Building intrigue around a band or an artist certainly has become an artform nowadays, with more and more meticulously planned attempts sought after to challenge tried and tested marketing campaigns and traditions. A highly effective method to increase ‘buzz’ around a band is to strive for as an anonymous presence as possible and let the music do the talking. What can make a difference is how far musicians are really willing to push that boundary. We can talk about groups like Sleep Token, and until recently Ghost, who have formed their identity with a grand narrative to accompany their music, and it kept us guessing who were the musicians behind the masks, while marvelling at the work laid before us. 00000000 might be taking it that extra step further.
At face value, 00000000 is fast muted alternated strumming in guitar tablature, means nothing in binary, the precise time at the strike of midnight, and the number of life points both players would have left in a game of Yu-Gi-Oh, if both players drew the game. Or four fat ladies if you put all the zeroes together, if bingo is your bag. Their members have no publicised names or pseudonyms, music no defined genre traits and their public bio is illustrated by an excerpt from the dialogue of David disconnecting HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Their shows are only identified by a date and a postcode, which is a neat little detail in locating them, but any other detail about said shows are extracts from science fiction, cinema, and philosophers. The breadcrumbs are apparent, but seem to follow no clear cognitive fashion, and as such, if the band truly wished to keep themselves under wraps, their mission is succeeding.
Thankfully, the question about what kind of musical calibre dwells inside the mystery is one that is answered, upon the release of the group’s Star Lane / Star City EP. With the four tracks, including a similarly urgent interpretation of Radiohead’s Everything In Its Right Place, the members of 00000000 perform, in the loosest sense, an engulfing brand of shoegaze-tinged indie rock, which can explode into heady periods of overwhelmingly emotional noise, almost as if Arcade Fire and Brand New started butting heads with one another. Constellations swirls with a sense of melancholy cheer, desperate wails and incandescent guitar, pit against rapid ticking of hi-hat and sombre piano, both skins and keys later pounded in unison, as its crescendo draws nearer. Once at its apex, that intensity never lets off, captivating as it is clamorous. As gateways go, this is an exceptional vantage point into what this group are capable of. Explore, though the shortest affair featured, begins in a jazz-like time signature, the offbeat cymbal taps and trio of snare hits offset by an almost Eastern-sounding chord progression and is arguably less excitable vocally, despite retaining much of that fervour felt before. If anything, it says something about their versatility, still being able to grasp at their vast sonic capacity in half the space of time, but also teasing glimpses of post-rock influences, a tremolo or two tucked inside, another tool to deploy if required. Lastly, Acid Burn tinkers with delay and darkened spoken word, post-punk, almost gothic-like in nature, which metamorphoses into sharp streaks of lead guitar and the kind of anguished vocals that sparks that Brand New comparison, back into shadow with just the prominent grumbles of bass for company. Cleverly, that spike in volume no doubt resembles the focal acid burn, at first unsuspecting, then becoming fiery, and distressing, until either treated or the damage is done, transitioning back to the quieter dynamic afterward.
All this adds up to the revelation, is that 00000000 are envoys of rejecting commodity, defying the throwaway tendency of music in the digital age, by tactically giving a willing audience both musical style and substance, in a frankly inexpressible hurricane of aural flavours that engages your brain, as well as exhilarates it.
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