Signed in blood

For most hardcore bands, a major-label deal amounts to a cardinal sin. It can be a Faustian contract that promises the world with one hand, but holds in the other the loss of artistic control and compromises that can tear apart the underground's recently inducted.

Not so for the Blood Brothers, whose recent pact with major label ARTISTdirect has only added fuel to the Seattle five-piece's already explosive sound. Though ARTISTdirect's chairman and CEO (and Interscope Records co-founder) Ted Field is the force behind acts like Eminem and Marilyn Manson, there's been no attempt to commercialize the Blood Brothers. Instead, the band's third release, Burn, Piano Island, Burn, harnesses a total of six years of experience together with the resources a big label has to offer, giving rise to their most complicated and most successful recording to date.

Made up of dueling vocalists Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney, along with drummer Mark Gajadhar, guitarist Cody Votolato and bassist Morgan Henderson, the Blood Brothers have been smashing the boundaries of hardcore convention since their 2002 debut, This Adultery is Ripe (Second Nature). From the beginning, the band deviated from the usual displays of bulging muscle mass to which the genre often succumbs, instead proving that elements of hardcore could open new doors. Combining punk-rock sarcasm with a deranged and convulsive energy, Blilie and Whitney's frantic vocals swarm over a seemingly chaotic blast of guitar, drum and bass that reveals precise musical structures. Clusters of unchecked aggression explode in unrivaled fury, but without the macho facade.

The group's second release March On Electric Children (ThreeOneG) employed the same unhinged tactics, this time as a medium for a more conceptual approach. The themes of commercial exploitation, materialism and a critical view of mass media underlying each song aren't always easy to decipher, a strategy Blilie says was no accident. "There were some very concrete ideas we wanted to express with that record. We're definitely a politically-minded band," he explains. "But if you're too overt with your messages, they come across as being very contrived. Anyone can put a picture of Karl Marx or Che Guevara on their album and sound angry, but what's it really about?"

The struggle for power shifts to the personal on Burn, Piano Island, Burn, which concerns itself with the terrain of day-to-day relationships. The addition of instruments, including keyboard, laptop, Wurlitzer and glockenspiel creates a labyrinth of multifaceted soundscapes. But the big difference here is the budget and recording facilities at ARTISTdirect, which have added clarity and pumped up the volume of the push/pull tension throughout songs like "Fucking's Greatest Hits," "Every Breath is a Bomb" and "USA Nails."

To tweak Burn, Piano Island, Burn another notch into dementia, the band teamed up with another unlikely ally, Ross Robinson, known for producing albums by Slipknot, Korn and Limp Bizkit. "When [Robinson] approached us, it was obvious that he wanted to move away from his past blemishes," says Blilie. "We weren't going to put ourselves in a position where we felt we were compromising our music." The pairing, awkward at first, soon fell into place.

So far, the result of this unholy alliance has sold close to 30,000 copies.

Not much by major-label standards, but a major achievement for the Blood Brothers. ARTISTdirect has promised that, regardless of whether Burn, Piano Island, Burn racks up the sales figures or not, the band will retain artistic freedom. And that's the important part, Blilie says.

"We're happy with how many records we've sold," he adds. "It means a lot to us because it shows that we can sell a lot of records by being ourselves and not giving in. The fact that we don't have a video and we're not on the radio really speaks to that."

chad.radford@creativeloafing.com