Foundational math rock / post-metal / jazz-core band Dazzling Killmen have announced they have re-formed and will be performing live again starting in September of 2025. Founding members, vocalist/guitarist Nick Sakes and drummer Blake Fleming will be playing together for the first time since disbanding 30 years ago. The two will be joined by bassist Evan Jagels and guitarist Ben Greenberg of the band Uniform.
Dazzling Killmen formed in the St. Louis area in 1990 and was composed of vocalist/guitarist Nick Sakes and jazz students – drummer Blake Fleming and bassist Darin Gray. The group issued four singles, a live cassette and two full-lengths before officially ending in 1995, with a majority of it released through the independent label SKiN GRAFT Records. Guitarist Tim Garrigan later joined the band after guesting on their “Medicine Me” single. The group would break up in the fall of 1995, prior to a planned tour of Japan with Jim O’Rourke, Melt-Banana, Space Streakings and Zeni Geva.
Sakes went on to play in the band Colossamite with future Deerhoof members Ed Rodriguez and John Dieterich. He is currently a member of the Minneapolis post-hardcore trio Upright Forms, who released their debut LP “Blurred Wires” last year. Fleming was the founding drummer of Laddio Bolocko and then The Mars Volta. He recently performed with Jagels in the band Shatter on Impact, as heard on SKiN GRAFT’s “Sounds To Make You Shudder!” Halloween compilation.
Taking influence from hardcore punk and jazz music, Dazzling Killmen has been noted by critics and peers as having influenced the genres that came to be known as math rock and post-metal. The band’s final album “Face of Collapse” was reissued in a deluxe, expanded edition in 2016 and again in 2022 in by SKiN GRAFT Records.
