Culture
Photo courtesy of the band, collage by Jordan Sellergren
Prairie Pop
Boom Boom Pow Combining face-melting guitar riffs with sounds and rhythms heard during Meskwaki ceremonies, Rehtek’s new sound is a metal alloy.
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BY KEMBREW MCLEOD
bomination, the new album from Iowa metal outfit Rehtek, contains all the ingredients for a pummeling musical feast. Chunky guitar riffage— check. Gut-rumbling bass—check. Double-time kick drums at speed-metal velocities—check. Growling, howling vocals—double-check. “Our influences are vast,” frontman Colton Davenport said. “We listened to everything from thrash, death metal and nu metal, to core. For that reason, it’s always been hard to pinpoint our style. We incorporate so many different elements, which is what I’ve always loved about this band.” Guitarists Joe Youngbear and his brother Mythias Keahna conjure up an eclectic range of sounds, and the same can be said of Davenport’s vocals on Abomination. The album’s first song, “Archon,” begins with a rush of crushing 28 August 2022 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LVDSM5
instrumentation until his grindcore growls fill the track—while other songs, like “Prism,” feature a mix of screams and melodic singing with harmonized double-tracked vocals. Never a dull moment with this album. “I try not to be boring,” Youngbear told me. “When the music gets very dynamic, sometimes you’ve got to slow it down, and then sometimes you’ve got to give it some power. When I’m writing, I just go with what moves me.” Hailing from Tama, a small Iowa town with a population of 3,000, Rehtek has spent the last decade immersed in the Midwestern metal scene after getting their start playing local bars in the summer of 2011. “Me and four other kids came together that year in the hopes of creating something special,” Davenport said. “It started with a few acoustic songs and eventually transformed into the machine that is Rehtek.” Rehtek found a second home in Des Moines, gigging regularly in that city and throughout the rest of the region as they shared bills with Saliva, Devour the Day, American Head Charge, Dead Horse Trauma, Apathy Syndrome and other major metal acts. “We spent those first few years earning our stripes and making a name for ourselves,” Davenport said. “We took the local music scene by storm and made a lot of great friends along the way. Our experiences
Alpha Wolf w/ Bodysnatcher, Vatican, Rehtek, xBk, Des Moines, Sunday, Aug. 28 at 7 p.m., $18
with the metal scene have been pretty great for the most part, especially in Des Moines. We’ve gotten so much love and support there. It’s always been like a second home for us. So many good bands with so much positive energy.” Born in central Iowa, Davenport spent his earliest years moving around with his family before settling in Tama when he was about 8. “There’s not a whole lot to look at here,” Davenport said. “There’s a lot of cornfields around, as you can imagine with any small town in Iowa. We have a beef plant, a couple of different small businesses here and there. But it is home, and it’s the hometown of our tribe, the Meskwaki Nation. It was there I really found myself and developed into the man I am today.” Davenport first got into metal after discovering Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark At the Moon album, and then gravitated to heavier music like Metallica, Cradle of Filth, Slipknot, Korn and Cannibal Corpse. Davenport always had an interest in the arts, especially music, and once he found his bandmates, it was on. “Even as a child I knew I wanted to sing in a
