KEN Mode - “Blessed” (Official Video)

Wide-eyed Winnipeg noise-rock veterans KEN Mode rose to a new level of international prominence with 2013’s Entrench — their band name is even the substance of newspaper headline puns now — so should we view their upcoming album title Success genuinely or ironically? Given that they hired Steve Albini to engineer it, perhaps this is their In Utero middle-finger move? Not that Entrench was exactly Nevermind-sleek, but lead single “Blessed” definitely takes KEN Mode’s sound to new levels of abrasion, embracing Albini’s scraping, shouting antagonism to the degree that they sound more like McLusky than Converge at this point. The song also finds Jesse Matthewson spewing such bile as, “We can play this game a little bit longer/ But we all know we’re not really welcome here/ Oh, no.” Watch director Christopher Mills’ striking performance video.