When Senses Fail roared out of New Jersey five years ago, the quintet couldn’t drink in the bars where they were booked to play. The group’s18-year-old vocalist James “Buddy” Nielsen had posted a band recruitment ad on the Web in 2002, attracting 15-year-old drummer Dan Trapp and his two guitar pals Garrett Zablocki and Dave Miller (17 and 18, respectively). Former Tokyo Rose bassist Mike Glita, the fledgling band’s elder statesman at 20, joined a few months later.
The band took its name from a Buddhist belief that dissociation from material concerns, human relationships and one’s own senses is necessary to see God, while fashioning its sound from an amalgamation of Punk, Metal and Hardcore influences. They booked every imaginable gig, from skate parks to churches, before assembling From the Depth of Dreams, a six-song EP that cracked the Billboard album chart. Last year, Glita departed to join Love Automatic and to concentrate on his Knights in Paris side project; since then Hot Water Music bassist Jason Black has filled in until a permanent replacement is installed, although his appearance on the new Senses Fail album, the just-released Life is Not a Waiting Room, would suggest he’s in to stay.
Nielsen says that the new album is about change and evolution, and sonically it represents a shift to their earliest Hardcore influences. Buckle your moshbelts … it’s going to be a wild show. They play the Mad Hatter with Dance Gavin Dance, Sky Eats Airplane and Foxy Shazam.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2008.
