Just before the end of 2021, Engine Kid capped off a fruitful year by releasing Special Olympics, a flexi-disc/digital EP. Before that, the band dropped a career-spanning 6-LP box set, but the EP marked the post-hardcore outfit's first new material since their initial breakup back in 1995.
Engine Kid was never an easy band to nail down to one stylistic bucket (more on that later), but what I easily can say about the most of the music on the EP is that it's thick and heavy like tar. The four songs featured are re-workings of old material that was never properly recorded.
Special Olympics was tracked and mixed by Gabe VanBenschoten, and the stuff sounds massive on my headphones.
Check out Engine Kid's music video for the slow-burning Special Olympics track "Patty:Tania," and then keep scrolling for a quick Q&A chat I did with guitarist/vocalist Greg Anderson:
I remember back in the ‘90s, Engine Kid was one of the few bands from the hardcore/punk/emo world that people had a really tough categorizing. That must have been refreshing to you as a musician since you had already played in bands that were much more traditional in their stylistic approach.
One of the “goals” of the band was to transcend musical boundaries that had previously confined us. We were interested in throwing out the hardcore/punk rule book and hell at times not even acknowledging it!
We were definitely discovering an eclectic variety of music and musical concepts/directions. I suppose incorporating all these new external influences as well as embracing life to the hilt in our early 20s produced a sound that defied traditional classification.
Did you find that you had to “work certain muscles” that you hadn’t done in a long time when you decided to come back together, both writing and playing-wise?
Somewhat yes. Revisiting the chemistry we once had 28+ years ago was exhilarating, refreshing and we welcomed it with open arms! Some of it was like riding a bike…some of it was learning to ride a radically modified chopper….together!
It was interesting to hear the results of each person's last 28 years of life and experiences seep into and fuse with the ancient chemistry we have.
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Pick up a copy of the Special Olympics EP on flexi disc via Southern Lord Records. It's also up on Bandcamp.
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