How Black Flag, Clive Barker and math-rock influenced Thirdface’s new album

Diana Zadlo

Nashville’s Thirdface are about as intense as a hardcore band can get. The group’s 2021 debut Do It With a Smile was one of the year’s most ferocious listens, blistering and uncompromising. And three years later, they’ve returned with a scorching follow-up, Ministerial Cafeteria, out now via Exploding in Sound, which finds the band blasting through short bursts of punk and grindcore while exploring the farther reaches of their sound through noise rock dirges such as “Sour” and “Pure Touch.” The bar and the stakes are raised ever higher.

The group told us about some of the influences behind Ministerial Cafeteria. Vocalist Kathryn Edwards, guitarist David Reichley and drummer Shibby Poole detail everything from Clive Barker stories to classic hardcore and punk records to the oppressive systems that make a sustainable life harder for everyone.

Kathryn Edwards

“I find that I don’t really try to get influences on vocal delivery/sound from anywhere specific. That is mostly an unconscious amalgam of ‘heavy things I’ve heard and liked before’ drowned in my high-pitched squeal. But my lyrics are greatly influenced by the media I consume that I use to weave allegories to ‘horrors, both real and imagined.’”

Rawhead Rex: “A Clive Barker short story film adaptation, specifically, that I used to discuss the ramifications of the loss of history and how that can have detrimental flesh rending effects on all those around. The movie itself: the watersports cemetery scene didn’t make it into the song imagery, but def worth a watch for those uninitiated. (Trap Revealed)

Taqbir – Taqbir: Anytime I see a band with black and/or brown women being able to use their voice to speak their truth, unapologetically, it always lights a fire under me to expand. People say a lot has changed for the better, when it comes to who gets to play ball, but many things stay the same. A lot of people could benefit from true diversity in thought and experience in their little circles. Def remember listening to this self-titled on repeat.

End stage capitalism: with the destruction of societal safety nets, stagnant or declining economics, and corporations owning practically all resources to a sustainable life, there was a lot to be angry and dissatisfied to riff on here. Even the songs not even purely about hating the powers that be are touched by the crumbling systems we are being buried under.

David Reichley

Virus: I feel like they are such a singular band. I have so much admiration for them as musicians; they’re so technical yet so playful.

Polvo: Peerless psychedelic rock music. So comfortable being really stupidly melodic and really stupidly experimental.

Infest: Ultimate hardcore. The west coast PV community during this time really created an expression of hardcore that continues to resonate with me.

Black Flag: Fuck the fans. Greg Ginn may be a piece of shit but he was right about
everyone else being wrong.

Rorschach: Perfect metalcore. Whenever people compare us to Converge I cringe a bit. I have so much respect for these musicians and their New Jersey scene/community’s contributions to hardcore/metal/emo/etc.