While The County Medical Examiners is laying dormant and Cretin is waiting for frontwoman Marissa Martinez to fully attain her womanhood (Marissa was actually born Dan, but that’s a different story) in order to complete the writing of their new album, Matt Widener spent the last two years piecing together some new songs that were meant to be featured in his new solo adventure called Liberteer.

“Better to Day on Your Feet than Die on Your Knees” sees Widener merging the relentless and maniacal grind that both The County Medical Examiners and Cretin are renowned for with some weird ass experimentalisms that includes wind instruments, banjos and epic melodies.

We had the chance to ask Widener the inspirations and drive behind Liberteer and why he’s doing this. Read the answers below.

What was it that made you decide to venture off on your own and release a solo project, rather than once again teaming up with another group?

“I tend to like to work alone. Not for every project, but for many of them. Liberteer is very political and rather than find bandmates with identical views, I thought it easier to charge ahead on my own.”

Did you find it easier to be able to work within your own parameters and schedule, as opposed to work with a group of guys?

“It was much easier on my own. Schedule is most of it. When I work on my own I can utilize a spare hour to make progress on a song. Sometimes my recording opportunities hinge on other people leaving the house, my neighbours, time of day, and so on. If it was a full band with a full band's input, that would become another force in my life, another obligation that would crowd my schedule and weigh me down. It is much more enjoyable to keep this project pure and my own, something I can think about and be excited about, a nice change from my responsibilities. I am in a band called Cretin that has two other members, and I've been in bands before, like Exhumed, so I know what it takes to keep a bunch of guys in playing shape. And if I'm to have multiple bands, I simply don't have the energy or time to juggle them all in that way.”

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A side-project for Cretin/Citizen’s Matthew Widener, Liberteer’s debut album “Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees” regurgitates the maniacal and unhinged grind Widener is renowned for, albeit with a experimental edge that surprisingly creates an interesting and captivating sonority .

One listen to the 17 songs will be enough to conclude that not only Widener, who plays all instruments, is seriously committed to crafting some vile and ugly grind, he’s also determined to push boundaries and forge a sound that is distinctly their own. As such, “Better To Die…” is grind like I never heard it before, it’s wacky as Exit-13 and Antigama, yet it doesn’t delve into jazz or noise experimentalism, and it’s raging and vile like Nasum and Brutal Truth, yet it also features the sounds of trumpets, banjos and horns. Take a song like “Build No System” for example, it surges with a raging grind fury but soon takes a left turn into some odd instrumentation filled with trumpets and flute sounds that wouldn’t sound out place in some spaghetti western movie. Then, there’s “Rise Like Lions After Slumber”, a highly invigorating and infectious instrumental that you surely wouldn’t expect to hear in a grind record, which is followed by “That Which Is Not Given But Taken” where the guitars rehash the same harmonies, but in a faster pace and harsher tone. In “Usurious Epitaph”, the relentless grind onslaught ends with some traditional instrumentation that could certainly soundtrack the battles of civil war. Then, I swear if I don’t want to mimic Rocky Balboa and run the stairs to Philadelphia’s’ City Hall when I hear the epic and appropriately titled “Sweat for Blood”.

Even tough “Better to Die…” is full of weird-ass experimentalisms, this is still a viciously crushing grind album and at just 28 minutes, it feels like a guerrilla raid, they get in, beat you senseless and steal all your belongings and then, they get out. (8/10)

David Alexandre

Band info: www.liberteer.bandcamp.com

Label info: www.relapse.com

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