Necktie Suicide

If you think a name like Necktie Suicide sounds harsh, listen to the Fargo group’s new EP, “Bearing Witness to the Fall of Rome.” The opener, “Apologies Made without a Response” features more screams than a slaughterhouse, while tracks like “Shiver” and “Blindfold” pound out hooks like a heavy-weight grudge match. The five-song CD isn’t for everyone, but in 25 minutes the quintet crunches out a polished bit of heavy metal. - John Lamb- Fargo Forum Aug 11th 2005

Trying to explain the music of Necktie Suicide is like putting a square peg in a round hole -- it just isn't going to happen. Lush and melodic as it is brutal and intimidating -- usually within the span of one song -- it is justifiably right to accept that Necktie Suicide has created a monster sound that is, of all things, original. - Bryan Grob October 14th 2004 High Plains Reader Fargo ND

Necktie Suicide. Loud. Aggressive. This band will kick your ass. And you'll like it.
One of those bands that always gets mentioned by other bands, which is one of the highest compliments a band can get.

T-Bone/BlackJack - 104.7 The Dam - The Boneyard - T-bone and Blackjack

Metals a bitch; a stubborn, rigid creature that occasionally reproduces and spawns varying sub sects, but dangles the possibility for creative interpretation above its practitioners like its taunting a gorilla with a banana. Some artists have strong enough calf muscles to make the jump; the rest either say,"To hell with it!" and stay where they are during the duration of their career, or travel even lower downt he slope as if running from the big, bad originality goblin (cough...Slipknot...cough).

The Thing about Necktie Suicide is that they have legs like wallabies. "Bearing Witness to the Fall of Rome"--the bands debut EP--is a five-song operetta of men leaping through the air, and tearing apart an empire when they touch back down. A treatise on war, culture, and misinformation that ties it all together, "Rome" is like attending a dinner with a brain trust and watching the room explode into fisticuffs. Havoc isnt the point; its frustration that can no longer be kept quiet, and vitriol with a doctorate.

Its also wonderfully manic music. Everything comes in layers (the guitars alone on "Apologies Made Without Response" are stacked like skyscrapers), as if someone just relieved themselves all over Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound."

"Rome" cuts, changes, and ducks under the cover of night before you are sure of what you have just seen. Singer A.j Anderson delivers each song with the right amount of brutality as the remaning four members of this metal mob march through other great cuts like "Someone" and "Shotgun Divorce Settlement."
Like Poison the Well without a Swedish production team, or Thursday finally becoming too pissed for emo to hold them any longer, Necktie Suicide is why you should never give up on heavy music, even when it seems like heavy music has given up on you.

~8.25.05 - High Plains Reader (chris rausch associate music editor)