Car Bomb (band)

Car Bomb first came to be around the year 2000, when Bushwick residents Greg Kubacki and Michael Dafferner of the band Neck shared a rehearsal space under a Rockville Center, New York butcher with Elliot Hoffman and Jon Modell of the band Spooge. Over time, the bands became great friends and frequently visited each other's practices. In 2002, Modell, previously a touring bassist for Soilent Green, unsatisfied with the music his band was making, recruited Kubacki and Dafferner to form a side project called Car Bomb.

The band released a three track demo in 2004 which featured early versions of songs "Rid", "M^6" and "His Eyes." Car Bomb collaborated with a split 7" with Burnt By The Sun in 2007, featuring the track Pieces Of You.[1] Their first full-length album Centralia was released on February 6, 2007 via Relapse Records. In 2011, the band was dropped from the Relapse Records label and their subsequent albums were independently released through Bandcamp.[2] According to Doug Moore, writing for InvisibleOranges.com, "Each member [of the band] works a technologically-inclined professional day job, which restricts their schedules but offers them uncommon financial resources. Some bands build their own studios; Car Bomb built their own microphones from scratch." [2] In addition to buying or making equipment to create their own studio, this means that the band does not depend on the resources of a record label to finance recordings and production costs.

Car Bomb showcased a number of new songs from w^w^^w^w on their May 2009 tour with Gojira and The Chariot, viewable on YouTube.

Singer Michael Dafferner premiered his first independently released film [Why_You_Do_This], a feature-length documentary 'about money, touring, and technical metal,' at the Queen's World Film Festival in August 2011.[3] The band's New York rehearsal space was flooded in early 2012, with most of the equipment being lost or damaged.

The band released their second full-length album w^w^^w^w in 2012, featuring a guest vocal appearance from Joseph Duplantier of the band Gojira. w^w^^w^w is supposedly pronounced 'w click w', but guitarist Greg Kubacki mentioned "a lot of people are now calling it the “waveform record,” which works too." [4]

In September 2016, the band released a new track "From The Dust Of This Planet" on Bandcamp from their forthcoming album Meta. Through October, the band have preview released tracks Gratitude, Sets and the video for Black Blood. Meta was released on 28th October 2016. Joseph Duplantier from Gojira has a guest vocal appearance for the second Car Bomb album in a row, and Frank Mullen from Suffocation has joined the band in the studio for the first time.[5]

The band accompanied the release with gigs starting with Gojira and The Dillinger Escape Plan in November 2016, and followed with a world tour including the US, Europe and the UK supporting Gojira in early 2017.

Their new album Mordial was released on September 27th, 2019. It was recorded at Silvercord Studios, written/produced by Greg Kubacki and mixed by Adam “Nolly” Getgood (Periphery, Devin Townsend, Animals as Leaders). The first single off the album Dissect Yourself was released on May 30th, 2019. Two other singles were released prior to the release of the full album: Scattered Sprites and HeLa

The band headlined their own European tour, starting in September before returning to the US in October to support Periphery and Animals as Leaders.

Car Bomb's style is marked by a highly experimental and extremely aggressive approach to metal. The band's music and riffs follow a very discordant style; chords and scales are not of the conventional variety, and have an almost random playing feel (as demonstrated in "Hypnotic Worm"). The band have cited their style to be influenced by Meshuggah, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Autechre, Coalesce, The Locust, Naked City, Metallica, Pantera, Slayer, Frank Zappa, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Vinnie Colaiuta, Allan Holdsworth, "and anything Dave Witte has played on".

Whether chopping a riff into pieces, reversing it, cutting it short, or messing with the tempo, Car Bomb’s unique style of progressive metal is the product of dissecting ideas and beating them to death. The result is equivalent to a jet engine propelling gravel into your skull. Car Bomb combines the polyrhythmic and mathematical madness of Meshuggah and Dillinger Escape Plan with the rage and energetic fury of Coalesce and Converge. Though their songs are musically challenging, Car Bomb refuses to dilute their ruthless execution. Their intent is to assault the listener in any and every way possible - compositionally, sonically, and lyrically.[6]

Describing a 2014 Car Bomb performance supporting Meshuggah, Amit Sharma of Kerrang! said of the band: "Long Island experimentalists Car Bomb sound absolutely ferocious. Their psychotic turbo-thrash is disgustingly disorientating, 'Frankensteining' Meshuggah and The Dillinger Escape Plan into one relentless onslaught of time-chopping violence."[7]

Guitarist Greg Kubacki's playing style uses a lot of descending pick scrapes, artificial harmonics, ascending Digitech Whammy pedal sweeps, pitch shifting, and ring modulation. These techniques are best demonstrated in 'Gum Under The Table' off Centralia, and 'This Will Do The Job' off the 'Waveform' album.

• Michael Dafferner – vocals (2000–present)
• Greg Kubacki – guitar (2000–present)
• Jon Modell – bass (2000–present)
• Elliot Hoffman – drums (2000–present)

• Car Bomb at Allmusic
• Official website
• Car Bomb Myspace page