Released on: 22nd February 2019
King Apathy save you the bother of waiting for this albums’ defining riffs by launching firmly while standing in the (dead) zone. Within record time the mighty Germanic balladeers isolate your attention from the surrounding world and bring focus to their intense but compelling arguments for nurturing human nature through craftily engineered melodies and adroit rhythms.
Wounds is a fresh slice of neo-political melancholy articulated in strapping avant-garde metal that takes influence from the Gothic tones of yesteryear. King Apathy, formerly Thränenkind, certainly deliver on their self proclaimed genre defining Post Metal genre label. And this album is further evidence of the bands’ defiantly charismatic personality. As it serves to fully assert the group as a troubled but strikingly intelligent act that mixes tonal poverty with conceptual brilliance.
However saying that this album is a victim of austerity would be a juxtaposition of its true merit as a detailed compositional experience. As by manipulating noise King Apathy have cast shades of gray into the light fantastic. Creating a prism for the ideologies of the group where each flat breaks its composition into something equally as bright and beautiful as the last.
Which ironically highlights the only criticism you can really have with a solid album like Wounds. In that its impenetrable structure rarely gives way to more visceral parts. As through its uncouth conveyance the delicacies of these tracks are gracefully executed with killer precision. Which again is a startling juxtaposition compared to how impassioned this album sounds; When its moments of reprieve are defined they sound ultimately premeditated and consciously designed.
Yet there is nothing mechanical or ritual about this album. An album that is expressed from the hearts of those torn from the illusion of humankind. And an album that is a truer account of the nature of Millennial contention than any academic study can provide.
8/10
