Wolf Eyes
Always Wrong


Released 2009 on Hospital
Reviewed by U Are A Ghost, 09/04/2010ce


Alright, so you are finally bored with your typical “indie” stuff and you want the real deal, after all what happened after Lou reed hit us big time with his “controversial” Metal Machine Music? (guess what? He returned recently with some More Metal Machine Music, this time with his Trio)

Noise isn’t dead; of course it isn’t dead, with such fervent practitioners like Carlos Giffoni or the great Hair Police, hell! The Fuck Buttons recently gave us a good lesson of how noise could be done in a more “accessible” way and people like Oneohtrix Point Never showed us that Noise is starting to take an even more experimental route, embracing the cosmic sounds of 70s recordings by Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock or Julien Priester.

But Noise is not a cold motherfucker just willing to hit you, Noise is more than that, coming from diverse sources, like U.S.A. free jazz, European live improvisation scene, British industrial scene, U.S.A. ´s No Generation (Velvet Underground, early Yoko Ono, The Godz, etc.) and the like.

Wolf Eyes came out of nowhere a couple of years ago; their debut record (on a semi-major label), Burned Mind, was issued on Sub Pop, the once sacred label for the now, long forgotten “grunge”, trying to branch into other stuff, started signing acts like Comets On Fire, the Shins, Death Cab For Cutie and Wolf Eyes, some Noise specialists viewed the record as one of the most unique recordings on a major label, as no other Noise record had achieve such a wide level of exposure, the band even went on an ill fated spot on the Lollapalooza tour, and the Sub Pop follow up Human Animal was even better, as the band seemed so hungry for trying new and even more amazing sounds (just remember their awesome collaboration with no other than Anthony Braxton himself! On the classic noise record Black Vomit) .

Coming from Detroit, it isn’t hard to give a quick reference to Wolf Eyes backgrounds, furious 60s rock from bands like the MC5 or The Stooges, Detroit Techno scene spawned by Juan Atkins or Derrick May, these are the facts, a kind of furious type of music, filtered thru really abnormal wires and circuits, Wolf Eyes may act as the ultimate Noise-dub band.

Now, don’t raise your eyebrows in disbelief with my words, Wolf Eyes may be very well described as a bunch of noise kids getting crazy on Lee Perry legendary Ark Studios in Jamaica, as the band performs with live instruments like guitars, bass and percussions, mixing them with distorted vocals, delayed percussion and hyper low bass, to achieve their singular sound.

Always Wrong is their latest sonic offering and what an amazing evolution this band display with each recording, as their sound increases in drama and density, Wolf Eyes may be very well known as the Alfred Hitchcock of Noise, by given tension a new sense within the Noise scene, the band perfectly applies silence when is needed, leaving listeners wandering what is going to hit them next, you know the monster is there on the darkness but you don’t know exactly in which second it is going to jump at us.

A band fiercely decided to continue evolving and learning new tricks to amazes us on their epic clashes of sound, now once again far from major labels and compromised with no one but themselves.


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