Review Summary: Head Wound City...Enter at your own risk.
Head wound city….It is what it says, over and over for 7 straight songs in 10 minutes. If you’re looking for thrash, then look no further, because you’ve found it. Head Wound City is yet another great band that hails from the ranks of Three One G records. And like many of those bands they are a side project, but they should be a full time band with what they have to offer. Head Wound City is a five piece consisting of Jordan Blilie and Cody Votolato of the Blood Brothers, Justin Pearson and Gabe Serbian of The Locust, and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. If you’re a fan of anything that comes out of Three One G then you should already be jumping out of your chair.
This album is thrash, through and through from beginning to end. From its speedy chaotic guitar to its snarled lyrics, this album is a mind blower. You can’t truly take it all in unless you listen to this at full volume with headphones stuck deep in your ears to ensure bleeding.
The first song, “Radical Friends,” starts the album off with a high pitched 50 or so second guitar screech. This abruptly ends as all hell breaks loose and all other instruments join in for the chaos. As soon as it’s started the song is over in less than 60 seconds. But fear not, the next song is all that and a bag of chips. Yes I said bag of chips. The next song, “I’m a Taxidermist-I’ll Stuff Anything,” doesn’t wait to get right into the song like the previous. It throws you right into a chaos and noise as all instruments and vocals chime in together in perfect unison. The song slows down for about 5 seconds in the middle, but quickly picks up and finishes out strong in just 61 seconds. The next song is equally fast and loud. “Prick Class” starts just as strong as the previous minus the vocals right at the beginning. They snarl their way in about 5 seconds after both guitars, bass, and drum have been playing. The song slows down about halfway through but is still full of intense energy if that makes any sense. It finishes out with a hard chugging guitar. The 4th song “Street College,” is full of the same energy as all the previous, with strong instrumentation alternating with guitar screeches for 56 seconds. “New Soak for an Empty Pocket” starts out with a speedy instrumentation for about 20 or so seconds with lyrics bursting in. there’s a ten second only guitar part about halfway through then it finishes hard and loud. “Thrash Zoo.” This song got my fancy the second I heard it. As the title says, it really is a thrash zoo. Once things song starts you’ll be wishing it was longer than 53 seconds. It immediately breaks you in with hard fast instrumentation followed by yells and snarls. This song doesn’t let you down easy. It ends with the same ferocity as it started. The final and longest song is “Michael J. Fox Featuring Gnarls in Charge” finishing in a wopping 2minutes and 22 seconds. It is the longest but also the most bizarre it’s starts out strong and powerful but in the middle of the song there’s a break in the singing and it sounds like the scene from platoon where the Vietnamese villager is screaming uncontrollably. It’s crazy and its how the song finishes out; with hard fast instrumentation and Vietnamese gibberish.
The instrumentation on this album is very typical to what you’d expect to come out of Three One G. I’m not saying this as a bad thing, just to give an idea of what it sounds like. The guitar and bass are very fast and obviously thrash like, and there might even be a hint of punk instrumentation throughout the album as well, with loud drumming and screams, yelps, whelps, and snarls placed nice and neatly on top to tie it all up.
I’m not quite sure how to describe the lyrical content. Witty and clever might be the proper words, yet they are so inappropriate when used in this context
“I've got these radical friends broken lips, rainbow violence pink clouds on
a razor mountain, we're running through a city of head wounds, holding
hands night frowns in the city of head wounds, so take my head yeah?”
They’re definitely original, just indescribable.
I thought this CD was great and would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of anything from Three One G. And if you haven’t heard anything like this, I recommend you take a listen, it might just blow your brain away.
