Klank

Klank is the nickname for New York City-based musician Daren Diolosa and the name of Diolosa's band. Diolosa formed Klank in 1995 after the dissolution of early 90s industrial metal band Circle of Dust, for whom Klank was a touring guitarist. Klank initially shared Circle of Dust's classification as industrial metal, routinely exhibiting Diolosa's characteristic gutteral growl, but later releases developed a more melodic and less industrial sound. Klank achieved a ranking on the Top 40 CMJ charts in 2000 with the song Blind.

Biography

Klank got his start as a touring guitarist for Circle of Dust, a notable ground-breaker in Christian industrial metal formed by Scott Albert in 1990. In 1994 Klank began to expand beyond Circle of Dust by releasing a handful of early solo tracks on compilations, playing live with fellow Christian industrial metal band sixfeedeep, and working with The Blamed on their album 21. It was through that experience that Klank met Brandon Ebel, president of Klank's future record label, Tooth & Nail Records. Also in 1994, Klank contributed vocals to the album Misguided by Argyle Park. Legal and financial troubles at Circle of Dust's record label caused the touring lineup of Circle of Dust to break up in 1995, at which point Klank began to work on his first solo record.

The nickname "Klank" comes from Daren Diolosa's love of heavy metal music. His former Circle of Dust band mates used to tell him, "You're so heavy metal, you klank".

In 1995, Klank signed with Tooth & Nail for the release of his first album, Still Suffering. He gained some notoriety at the time by signing the contract in his own blood, which he explained as a signifier that he took his contract and his band very seriously. Still Suffering featured production and programming by Scott Albert, and Buka of Argyle Park contributed guest lyrics and vocals. The music was very similar to the industrial metal and industrial rock stylings of Circle of Dust, with the first four songs on the album originally having been written for Circle of Dust. Klank cited death metal and groove metal bands Fear Factory and Machine Head as influences. The album's lyrics bluntly discussed issues such as child abuse, betrayal, and religious doubt. In addition, Diolosa stated at the time that he did not want Klank to be a Christian band, but simply a band that happened to have Christians in it. These facts caused a backlash among Christian fans and press, mirroring the same controversy that had enveloped Circle of Dust and Argyle Park in the preceding years. Klank had to regularly deal with slanderous rumours that circulated amongst his fan base and received "lots of flak" via email.

The single "Downside", released on Tooth & Nail's first Songs from the Penalty Box compilation, was released as a remix EP with several remixes done by Albert. Additionally, Klank recorded a cover of Stryper's "The Way" in 1996 for a tribute album released by Flying Tart Records. Klank performed at several Cornerstone Festivals during the mid- and late 1990s. The touring lineup at the time consisted of guitarists Mike Nicosia and Carl Weaver and drummer Eric Wilkins, formally of Christian rapcore group Every Day Life (EDL).

Sometime after Still Suffering, Klank was dropped from Tooth & Nail. Diolosa released the album Numb in 1999 through his own label SmokeDogg Productions. Numb was a mellower album than its predecessor, with Klank describing their new style as "Dancy Aggressive Dark Electronically Influenced Groove". The production of Scott Albert was notably absent on the album, as Albert was busy with his Angeldust project. Numb did quite well for an independent release, and it was eventually re-released by Progressive Arts Media in 2000 with an altered track listing. The video for the lone single off the album, "Blind", appeared on MuchMusic. Its lyrical content, also significantly mellower than those on Still Suffering, were described as "a passage from a journal, based on the realities of every day life and set to music".

Klank appeared as a guest on a couple of albums that same year. He contributed lead vocals to the song "Silhouette of Rage" on the resurrected Argyle Park's album Suspension of Disbelief, and also lent lead vocals to the song "So Alive" by 5'4", a side project of Klank's band which was named after the studio at which Klank had recorded his music.

After the release of Numb, Klank remained largely under the radar. Diolosa also relocated several times during the following years, and as a result, several of the more recent band members left, leaving just Klank himself and guitarist Danny Owsley. In May 2001, after moving to San Jose, California, Klank started recording demos for a new album that was to be titled Untimely Demise. Diolosa stated in July 2001 that the band had completed over 70 such demo songs and were in the process of selecting the ones that would appear on the third album. The album was never released, and after six years of false starts, Klank at last re-emerged on July 1, 2007 to play a live show at Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois. They concurrently released a new EP, titled In Memory Of ..., which collected a few rarities from Klank's earlier years as well as a couple of new songs.

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