Single Review – WolveXhys – “Poltergeist” [2014]

Artist: WolveXhys

“Poltergeist” – Single

There is a ghost that haunts you, roaming through your bones as if they were streets, coursing through your arteries and veins like hallways and corridors. It boils, singing your flesh from the inside out—a slow burn, the kind that lingers and intensifies with time, rather than fading into remission. This ghastly spectre is WolveXhys, the UK’s finest, most murderously heavy midlands deathcore act. After narrowly avoiding a disastrous break-up, this fearsome four-piece are back with a vengeance, ready to haunt the heavy music scene once more with their latest single, “Poltergeist.”

Lashing out with volatile, reckless aggression, “Poltergeist” wastes no time in making its presence known. Rather than a haunting, atmospheric build-up, WolveXhys go right for the throat, bombarding the listener with rambunctious, steamrolling percussion and intense, dark fretwork. While James Revitt and Mikey Lowe wage war on the listener’s ear-drums with hit after hit of dynamic drumming and lacerating shred, vocalist Rhys Whitehouse lets loose with a vocal performance that puts his past efforts to shame. “Poltergeist” is home to emotionally driving yet brilliantly diverse screams, shouts and bellows that range from shrill shrieks to ghastly growls—everything one would expect from a track by such a haunting name. Together with Shane McDermott’s bouncy, head-bob inducing bass guitar, these four midlands marauders have produced something different from the dynamic established on Servants of Penance and Purification. While Servants was technical and mathematically rigid, “Poltergeist” flows like miasma, fluid and emotionally fueled, rather than depending on oodles upon oodles of noodling, dense shred. The result is a sound that feels much more natural to WolveXhys, yet still retains the same fearsome heaviness the band has become known for and synonymous with. At the end of the day, once “Poltergeist” is set free to roam the world of sinister, brutal music, the world will know no peace from the haunting shadow it drowns its peers in.

For Fans Of: Whitechapel, Mouth of the Serpent, Heart of a Coward, Make Them Suffer

By: Connor Welsh