#Bent Knee #progressive rock #art rock #industrial #baroque pop #avant-garde #music video
Bent Knee was formed at Boston's Berklee College of Music by Courtney Swain (Vocals), Ben Levin (Guitar) and Vince Welch (Production and Sound Design) out of a love of the epic and grand and has influences of Psych, Baroque Pop and Avant-Jazz. Their eponymous debut CD was released in 2011 and is mostly a study of Courtney Swain’s sultry voice, which sounds like an angry Shirley Manson (Garbage), fighting for attention from Ben Levin’s occasionally crunchy and frequently sporadic guitar. Their second album, 'Shiny Eyed Babies', released in 2014 was more of a full band effort with the addition of, Chris Baum (Violin), Jessica Kion (Bass) and Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth (Drums) and has a more diverse feel to it with jazzier moments, alternating with the starker sound of the first album. Fans of Tori Amos may enjoy Bent Knee as would fans of distinctive female driven, stark music. From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=9175
When you think of a band made up of musicians who met at a prestigious music school, a certain image may come to mind. A group of highly skilled artists, hunched over their respective instruments in utter concentration, spooling out complex notes and unorthodox time signatures, producing music of tremendous difficulty and seriousness.
In the case of Bent Knee, you can put your preconceived notions to rest. Yes, all six members of the Boston-based band met while studying at the Berklee College of Music. Yes, they’re all tremendously talented musicians. But while their music may contain a multitude of music theory complexity, it can also be accessible, funky, tender, vulnerable, head-banging, and heavy on guilty-pleasure pop/rock tropes. Bent Knee’s latest album, You Know What They Mean, weaves together everything that made their four previous albums equal parts jaw-dropping and, dare I say, fun. For a band so good at smashing boundaries, they’ve managed to find a few more to tear down this time around.
Produced by their multi-instrumentalist/sound designer Vince Welch, the album is a typical Bent Knee stew of styles and dynamics. What they managed to achieve this time around is a remarkable sense of coherence between all the songs. Despite the music’s range, the songs literally flow together with little to no space between the tracks. It results in something of a throwback to the days of progressive rock concept albums. Labelling Bent Knee as prog rock, incidentally, is not entirely off the mark. They get a good deal of press in prog publications. But there are also plenty of avant-garde touches, art rock, bits and pieces of jazz (they’re Berklee grads, after all), as well as good old-fashioned metal, thanks in part to the pummeling riffs of guitarist Ben Levin. From: https://www.popmatters.com/bent-knee-you-know-what-2640907574.html
