Matt Holt
(vocals)
Tom Maxwell
(guitar)
Jerry Montano
(bass)
Tommy Sickles
(drums)

Fans and musicians alike have that one band, the precious group whose
music miraculously sparked some force inside the heart, thus turning them
into a diehard fan of heavy music for the rest of their natural lives. For
today's crop of developing, impressionable hard rock lovers, Nothingface
will be that band. The Washington, DC-based quartet's TVT Records
debut Violence will become a benchmark for loud music in 2000, a yardstick
by which future heavy-with-melody albums are measured. Don't even
entertain the thought of deeming this music new metal. The transcendent
Nothingface sidesteps trends of rapping, guest appearances, and cover songs.
Vocalist Matt Holt's voice is so stunning and assured, he doesn't need to rely
on rhythmic talking to convey a point. Guitarist Tom Maxwell is such a talented,
incomprable axeman he's been endorsed by Gibson, stroking, of course, a
gothic looking black guitar. Bassist Bill Gall grew up playing Yes, Led Zeppelin
and Deep Purple, not Korn. New drummer Tommy Sickles
(who wasn't into
heavy music till he heard Nothingface and Sepultura) turns into a fiend behind the
kit. Based on those factors, Violence invents its own genre; it's not like anything
else out there. To some of you, Nothingface is a new band. But Nothingface has
scratched and clawed its way to the top since its inception five years ago.
According to Gaal, We wanted to build up a hardcore, base following, learn
what it takes to be a band on the road, appreciate things from working hard,
not having them handed to you. To this already initiated, core group of
enlightened, zealous music lovers, Nothingface is a hulking slab of teeth-rattling,
diametrically opposed rock that expertly maintains a difficult balance between
intense brutality and delicate beauty. The Sick
(Nothingface's pet name for
their fans) became initiated into the Nothingface experience through the band's
first two albums, Pacifier and An Audio Guide To Everyday Atrocity
(DCide).

Nothingface isn't pretty all the time, nor does it want to be.
Holt's vocals are a textbook case of schizophrenia. One moment, he barks
voraciously, like his soul has been possessed by demons. The next, he's
singing like a seraph, his downright pretty voice taking refuge in your mind
long after you've shut the record off. Some of the shocking lyrics might make
your eyes bulge, but Nothingface unapologetically peels the skin back to
reveal raw bone.

A quick, cursory glance at the lyric sheet of Violence might elicit raised
eyebrows. They're laced with images of coldness, celestial bodies, and
physical frenzy. Holt admits, These are the kind of perversions people
have in their own minds but don't have the guts to say in front of other
people. For example, the line We all want to see you get kicked in
the face is found on Violence. But for every disturbing image, there is
an equally exquisite lyric like My eyes see everything I want them too.
I just don't want them to see you that is its counterpart.

Holt continues, I have a split personality when I write. The singing those
lyrics usually come from one point of view. The yelling is the most extreme,
irrational point of view. You know when you get extremely angry and you're
in a rage, but every couple of minutes, you have a moment of clarity where
you are rational but then you go right back into the rage again. That's exactly
how my lyrics are and my singing is. Being mad, pausing and being like,
Well, and then going back again.

It's catharsis. But Nothingface is also like the Howard Stern of hard rock.
As far as people getting offended, [the lyrics] are intended to incite emotion,
says Holt.Violence's subject matter is not the stuff of everyday conversation,
another quality that hurls Nothingface light years ahead of its peers. According
to Holt, The Same Solution is my interpretation on what goes on in a serial
killer's mind when he's looking for a victim. It's something that intrigues me.
Further commenting, he says, Make Your Own Bones build your own
foundation. Just because you think you know somebody, they can do anything
at any time. You don't have to be a fucked up person to do something fucked
up to somebody. Wow. Did somebody say something about blunt honesty?
That's the precise quality that allows Nothingface to wield keys to open the
padlocked hearts of jaded listeners yearning for something exciting in hard
rock. Musically, Violence is a technical masterpiece. The Same Solution,
Piss N Vinegar and Can't Wait For Violence are erected by Maxwell's
dynamically dizzying riffs. Songs like the epic, operatic Blue Skin, which
boasts a monster breakdown and enough bipolarity to nurse the wound it
inflicts, the moody For All The Sin, and the engorged-with-rage Hidden
Hands are a stream of warheads launched at people, places, things. Beware
of the fallout. Guitarist Tom Maxwell reflects on an acoustic interlude on the
album. Look at 'American Love.' In the middle, all of the sudden, it turns into
Crosby, Stills, and Nash for like thirty seconds. Who does that? Of his playing,
he says, I grew up listening to the Beatles, Zepplin, Hendrix. I graduated to
Jane's Addiction, Slayer, Mercyful Fate, and Rush. Dave Navarro had an
influence on me as far as passion. If you listen to Jane's records, there are some
of the most beautiful guitar melodies you'd ever hear. I'm a real chordy type
of player. I'm not an acrobat stuntman, like 'Check out how fast I can play this
riff, dude.' I am all about the groove and power. You can't achieve
that if you're so concentrated on being this guitar god all the time.

Drummer Tommy Sickles, who was a friend/fan/roadie of the band, joined
Nothingface shortly after the album was recorded. Thrust into a high-pressure
situation, he blossomed rather than crumbled. Sickles says, I love the music
so much it takes over my whole body when I play. Hopefully people will feel
what I feel when I am playing it.

Appreciators of music will be bowled over by the arrangement and delivery
of Violence, which was produced by Drew Mazurek and mixed by David
Bottrill
(Tool, Peter Gabriel, Kid Rock). Every time you spin it, you'll hear
another nuance of sound, a different vocal layer, an eerie calm amidst the
thunderstorm. It's an album that is constantly renewing itself, providing listeners
with innumerable hours of sonic pleasure. Violence sucks you in on a musical
journey, leaving you simultaneously supercharged with adrenaline and drained
of every emotion.

Violence will school its listeners on how to bare your claws and show off your
vulnerable side at the same time. Prepare to join the ranks of a musically aware
elite. Relinquish control now. Accept the Nothingface domination that is surely
imminent based on the complicated, unparalleled ferocity that is Violence