“Life’s too short for second best,” KEN Mode singer-guitarist Jesse Matthewson shouts on Venerable, the local noise-rock trio’s fourth release.

If that’s the case, KEN Mode doesn’t have much to worry about. Although the album doesn’t come out until this Tuesday (March 15), it’s already generated a lot of buzz across North America and received raving endorsements from the likes of Stereogum.com and Exclaim.ca.

A Stereogum.com writer called Venerable “one of the best records of 2011, bar none,” describing its mix of hardcore and noise-rock as “Unsane with more swing, a dirtier Helmet, a younger/hungrier (and Canadian) Today Is The Day.”

For Matthewson, who is joined in the band by his brother Shane on drums, as well as Thérèse Lanz on bass, the lyric has to do with never settling.

“Why be unhappy?” Matthewson asks by phone just days before heading off on a two-month tour that will end with a hometown album release party in May. “(You should at least) strive for attempting to be happy.

“Which is funny that I say that, because then there’s another song (The Ugliest Happy You’ve Ever Seen) that’s all about never quite being able to attain real happiness.”

Emotional anxieties are all over the lyrics on Venerable, which the band recorded and mixed in nine days last summer with Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou at his studio, GodCity, in Massachusetts.

“I’ve been a fan of his production for a number of years—it’s hard not to be if you listen to this type of music,” Matthewson says of why he wanted to work with Ballou. “I was curious how he’d interpret our sound.”

What resulted is the band’s most muscular-sounding release to date.

Previous releases Mongrel, Reprisal and Mennonite, coupled with a commanding live show, have already earned the band a loyal following of people who like their music more than a little left-of-centre.

Venerable will not disappoint them.

In fact, between the record and the band’s commitment to tour heavily for the first time in its 11-year existence, 2011 is shaping up to be KEN Mode’s year.

So is Matthewson happy?

“I suppose I could say I’m happy, but don’t tell anyone that,” he says with a laugh.

“I have to keep up my angry, gruff exterior.”

Published in Volume 65, Number 22 of The Uniter (March 10, 2011)