United Nations – The Next Four Years

The Heaviest Four Years

Super groups are becoming more and more commonplace in heavy music, but one of the most creative, and likely one of the most consistently long-running groups, has to be screamo (and sometimes humor) band United Nations. Their newest release The Next Four Years, a conceptual extension of the Black Flag compilation album The First Four Years, is one to remember, and will hopefully be the start of much more from them. The identities of most of the members of United Nations have been generally kept quiet and rotated rather often, with the only consistent (and not contractually obligated to remain anonymous) member being Thursday vocalist Geoff Rickly, and for The Next For Years he is accompanied by members of post-hardcore group Pianos Become the Teeth.

Remember when Rickly took over vocals for ’90s Philadelphia hardcore cult legends Ink & Dagger 10 years after the death of original singer Sean McCabe? Well, The Next Four Years takes some notes from that, and in the best way possible. The opening track on the album “Serious Business,” which was released as the first single for the record, barrages the listener with an energetic wall of sound that will draw you right in and make you wonder what the rest of The Next Four Years has in store. Rickly’s vocals sometimes take a truly evil sounding tone to them, like on song “Stole the Past” that sounds ripped straight from an early 2000s black metal album. And you can imagine that “Music for Parties” would make the soundtrack to a pretty disturbing get-together.

While The Next Four Years showed no signs of comedy from the boys of Stella or any of the other comedians who have collaborated with United Nations in the past, it makes a statement among the softer side of hardcore that we’ve seen so many bands take on. Black metal, screamo and powerviolence rarely make the best bedfellows, but United Nations has found a way to make it work, and will hopefully continue to put out records as brutal as this.