One of metal's most aggressive female voices will shake Grand Rapids awake in the Monster Energy Outbreak Tour 2011.
Preceding the breakdown infused headliner Of Mice & Men, Iwrestledabearonce is on its second tour after releasing Ruining It For Everybody in late July. The group hones its approach to extreme hardcore music on the second LP while attracting listeners with the same alternating savage growling and clean singing of Vocalist Krysta Cameron from previous albums.
"She just wanted to sound like a dude," said Guitarist Steven Bradley, citing Pantera and Poison the Well as some of Cameron's influences to start screaming.
Upon inspecting the album artwork of Ruining It, one wouldn't know what to expect hearing. A cake strewn with cigarette butts on the front and pictures of children in party hats instead of typical band member photos can appear like a joke. After all, the band made a sudden and seemingly unprovoked public statement months before the album's release that it was making a musical shift to black metal when the end product was anything but.
And with track titles such as "Deodorant Can't Fix Ugly" and "Karate Nipples," one would be certain they've stumbled on a frivolous compilation until the opening track "Next Visible Delicious" conveys lyrical demands to "separate the church and state before our world breaks" in the dulcet manner Cameron perfects, before immediately juxtaposing with nearly incomprehensible screams.
"I think a lot of times people lose sight of being weird and creative," Bradley said.
Ruining It offers doses of strangeness and oddities in the mix, interrupting the second track "You Know That Ain't Them Dogs' Real Voices" with an Elvis-like murmuring or the slowed-down sample of a voicemail from Cameron's grandmother in "Break It Down Comacho." Similar aesthetics made the popular single "Tastes Like Kevin Bacon" from the first LP It's All Happening such a catch, hooking listeners with a harp buildup to a car horn followed by a sudden burst of screaming and double bass.
"It seems like people that even hated the old record liked the new one," Bradley said. "I just think we took what we were doing on the last record and made it a little more cohesive, made everything a little bit better. It's one of those things that obviously not everyone in the world likes our style of music, but if anyone liked what we were doing before, they could only like the new stuff more."
Instead of conforming to any musical par with tedious structure, the group focuses on having fun and pulling it off through the music. The official video for "You Know That Ain't Them Dogs' Real Voices" features a clown that ravages a pool party by throwing pies at people and pushing them into the water as the members head bang and party along.
"We realized we're idiots and enjoy yelling and breaking stuff too much," Bradley said.
IWABO will play around four of the new songs in this tour, and with a short horror film produced by Century Media already finished and on the horizon, old and new listeners alike will have plenty to see and hear from IWABO within the near future.
