Review from Smother.Net

Each and every time I receive a package from the good folks of Phratry Records I tremble with excitement. No exaggeration, I actually got a paper cut opening this one up! Knife the Symphony is a trio comprised of former members of Ampline and Theraphosa and slices through indie rock with male and female vocals that never compete for air time (a wonderful change of pace, thank you very much) but just blend together like Sonic Youth used to. You can hear past DC post-hardcore rock influencing their sound..just keep in mind that these dudes and dudette are from Cincinnati, Ohio (a state worthy of four years of intense political blame, taking Florida..s lowly place in ..04). Only problem with this EP, is that it..s merely an EP. The ideas are so intense and well-constructed that you feel like you fell out of the building from the opening scenes of ..The Hudsucker Proxy.., falling to your concrete doom with agrin on your face. Beguiling riffs weave their way through the thick bass grooves and crunchy drumming. Did I mention that this is a must-have?
- J-Sin


Review from www.theneussubjex.com/issue69.htm

I paid my FUH (that’s “FIVE” in Cordelle Georgia street-slang) and had time to get a couple sugary sodas down me before KNIFE THE SYMPHONY blew me... Away... Man, this is what MUSIC is all about! This band was fucking amazing. They did everything PERFECT. There wasn't one thing during their live set I would have changed. Existentialism to minimalism. That was a repeating sentence represented by a sliding dial about their performance. For whatever reasons, I had continuous imagery of the cartoon TOM & JERRY in the back of my mind... It seems to me that the three piece KNIFE THE SYMPHONY is sort of like Tom & Jerry meaning that the band chase each other with sonic-art on stage during their whole performance. Your head is jerked back and forth from one, to the other, it could be some sorts of fucking sport... or maybe it's a war. A barrage of missiles from one to the other... Jerry hits Tom with a fireplace poker and it bends to Tom's profile... Tom paints a bolt to look like a piece of cheese. Jerry eats it, then Tom drags him out of his hole with a magnet. Witnessing the offensive and defensive capabilities of each members' sound and the byproduct is what they call SONG... A never ending stalemate of shock and awe. A fun experiment would be to put on a DVD of Tom and Jerry and then this CD ala DARKSIDE OF OZ. When one goes looking for something new in the world of music sometimes it's in your own back yard. Knife the Symphony has only been around for a short while, but has managed to cement themselves to the Cincinnati music scene, with members from AUTUMN RISING, AMPLINE, FEASTS OF MERIT and THERAPHOSA, this new project has taken off faster than any of the rest and shows a more promising future for all the members. This 5 track CD, coming in just under a half hour, has some of the most intense creativity that leaves me crying for a full length release.... I'm sure it won't be long for that to happen, but the best things come to those who wait. This CD has almost left me speechless, but has opened my ears to a whole new world. Definitely the best band to come out of Cincinnati this year.
- Dave Fishwick


www.adequacy.net

Knife The Symphony, a relatively new band out of Cincinnati, has formulated a manifesto involving the destruction of the mainstream. It is the band's declaration. Whether the bitterness is born from a frustration with the current state of indie music or whether its source is the banality of MTV and FM radio, it's hard to tell. The result so far, though, is the EP Please Knife The Symphony, and the band shows some promise in its fight. The power trio owes a debt to God Machine, whose decade-old recordings laid the groundwork for bass-heavy grinds like those on this EP. The five songs here hit like a hammer when they want to. There are some subtleties as well, but most of it is heavy and dark. "The Victim Who Believes" slithers like an early Unwound track: the cyclical bassline, the choppy guitar, the steady drumming. Though less inventive rhythmically than Unwound, it's a decent take on that band's material. "Solemn Solon" starts with guitar energy approximating Les Thugs. It breaks things down about a minute in, letting the effect-smoothed bass sit underneath echo-laden guitar slides, before it gears up again. The drive at the end of the song is fueled by the repeated chant of "Your goddamn ego," and I have to guess this ties into the band's manifesto. Well, that or it's maybe a rant against an ex. The lead track, "Common Elements," swings in 3/3 time while it rocks like Traindodge or, again, Unwound. It's tight. The guitar chords may get a little predictable and repetitive where instead they might have changed things up a bit for variation's sake, but overall it's a good run. "An Astonomer's Plea" closes the EP with six minutes of Traindodge-like rhythmic and guitar intensity. We also get to hear bassist Robyn Roth sing some backup, which provides a nice counterpoint to the heaviness of the track. The standout track for me is "Summer's Decay." Which begins with a few dissonant guitar notes repeated and looped backwards. It builds into a frenetic, tense chaos that resolves once the drums beat out a steady, galloping backbeat. This track seems to capture the best of what the band has to offer. It's concise (even at four minutes) and a little off-kilter but it has the right mix of tension and drive. It even had me thinking for some reason of Killing Joke's Fire Dances, minus the visceral tribalism on that outstanding album. It's also the closest the band comes to equaling or bettering its more celebrated influences, which is saying a lot. Really nice work on "Summer's Decay" -- I hope it gets some attention from college radio and the kingmakers in the blogosphere. The production here is above average. The instruments come through clearly and separately. The snare drum and cymbals cut through the mix especially well. This attention to the drums might have something to do with the fact that drummer Jerry Dirr runs the band's Phratry Records, but who's to say. It will be interesting to see how soon the band puts out a proper album and what direction it will take. I hope for more tracks like "Summer's Decay."
-David Smith


www.faketrain.com

Cincinnati’s Knife The Symphony writes amazingly dark bass-heavy punk-rock gems that slowly build and build and... This trio features former members of solid rockers like Ampline and Theraphosa. What really caught my ear’s attention was that Knife The Symphony shares a similar delivery to that of two of my favorite bands, Bob Evans and Unwound. Not many people talk or mention Bob Evans, and it’s a shame because their swansong release The Bradley Suite is an album worth tracking down (even if you have to spend hours digging around in dollar bins). However Knife The Symphony beats out comparable sounds that radiate the melodic thump and wallop of these two late and great outfits. “Summer’s Decay” will give goose bumps to diehard Unwound fans like myself. This refreshing five song teaser contains great dissonant rock with the thick bass constantly buzzing and the weighty rhythms always pounding hard. There’s great vocal interaction between singer/guitarist Jeff Albers and bassist Robyn Roth on the closer “An Astronomer’s Plea”: “We got the star lights working overtime (drowning me out) / We got the oceans working overtime (breathe in, breath out) / We got the satellites working overtime (drowning me out) / We got the moonlight working overtime.” Etch Knife The Symphony’s moniker into your cranial capacitor. This is definitely a band to check out if you rocked it to outfits like Bob Evans, Unwound, aMiniature, and Hurl.
by Fake Train


www.allageszine.com

Knife The Symphony has put out a pretty ambitious, concept album of sorts that has the ability to stand on it's own two feet. It isn't very often that a band will come along with a concept based album and impress me but this did. It isn't your typical, overproduced, trying harder to be who you're not then letting your music be who you are album. Rather they stick to simple chord progressions in the guitars and bass lines that remind me a lot of the Cure. The vocals, both lead and backing sound great together and are the perfect contrast to one another. The leads have a little more spunk in them while the backups offer a bit of a lull behind the music. While there are only 5 songs that make up this EP, it is more than enough to hammer home their point. This is a wonderful band with great ideas. Now if only the mass will give it a listen perhaps the industry can be shaken up a bit.
(JK)