Released less than a thick handful of weeks back, Everything and Nothing is one of year’s most voracious metal releases and in turn one of its most appetising. The new creative enmity from US outfit American Wrecking Company, the album is a ferocious tempest of sound bred across a broad spectrum of metal and expelled in a caustic roar individual to its creators. Everything from groove and death to nu and punk metal, with plenty more besides, is sucked up into the maelstrom and woven into one antagonistic furnace so easy to devour.
Since emerging in 2006, the Tacoma, Washington outfit has grown into a potent force and live presence across the West side of the US, sharing stages with bands such as Hatebreed, Fear Factory, Motorgrater, Act of Defiance, and Mushroomhead to great acclaim. Now they are ready to stir up broader attention with Everything and Nothing and it is hard to see the Pavement Entertainment supported release failing.
It launches at the listener with its title track, opening with an atmospheric coaxing as portentous as it is deceptive. The relative calm is stalked by apocalyptic threat, a danger from within which niggly riffs spring. Instantly, they carry an infectious lure; bait swiftly emulated in the sonic vines which wrap them before the track surges cantankerously across the senses. Vocalist TJ Cornelius stands across it all, his ire fuelled growls defiant as the guitars of Randy Bebich and Ben Reynard spin a trespass of sonic spite and nagging riffs around them, the latter persistence also matched by the groaning lines of Jeff Bloomfield’s bass. Still that catchy temptation infests song and ears in the ferociousness, teasing and tempting as the swings of drummer Dylan Hickey bite.
It is a great start more than matched by the groove netted From Grace, a slab of extreme virulent metal which gnaws on the senses and stirs the imagination. Like a mix of Cryptopsy and American Head Charge, the song grumbles and rumbles, every second a crotchety insurgent commanding attention as it savages the body to contagious effect though it is soon eclipsed in presence and harrying by the following I Won’t Listen. The guitars alone ensure irresistibility is bred for their grooves and sonic doggedness, their raw persuasion more than matched by the barbarous yet similarly enterprising rhythms as Cornelius raucously hollers to equal success. There is no escaping a bit of Slipknot and Fear Factory spicing within the charge but mere flavours in its infernal and seriously compelling assault.
Health for Wealth churns up the senses next with its own web of waspish grooves, surly dynamics, and choleric attitude; American Wrecking Company lacing it with a belligerence caked but open melodic dexterity which just lights up appetite and imagination while its successor, The Burning lives up to its name in touch and atmosphere. It feels like a sonic witch hunt, every note and syllable a combative infestation of psyche preying on ears and the world but entwined with a flirtation of grooves and enterprise which keeps the track on a constant evolution within its fractious pyre.
As Purge swings and taunts with its thick groove metal predation and Enemy soils the senses with its crabby enticements and instincts, band continues to stretch the album’s landscape of sound. Each song is maybe a nudge into new adventures rather than a big leap but one by one they openly reveal the expanse of the American Wrecking Company sound within the constant emotional and physical storm. Beautiful Lie is no different though it does not quite have the inventive attributes of other songs around it. Nevertheless its carnal breath and sonic tenacity leaves a want for little before Mad by Design arguably courts the widest collusion of styles and imagination within the album for its mercurial and persistently captivating feud.
The release is finished off by Day of Shame, a song which springs from a great melodic coaxing with middle-eastern promise into a rip tide of rapacious grooves splintered by scything beats. The throaty tension of the bass is icing on the toxic cake and a final track to confirm American Wrecking Company as one potent and exciting force.
Everything and Nothing is a beast of a proposition which ticks all the boxes and more yet you still feel there is so much more to come from the band such the potential equally loud within the creative ferocity. Happy days!
Everything and Nothing is out now on iTunes and other stores through Pavement Entertainment.
http://www.americanwreckingcompany.com/ https://www.facebook.com/americanwreckingcompany
Pete RingMaster 27/09/2017
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
The following Brother Man warmly grabs ears next like a collusion of Ruts and 12 Stone Toddler; its stalking groove and melodic coaxing a delicious mix soon embracing a reggae and metal induced tempest in turn proceeding to entangle all earlier aspects within its similarly and seriously catchy landscape. The further into its depths the more deranged twists show their voracious enticements as too mellower melodic but no less certifiable essences. Thorough captivation, it is more than matched in aberrant adventure by Dead Duck Dock. The song also follows those before it by making a relatively gentle melody woven entrance but also one soon showing argumentative discord in sound and intensity as its groove metal instincts rise. With hues of Slipknot and Society 1 to its growl, the song is a roar of creative irritability and intrigue never resting for long in one flavour or mood.
It is a thumping start matched in quality and irresistibility by the psychotically cultured Ha Ha. Sonic and rhythmic stabs court vocal shenanigans from the start with heftier beats soon adding their instable intent to the quickly compelling mix. Slithers of jazz and groove metal flirt with avant-garde psychosis as the track grows and writhes as well as anthemically incites in equal measure before allowing Nothing the opportunity to prey on an already submissive appetite and imagination for the release. The song saunters along with flirtatious and intimidating hues to the fore, Lepokorpi like the ringleader in its midst as his narrative challenges and highlights the issues theming the magnetic proposal.
I often wonder when a band stops or goes on a hiatus and then returns sometimes years later, how much is feeling like there is unfinished business, how much is working through issues and then members coming to a mutual kinship again, and how much is simply as a music fan being inspired by other’s great releases to go again or to show some how it should be done…any apply to AHC?
Can you tell us about the themes running through Tango Umbrella and certain songs?
Formed in 2011 but really finding its creative mojo once the current line-up was in place a couple or so years later, the Lincolnshire band soon sparked a hungry and swiftly growing fan base for their dramatically addictive sound which reached its first pinnacle in the Hands Sewn Together EP. Live too, the band has grown to be one of Britain’s prime incitements, sharing stages with the likes of American Head Charge, Kindred, ESO, Breed 77, Sworn Amongst, Maplerun, Evil Scarecrow, and Bloodshot Dawn amongst many along the way. Linking up with EP producer Matt Hyde (Machine Head, Trivium, Fightstar, As I Lay Dying and Slipknot) again for The Root Of Man, the quintet of brothers Drew (drums/ programming) and Peter ‘Mr Clone’ Moore (vocals), Conor (guitar) and Liam Richardson (guitar), and Mike Bradbury (bass) are seemingly poised to set their place at the head table of the UK and indeed European metal scene.
As good as it is the song is soon overshadowed by the bands outstanding latest single, 