Car Bomb

New York quartet Car Bomb cultivated a harsh and extremely experimental take on metal, laying the foundation for mathcore and metalcore bands to follow. Combining the discordant guitar riffs with a twisted sense of humor and stop-on-a-dime dynamic and tempo shifts, Car Bomb pushed in extreme directions on their 2007 debut full-length Centralia. Car Bomb came together from two bands that shared the same rehearsal space in Rockville Center, New York, Neck and Spooge. Neck's guitarist Greg Kubacki and singer Michael Dafferner were playing a mathy, aggressive style of metal but were interested in moving into a more progressive direction (they cite Frank Zappa as a major influence), while bassist Jon Modell and drummer Elliot Hoffman of Spooge were playing a more technically ambitious brand of metal that already reflected some of the changes Kubacki and Dafferner were hoping to make. When both bands came to a parting of the ways, the four friends teamed up, and Car Bomb was born in 2002. After two years of writing material and knocking the membership into place, the group began recording in 2004, and a song from their first demo, "Solid Grey", appeared on a 2006 compilation, The Hardcore Street CD, Vol. 2. A split single with Burnt by the Sun followed later that same year, and in late 2006, Car Bomb signed with adventurous metal label Relapse Records. Their debut album, Centralia, was released in early 2007. Soon after, they were dropped by Relapse, but weren't much fazed. All busy with day jobs that paid them well, the members independently financed their next few albums, legendarily going so far as to not just build their own studio but to actually design and make their own microphones from scratch. They self-released their second album, w^w^^w^w (sometimes known as "the waveform record"), in 2012. The album featured guest vocals from French metal band Gojira's Joseph Duplantier. Four years later, third album Meta appeared, again featuring guest vocals from Duplantier, as well as an appearance from Suffocation's Frank Mullen. Car Bomb toured with Gojira and Dillinger Escape Plan throughout 2016 and 2017. Their fourth album, Mordial, surfaced in 2019, this time jointly released by the band and U.K. extreme music label Holy Roar Records. ~ Mark Deming