REVIEW: Wolcott Falls – Life is a Death Sentence [2013]
Band: Wolcott Falls
Album: Life is a Death Sentence
Well this is it for you: after listening to a newly released EP entitled ”Life is a Death Sentence” your hope for salvation will be forever gone, for the Mathcore band Wolcott Falls have succesfully transferred every last bit of their negative emotions and experiences into this intensely heavy hitting album. Shortly after being exposed to the sinister and echoing sounds of the prelusive ”Inception”, the listener will be drawn in by the hard hitting bass drops that suddenly come forward, but will soon be met by a beast of an entirely different nature when ”Happy Retard Land” makes it to the stage. A sudden flurry of bone shattering blast beats and agitated, maddening screams of anger will impale your eardrums with extreme velocity, add inhuman bass drops and demonic, dissonant guitar tones to this formula and it’s not hard to understand why there is no escape from this blackened wall of sound. While this black cloud of heaviness and negativity seeps under your skin and into your soul, the following ”Empty” seizes the last fragments of your free will, the distorted and atmospherical tones and the demoralizing, nihilistic lyrics drag you into a one-way bottomless pit. On your way down, ”Walking to the Edge” greets you with spiteful vocals and chaotic technicality that only the most heavy Mathcore bands are able to produce; the slow, distorted grooving harmonizes these elements, making it somewhat comprehensible for your mortal ears. After all this blistering brutality even more punishment awaits the listener, the next stop in this abysmal hole is the self titled track, submitting you to a converged effort of all the previous components that can be found on ”Life is a Death Sentence”, the battering drums, spiteful screaming and the hollow, sub-human guitar tones all line up in attack formation to blast the remnants off your flesh from your bruised and broken bones. Upon this point in time you will have reached a place so dark and empty that only the clashing of metal and faint guitar distortions in the background can be heard, allowing you some time to process this sinister clusterfuck of face shredding technicality that is ”Life is a Death Sentence”, when you come to your senses and realize that you are still at a place that seems to be even beyond the deepest depths of hell, Wolcott Falls has one last bonus song for good measure. This last song focuses on sludgy grooves and has a slow but constant bass line amidst the rest of the destruction, with some of the angriest vocals that can be found on the EP; this is the final, punishing blow to your psyche before your death sentence in music form has been fully executed.
So there you have it: the concept that comes to mind when you listen to ”Life is a Death Sentence”. For some reason good Mathcore releases are a rare thing to come by lately, atleast I haven’t found a single good one yet this year, before I was fortunate enough to discover Wolcott Falls that is. I’m quite impressed by the sheer annihilating fury and explosive energy that Wolcott Falls accomplishes in their music, with a severe distorted and dark undertone that’s rarely been heard to this extent within the Mathcore genre, Wolcott Falls have created something truly dark and brutal and should not be missed by anyone who likes punishing, aggressive music in general. Treat yourself and everyone around you to this skin melting assault and check out ”Life is a Death Sentence”, you will not be disappointed!
Rating: 10/10
For fans of: Ion Dissonance, The_Network, Frontierer, The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Dysphoria, War From a Harlots Mouth
