Conflicts throwing their own Benefest this Saturday

Kansas City’s Conflicts has a new album they’d like to release. The record, entitled The North Slope, is in the can, but the metal quintet is short of funds to put it out. Conflicts isn’t taking to Kickstarter to raise the necessary cash, though. Instead, Conflicts will be putting on a seven-band benefit show at KC Autoworx this Saturday, August 27, in order to get the money needed.

“The album has already been fully recorded. We recorded with a really awesome producer named Joshua Barber,” says lead singer Nigel Williams. “The benefit show will help pay off the remaining balance on the record, as well as getting album art, getting the record pressed, and all that other fun stuff.”

The album is the second full-length from Conflicts, which released a self-titled LP in September 2011, as well as last year’s Cewer Dweller EP. The North Slope, Williams explains, is “faster, more aggressive, more passionate and by far our best music we have put out yet.”

It’s more than just a show this Saturday, however. In addition to the bands playing, Williams promises that the day is going to be a fun one all around: “We will be grilling, skateboarding, and just hanging out all day before the show.”

Fun is a standard thing for Conflicts – if you watch them perform, the audience goes absolutely berserk in the pit. The band’s sound straddles the line between metal and hardcore, but Williams isn’t too keen on pigeonholing Conflicts’ sound.

“I have always said, and always will say, that I think there are too many genres in music. I think genres just limit a band,” he says by way of explanation. “We have often described ourselves as ‘Do whatever the fuck we wantcore’ to avoid having to pick a side. I think we are more metal but with hardcore influences. We have all grown up listening to hardcore and metal, and our music reflects that.”

The rest of the bands on the bill also walk that line, and Williams chose the various acts because they offer what he considers unique characteristics, be it the pop-punk of newer band Tread Lightly, the tech metal of recent Topeka-to-KC transplants Sedlec Ossuary, or the stoner doom youth of Bummer.

“This is not just your average metal show,” Williams concludes. “It’s essentially a showcase of Kansas City talent that a lot of people may not have realized was there.”

If all goes well with Saturday’s show, Conflicts looks to have The North Slope done and out by this winter.

You can find more information on Conflicts’ Benefest on Saturday, August 27, here.