“The world around us is such a shitshow and ‘Balance’ is an honest response to all the moronic absurdity that greed and control have trapped us all into.” Of Wolves’ frontman and guitarist Steve Sherwood preaches to the choir on the bands latest offering ‘Balance,’ an album culminating of hard to swallow messages engulfed in hard to listen vocals, resulting in an uncomfortable apocalyptic meteor shower of political punk and stoner sludge philosophies.
‘Mens Rea’ presents out of sync drums that emphasises the strenuous wailing, crawling over the top of dystopian guitars. Panicked riffs in the breakdown and schizophrenic vocals screaming the lyrics ‘they keep on feeding us shit, we keep on eating it,’ howls with a self-aware cry for help.
Sombre bass lines and solemnly deep vocals that twist and mutate into shrieks against religion on ‘Jesus Jihad’ forces you to face the message. Arabian harmonies inflict the aura of impending doom, lyrics of mass religious genocide rise above the punk angst like the united voices of a protest. Rage Against the Machine styled exasperation leeks its way into ‘Maker,’ the lyrics ‘we can destroy with what we create’ producing a social juxtaposition amongst the fuzz laden guitars and thick sludgey bass and drums.
‘Flavour of the Week’s 17 second aggressive lecture on ‘cookie cutter plastic bullshit’ opposes the title tracks slow start. ‘Balance’ introduces a relieving moment of respite with a slow reverb ridden bass line, dissonant guitars tranquillising the reflective change of pace. Distortion overwhelms the senses in one swift crushing breath, the latter half of the song offering itself up as the imperfect soundtrack to gauge your eyes out to and immediately regretting it afterwards.
‘Killing Spree’ displays the punk influence in Of Wolves, the tempo changes and the high hat coming into view on the off-beat gives this track a shred of positivity before ‘Inside’ utilises shock factor in the sheer mayhem of its sound. ‘Inside’ creates a wall of pain that makes anything difficult to pick out, the message lost within the murky waters and an obscured robotic speech hard to decipher.
An album initially in touch with stress, disillusionment, social injustice, anger, politics and religion, by the closing track ‘Die Die’ the lyrics vanish beneath the nihility of the vocals. ‘Balance’ requires a touch more vocal diversity to avoid the ears becoming numb, rejuvenating the album at every turn and creating that all important balance. (Pun intended.)
'Balance' is available now across all streaming platforms, and to stay up to date with touring dates and band information, visit the Of Wolves website here.
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