Sounding like the softer spoken cousin of Coilguns, though with the same rapacious dissonance, and employing the snarling provocation of a Bishop and the turbulent fire of The Locust strapped to the abrasive beauty of The Jesus Lizard, UK noise rock disruptors Them Wolves make their debut with an EP which is as furious as it is compelling and as sonically destructive as it is caustically seductive. Five tracks of corrosive distrust and clangorous temptation, the German For Duke EP is a delicious cacophonous brawl created with a craft and imagination only those of unique synaptic disorientation could conjure.
Hailing from Birmingham, the trio of Greg Coates, Stuart-Lee Tovey, and Noel Campbell is another impressive encounter to emerge from a rising Midlands scene, a band carving out a startling individual presence within this wind of blossoming enterprise and now preparing to recruit more passions from prospective loyal fans with their first release as it sends twisted aural shapes into a waiting wider national awareness. The band has earned a strong reputation from their live storms which have seen them intimidate stages with the likes of Fucked Up, Trash Talk, Dope Body, Blacklisters, and Bats, but German For Duke as it manipulates and blasts the senses feels like the key to much more.
As soon as opening stings of guitar sonics accompanied by coarse riffs, subsequently joined by even more caustic vocals, brings The Wild Girl of Champagne into view senses and thoughts are ripped from their slumber. The track soon becomes a scything swipe of noise as rhythms tips the balance of intimidation into the favour of predation and the guitars cut through the air with acidic Errol Flynn like sabre swishes of noise. It is a magnetic tempest which draws out the passions with ease and ignites them further as it turns in on itself with a relatively peaceful aside, a kind of lull where bitchy riffs from both sets of stringed conspirators offer a Stinking Lizaveta captivation spiked by the Fall like rhythm and vocal punctuation. Raising to another crescendo it is a riveting blaze of punishing discord and frantic fascination, a potent blaze to mark the introduction of the band and EP that is unafraid to test and complicate things further with a sludgy breath of invention before one final riot of sound.
The following Folding a Napkin on Terminal Island, is of the same breeding seed, the song another crusading squall of synapse mining rhythmic provocation within a scorching shower of sonic industry crafted into an evocative narrative, an aural tale that scrapes and sears its leaden hues deeply into senses and thoughts whilst teasing the passions with enticing venomous grooves. The track is a brief yet contagiously busy piece of confrontation, guitars and rhythms enslaving with their respective serpentine seduction and muscular animosity.
Let’s You and Him Fight takes its time to impose its lethal toxins, beckoning in the listener at first with a Gang Of Four like weave before expanding it into a melodically washed maze of invention and rhythmic chastisement led by the again ear abrasing vocals. Complete with a dip of scuzz and vitriol, the track pushes release and band into another street rife with distinct and unique essences set to a canvas of brain frying intensity. Cutting and emotive, though always under the rein of concussive intent, the song leaves exhaustion and bliss in its place, as well as a lingering and disorientated rapture for the alignment of infection fuelled grooves and an almost funky underbelly to a raptorial stalking, the bass its most carnivorous sounding yet.
Once You’re More Like a Young Mary Bell staggers into the ear with staccato beats and pestilential riffing, the battle becomes even more deliciously intensive, the band fusing air and heat into a swamp of noise that eats away at the listener and chews their brain with a bestial suffocation of ruinous intent. A doom/sludge like intensity takes the track into its menacing finale though still sparking with schizophrenic imagination and a ravenous noise fuelled craft.
Final track Wolf Song preys on fears and the wounds already induced by the EP, guitars stalking with sonic saliva dripping from every note expelled and vocals a raucous chafing stealing any free emotion and breath for their own inciting ends. With the bass finding another depth to its gnarled throat, the track is a towering sinister embrace of mordancy wrapped in the beauty of noise. It is a triumphant end to an equally impressive release, the Distorted Tapes / It’s Just Noise released German For Duke the kind of raw animal you do not want to meet at night and Them Wolves its pack leader with no wish to leave you safe or unblemished. It is the entrance of a masterful sonic annoyance which will only get better and more stunning.
9/10
RingMaster 10/08/2013
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