Review Summary: Half-listenable things
A few general maxims will get you quite far in life. Empty vessels make the most noise, the squeaky wheel gets attention, and men preoccupied with labels like “Alpha” are invariably the most insecure about their masculinity.
So where does that leave Melbourne’s
Alpha Wolf?
The conceit is thus:
Alpha Wolf’s latest album
Half Living Things, with its cover art-callback to
Limp Bizkit’s genre defining
Significant Other and bouncy lead single “Bring Back The Noise” promises to build on the band’s already established love of all things nü-adjacent, ‘99 vintage. So preoccupied are the band with reminding everyone just how got-dang
tough they are, however, that the syncopated rhythms and fixation on pitch-shifted guitar ends up as little more than transparent legerdemain; the pristine modern metalcore production job facile window-dressing for the monotonous chug-fest and lyrical penury that await within.
To be clear: it didn’t have to be this way. Like
A Quiet Place to Die and
Fault before them,
Half Living Things’ title track, as well as the aforementioned “Bring Back The Noise” demonstrate deft usufruct of nü-metal’s enduring appeal mixed with Mohs Scale-busting hardcore riffs. “Whenever You’re Ready” and “Ambivalence” even successfully appropriate the brooding atmosphere of early millennial antiphons such as
Linkin Park’s “Crawling” — if one looks past the way the band’s attempt to expand their employ of clean vocals ends up resembling an impression of the late Chester Bennington with a head cold, coming to you live from an iron lung.
Alpha Wolf obviously have both the means and ability to write a decent song when they want to. Rather, it’s the gimcrack attempts at overfilling their proverbial Pythagorean cup with as many breakdowns, minor seconds and importunations to “break stuff” as they can that ultimately rob the band of any of Y2K’s jouissance or abreaction — as well as any suspension of disbelief that these five dorky white blokes have any sense of jocularity about, or capability of making good on, their half-heartedly comminatory promises.
Picking apart the rest of the album to identify the preponderance of peccadillos that ultimately undermine
Alpha Wolf’s attempt at edifice is from here a thankless and ultimately fatuous task. “Sucks 2 Suck” is the album’s biggest missed opportunity, squandering an attempt to salvage a confused song by appropriating some of
Ice-T’s legitimacy with a feature that functions less like an integrated musical contribution and more like a novelty birthday message purchased off Cameo slotted into the space before a breakdown. Elsewhere, “Double Edged Demise”’s incessant ‘Tick…Tock…Tick…Tock’ chant, “Mangkeyō”’s desultory paean to self loathing and “Pretty Boy”’s absolutely mortifying (seriously, go read it) mommy-domme fetish meme lyricism deliver a super-concentrated dose of cringe above NIOSH annual safe exposure limits in little more than three minutes apiece. The remaining tracks are stodgy attempts to draw blood from the by-this-point-desiccated equine that is
Sworn In’s
The Death Card — of these, “Haunter” is the clear winner; the others become increasingly appealing candidates for scotomisation for both audience and artist.
It’s clear what happened with
Half Living Things. Four years and one world altering pandemic since their last full-length,
Alpha Wolf needed an excuse to get back on the road. It’s just a shame the band’s sense of hunger and vim are spread thinner than marmite across a runtime that quickly finds itself in need of more substantial sustenance. Less than half these songs will probably make it onto the band’s live setlist — it’s even less likely many of those will stay there for any length of time.
Where acts such as
The Acacia Strain and
Emmure, two obvious shadows looming large over Alpha Wolf’s discography, eventually overcame to varying degrees their position at the butt of a joke about tepid songwriting and facile breakdowns via years of consistent supererogation,
Alpha Wolf seem to flounder at the prospect of performing the same feat, and bristle at the thought of taking notes on how to do it. The result is an album that provides a perfectly functional, if forgettable soundtrack to leg day if you’re already amped — but one which alone will fail to hype up even the most susceptive listener, as much as it fails to provide the outlets for catharsis and levity it’s greatest influences did.
Ironically, it’s the appeal to the nostalgia of
Significant Other that brings to mind an anecdote that crystallises the most incisive diagnosis of where
Half Living Things goes wrong — the story of Fred Durst, gazing out over the crowd at Woodstock ‘99, realising with growing horror the band that he had created as a pastiche of the machismo and posturing of jock culture had become a haven for the very people he sought to parody.
Unfortunately, it seems that
Alpha Wolf too missed the point of Durst’s original intent; and in the process of attempting to immure their music against any insinuation they mightn’t be as heavy as the next hardcore band, miss the opportunity to fully make good on any of what they promise on the tin.
