From the 9353 Bandcamp page:
9353 formed January 5 1983 in Virginia by Bruce Hellington Vance Bockis Jason Carmer and a drumbox. Between 1983 and 2019 there have been 74 members of 9353. 33 are featured here in these recordings. 11 members are now dead. Of the 3 original members, Bruce Hellington is the only remaining original member. Vance Bockis died in 2012. Jason left in 1986.
There’s a lot to unpack here. Seventy-four members since 1983? Eleven of them are now dead?? Founding member Vance Bockis is probably better known for his earlier work as the singer for The Obsessed, and after a long battle against addiction he finally got clean in his 40s… only to be struck down by a blood clot following routine shoulder surgery at the age of 50. Which is… heartbreaking. No one goes into a surgery like that worrying about dying. These are the kind of quiet daily tragedies that start to really keep you up at night as you get older and realize how quickly it could all disappear.
It’s OK / It’s not loaded / I’m a good driver / Don’t worry honey, opens “Famous Last Words”, and we’re off and running. Sonically there’s something happening here that I recognize when I hear it but I have trouble describing, like the taste of spice you’ve never tried before. It’s a certain interplay between the guitar and rhythm section, the rhythm following generally understandable patterns with the guitar sort of off doing its own thing, as if it’s from a completely different track. The bass is prominent and offset by jangling guitar chords. Inject in the half-sung-half-spoken vocals and you’ve got something that challenges your understand of song composition. It’s a style that seems to mostly exist in the first half of the 1980s, and one I first noticed via early Icelandic punk bands like Purrkur Pillnikk. And I’m here for it. The rest of To Whom It May Consume continues in the same vein, recognizably rock but with a strong, consistent dose of the avant-garde. “Egnopssponge” is perhaps the wildest foray, leveraging backwards masking and tape effects to create something incredibly unusual.
You can check out 9353 on all the streaming services as well as at their Bandcamp page HERE.