"No band has to fit into a little box."
–Rick Rubin, legendary producer.
"A handful of phrases and adjectives get thrown around far too often in discussion of music: epic, revolutionary, genre-defying. It’s the latter that the southern Maine anomaly called The If In Life exercise in keeping themselves out of any box, small or large. The four-piece defies (see: smashes, discards, delivers a blatant “fuck off†at the mere thought of) genre as well as the current music scene, both in their sound and fresh attitude. They also transcend the growing trend of throwing a batch of arbitrary ingredients into a song and hoping it finds as many fans as possible; their demo, “Four Steps to Becoming a Social Animal,†shows the band artfully delivering tunes that seamlessly flow across the defining qualities of heavy music, peppered with groove and trance-inducing ambience.
The basement-recorded demo is raw and forceful, conveying a healthy dose of original-as-fuck metal and jams full to bursting with groove, heaviness, and fully unexpected musical twists and turns. Matthew Tetreault, aliased Tate, screams with unrefined sincerity. Josh Holmes crafts riffs with unabated freshness, often sounding like he simply makes it up as he goes, freestyling the guttural, bendy licks without breaking a sweat. Matt Hobbs pounds hard on the kit, perfectly executing a long-held philosophy of Pantera legend, Vinnie Paul Abbott: kick in the double bass for an extra boost, rather than diminishing the effect by beating away at top-speed for an entire song (see: 90% of the stagnating genre we call metal). Omar Bahrour complements his band mates with winding bass lines that serve to strengthen the low-end heaviness as well as interest the listener with the paths they take, frequently independent of the guitar.
With their eyes on the prize of originality and pure good times, The If In Life are nothing less than authentic; few bands pour this much of themselves into their music and performance. See a show for further proof, as The If In Life reigns among the most energetic, insane live acts in the area, and do so modestly and without ego. Prizing talent and hard work ethic in bands, Tate speaks for his group: "We just like to have a good time, hang out, and rip awesome tunes. We’re here, we want to make this thing full time, and we know we aren’t shit without the people who really enjoy the music.""
-Zac Dionne
Be awesome, and put this banner on your page.
Just copy and paste this EVERYWHERE:
GET INTO IT!
THE IF IN LIFE Store
"Four Steps to Becoming an Animal" EP
This four track disk is available at our shows for 5$ and in the Portsmouth and Portland Bullmoose Music Stores.
BUY THAT SHIT. PARTY TO IT.
Merchandise
DUMP EM OUT HOODIES: ONLY YOUTH LARGE LEFT AT SHOWS!!!
MAPE T-SHIRT: $10
PLANE T-SHIRT: $10
All Merchandise design done by Josh Tetreault.
Check out his other work at www.joshuatetreault.com .
