If you took the title of their newest release at face value, and you probably should, then Calgary-based grind quintet WAKE would have you believe that we are in some serious trouble here. As we continually destroy this one and only world we inhabit on so many levels the tomorrows that we are sowing truly will be worthless, if they are to even exist at all. Rest assured though that when it’s time for the potentially inevitable big send off for humanity in general that WAKE has delivered the type of album that will play nicely as a soundtrack to violent explosions and mass carnage that are bound to ensue.
Calling WAKE a grind band is a statement based somewhere in that grey area that exists between accurate and not exactly. Grindcore certainly forms the foundation of their musical home, but they’ve gone out of their way to furnish it in trappings as varied as crust, black metal, post metal, and sludge. Blast beats and grind aesthetics will often give way on this album to varied styles of atmospherics, conjuring visions of a menagerie of influences spread all across the metal landscape. For example, the track “Wretched Tongues” starts with a million machine gun blasts only to uncover a thundering and plodding sludge-like dirge in the rubble before re-annihilating everything in its path. “Better Living Through Apathy” starts with a gallop that turns into an all-out sprint before getting absorbed into a psychedelic post-metal darkness that continues onto follow-up “Low” before everything locks down under an icy veil of black metal visions.
Even with these detours so adroitly placed and deftly played, WAKE never stray too far from the path of brutality and pure aggression. They never drift away from what makes them so compelling and addictive – their ability to simply explode through walls with sheer force. This is a band with a frighteningly realistic and downright apocalyptic vision of the future and an album’s worth of blistering material to back it up. The sonic violence captured here is a jailbreak of styles where the rendezvous point is way across the tracks in the roughest part of town. Yet despite the mixed bag of genres thrown together in the grindcore blender, it’s an album that never wavers in grabbing your full attention.
Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow is scheduled to hit the streets on February 26 via a collective of labels. In the meantime you can experience the vicious album opener “Burn Well” at the WAKE Bandcamp page.
