Why Patterns are an exciting and most excellent band I’ve followed since their inception, when they uploaded a demo EP to Bandcamp. I’d already been a fan of two of the band members’ other projects, Wren and Warren Schoenbright respectively. I’d already picked up their 2022 debut album Regurgitorium on cassette tape (also via Human Worth), so I was very excited and taken aback when their next album Screamers landed in my inbox. I was surprised to hear something completely different to Regurgitorium, which showcased slow, repetitive groove dirges, laced with noise and anguish, sounding like the gears of a clock jamming and grinding together. But Screamers sounded like the same band if they’d been played on the wrong speed on your turntable. These songs are lightning fast, and the entire album lasts a mere 16 or 17 minutes, about half the length of their debut. Yet I didn’t feel shortchanged. Screamers packs in everything and more.
Sounding like an abstraction of grindcore and powerviolence, Screamers sees Why Patterns exploring cartoon violence, abstract art, rodeos, clowns, medieval weaponry, you name it. But beyond the absurdity lies a more tragic and personal dark heart, as the album is about dealing with loss and grief. It’s always a pleasure teaming up with Owen at Human Worth, one of the most exciting underground labels operating right now, and it was a real pleasure to get a closer glance at one of the strangest bands in the UK right now. I really didn’t know what impression this album would leave. Would it be too strange, would it be over too fast? But everyone seems to have eaten it up, and it’s the kind of record that you just want to play over and over, a real adrenaline rush housed on a piece of plastic.
ACCOLADES
“They summon distressing mental images via what sounds like a clave keeping time while someone weeps in the background.”
~ The Wire #499
“At no point would anyone be left thinking, ‘This band could do with a guitarist.’ Why Patterns compensate for this lack with a bass sound that is similar to Lightning Bolt’s in terms of how pounding it is, but if anything, features even more abrupt tonal shifts than that band does.”
~ Treble
“A noisy, short bastard of a record.”
~ Veil Of Sound
FROM THE PRESS KIT
During the initial writing and jamming period for Screamers, Why Patterns soon noticed a significant change in their playing and sound, becoming faster, fiercer and more direct. “Screamers became a distillation of what we liked the most on Regurgitorium. If anything felt like filler, we’d discard it.” This ethos has transpired into an impeccably tight sixteen minute album experience that tears through your speakers like an abrupt tornado. Anticipating this wind of change, Why Patterns booked to record with Stanley Gravett at East London’s Holy Mountain Studio (which has hosted a wide spectrum of artists including Spiritualized, Idles, High Vis, Vacuous and many more) in order to fully harness this new sound and avoid repeating themselves in any way. Why Patterns sound like they are playing at double the speed of the songs found on their previous releases, whilst maintaining the same sense of sonic exploration. Screamers boasts a finer focus on impact, whilst keeping all the twists and turns, pinches of noise and discordance, and surprising moments of off-tangent absurdity, becoming the aural equivalent of a blade twisting into your spinal column. “The more we wrote, the more it turned into a record you might expect from Nails or Full Of Hell, but through the lens of a weird noise punk band.”
Vocalist and lyricist Doug Norton creates a collage of thought strands from the cerebral aether, covering rodeos, clowns, catapults and even finding the spectral path between abstract modernist Mondrian and Kasabian. Norton is influenced by the concept of “indirect communication”, coined by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (widely considered to be the first existentialist), honing in on a single word or phrase, and building outwards, zoning in on patterns, diction and syllables. Though Norton channels dark humour, their experience during the writing and recording process has come from a place of immense personal sadness from experiencing both their mother and grandmother slowly succumbing to long illnesses. Norton frequently displays a childlike physicality in their “mouth sounds”, going beyond the lyrical, channelling their inner child, crying for attention on the eloquently titled ‘Clown In A Housefire’, throwing a tantrum on the fidgety ‘Nervous Laughter’, and stepping on Lego on psychotic rage workout ‘Wind Up Chattering Teeth’. When combined with a bass guitar that sounds like it is suffering from painful indigestion, Screamers starts to feel like an attack on your innards, gleefully embracing cringe and discomfort; adolescent flashbacks of cartoon violence, the worst days of school, and every cut, bruise and vomiting session you’ve ever experienced. Yet there is also a dualism of grief and family tragedy running through this record, inviting listeners to find a similar sense of catharsis that the band themselves discovered in making Screamers. The album’s short length becomes no issue because it will leave you wincing for immediate repeat listens.
Released on July 11th 2025 on CD, Cassette and Digital via Human Worth.
PR TRAIL 