American Standard by Uniform

If you live with a mental illness, does this condition integrate into your view of your innermost self, or should you peel away this layer like a soul-sucking leech? Quintessential New York industrial rock outfit Uniform takes a stab at these questions on their new record American Standard, an expedition deep into the self to find something, anything, left unscathed from a life lived under the thumb of neurosis. Taking a slight step back from the bleeding edge of industrial intensity, Uniform instead takes a more delicate, gradual approach to these topics, allowing emotion-laden musical motifs to develop over wild crescendos at the beckoning of furious vocals. Though these crescendos send us to emotional heights, the underlying industrial chaos in the instrumental tones and percussive intensity never fully abates, signaling to us that our expedition never quite finds that stainless self we set out searching for. Instead, we must learn to live with our imperfect, unhealthy self, integrating its imperfections, both medically diagnosable and otherwise, into an image that can guide us towards maximum

- Michael