pass off the ever-offshooting punk/hardcore genre as just a phase, which I find startling. What other type of animosity would one need in order to create equipoise within their music taste?
One group that I feel I will never dismiss is Connecticut's Jeromes Dream. The 2004 compilation Completed is the product of a band whose work (spanning from 1997-2001) seems sculpted solely with passion. What critics and connoisseurs tend to find the most remarkable about this trio is that their vocalist, Jeff Smith, avoided using a microphone not only in live performances, but in recordings as well. Remember that performance video of Pig Destroyer? Well, imagine that ambitious inflection exceeding an hour, alongside forcefully dissonant guitar chords and deliberately stuttering drum flurries and viola: an envisioning of a sound similar to Jeromes Dream has been conceived.
Jeromes Dream have certainly managed to leave a dent in present-day screamo, metal, what-have-you; parallels arose after listening to Completed. For one, noise rock-"mathcore" concoctionists Daughters have adopted the abrasive intent-- particularly the use of minor chords frantically sliding across the fretboard. Botch's "Saint Matthew Returns To The Womb," to an extent, emulates the leading riff of "Do We Write To Write Right?" The Blood Brothers also borrow the same brand of idiosyncrasy that Jeromes Dream once had. Their influence may not be of the most indubitable ilk, but it managed to channel its way into contemporary artists' music.
Completed is, as implied, the most unabridged archive of the band's work-- from their sought-after split with hardcore heavyweights Orchid to their final and well-produced effort Presents. The only nitpick to make is the arrangement of these 42 tracks: it doesn't follow any apparent order, be it chronologically, alphabetically or by sound similarity, which makes for an inconsistent collection of music. On the aforementioned anomaly Presents, Smith's voice is amplified for the first time due to vocal chord damage. After the demise of Jeromes Dream, Smith migrated to the drone outfit The Wind-Up Bird. I suppose that everyone will eventually grow tired of the genre.
[Jeromes Dream Myspace]
[Buy Completed from CD Universe]
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