Knesset - New Waves

Google Knesset and you will quickly learn (as we did) that it is the legislative branch of the Israeli government. It is also the name of a band. Thankfully it’s the second of these two that we’re featuring today.

Here are 9 facts about Knesset that we’re going to use to introduce you to them:

1. Knesset is one of those bands that is going to annoy the grammar police. Forthcoming EP Sage features a song called RVRSE. 

2. The grammar police always set themselves up for a fall. Usually on Twitter, whilst drunk tweeting. We've checked Knesset's twitter and couldn't see any evidence of drunk tweets. It was all remarkably coherent. 

3. Thankfully RVRSE the song is not a mess of bad grammar and wordage either, it leaves that to the title, although it does feature some swearing. Our mother taught us that the use of swearing displayed a lack of intellect and ability to use language. (We probably told her to f*ck off after that). So we’re not sure what she would make of this rather enjoyable widescreen indie rock with big aspirations, chest thumping drums and lyrics about being alone. Maybe if Knesset did a radio edit mother would be happy.

4. Knesset have also covered Bon Iver’s Holocene. You can listen to that here. Every time we hear it we keep thinking that Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips has nipped in to do the vocals, or maybe Peter Silberman of The Antlers.

5. If you’re like us and like to close your eyes and listen to the music and imagine what the band look like, you’d probably guess that at least one member of Knesset has facial hair and that one of them wears a check shirt. Statistically of course there’s a reasonable chance of this anyway, but the video for Bitter Hearts (below) reveals your guesses as correct. We also conjectured that the band would be the classic vocals, guitar, bass and drums four piece, but we were wrong with that one; they’re actually a trio.

6. On their Facebook page Knesset suggest a love for My Bloody Valentine declaring 2013’s MBV a modern Loveless. We’d disagree, but if you listen and watch the video to Bitter Hearts you can hear a bit of a toned down Kevin Shields influence as the jangles and slacker-rock give way to a heavier denser noise from around the 3.50 mark.

7. Quite a few people are comparing Knesset to Death Cab For Cutie. Well, when we say quite a few, we’ve read two other articles about the band and both of them mentioned Death Cab, so we figure that’s good enough to justify our statement.

8. As far as we are aware Knesset have no connection to Israel and are actually based in Los Angeles.

9. Knesset are our new favourite facial haired US indie rock band. Listen to them below.

Knesset - RVRSE

KNESSET - Bitter Hearts