Engine Kid: Treasure Chest (from Bear Catching Fish, 1993)
It turned out that Hose Got Cable was not the first Richmond VA band I’d heard. That would’ve been Engine Kid, who I’d somehow gotten into when I was in high school. I can’t remember how I discovered the band, even remotely. But they were clearly up my alley. The band’s formula was right in line with my favorites at the time, Codeine, Slint, and Rodan. The comparison to Codeine and Rodan in particular is quite apt; like Codeine they had the extreme juxtaposition of stark, minimal moments with crushing heaviness. If you were to draw a line from Codeine to Mogwai it would certainly pass through Engine Kid. But like Rodan—and unlike Codeine or Slint—Engine Kid also had overt sonic connections to their hardcore scene. Call it emo, screamo, or straight up hardcore, but there was a certain kind of aggressiveness to Engine Kid’s heavy moments that more stark bands like Slint and Codeine lacked.
Listening to it again for the first time in fifteen years, Bear Catching Fish, the first of two Engine Kid albums, probably occupies its exact right place in indie rock history. As far as the post-rock/loud-quiet/screamo/whatever thing goes, they were a good but not transcendent band. “Treasure Chest” is probably the best thing on their debut—none of which is bad but none of which phenomenal either. Today the group is best regarded as a precursor to Sunn O))), for whatever that’s worth.
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