Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Possibly the best album of 2004, 2 Sep 2005
So much has already been said about Wolf Eyes. They release far too many records, they sound like a modern-day Whitehouse, they are the kings of a new style of metal, they are a 'power electronics' band.
None of this does any real justice to the reality behind this act. Each member of the band works under a diverse selection of pseudonyms releasing an eclectic selection of sounds, ranging from the peculiar alien animal sounds of Guam River to the harrowing industrial mulch of Gate to Gate. Indeed, some of this music lacks quality control, but this is not the case on Burned Mind.
The album displays just the dark side of Wolf Eyes, and at first listen could just be described as an unholy noise. However, revisiting the album soon pays off, and you notice more layers to their sound. The strange analogue equipment they used to record this album produces some tracks that are much closer to the LAFMS sound of the 70s than any pointless noise band of today.
Clearly the stand out track is the gigantic "Stabbed in the Face", but all of the pieces hold some kind of reward. Don't be put off by the fact that they are classed as a noise band-pay close attention to a group that are closer to the punk ideals of the 70s than any commercial band today.
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14 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny Vomit, 13 Dec 2004
This material sounds like a bunch of tables eating your legs off and laughing in odd, gloopy voices, or broken glass turning up to meet your folks instead of your new girlfriend, naturally you all hit it off really well and put the new Wolfeyes album on and every one cries and sweats black vomit. Three years later you get married to Ms Brokenglass and never listen to this evil album ever again.
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7 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unremarkable but entertaining Noise lite, 31 Mar 2005
I was fairly suspicious of this band at first - especially as they come recommended by corporate indie halfwits Sonic Youth (who compared them to Mudhoney - talk about trying to kill them off before they've even started), they dress like early-90's grunge kids (those lumberjack shirts - immediate signifiers of working class authenticity!), and they've appeared on the front cover of The Wire (now it's turned into an indie paper).
So, what is it about Wolf Eyes that seperates them from the 1001 other Power Electronics acts out there? Well, for a start they avoid the sprawling track lengths beloved of, particularly, the Japanese Noise scene - their tracks are concise, clearly structured and last the duration of a pop song.
There is also a real variety of texture, from delicate digital flutterings to Noise Rock guitar solos to full-on wall-of-white-noise Industrial electronics. A strong sense of pulse underpins the entire album, whether from simple early-Swans/Godflesh-style riffs or the quasi-gabba 'beats' of 'Stabbed in the Face', and this makes it accessible even when the surface of the music is relatively chaotic in a free-improv kinda way.
In fact, you could say Wolf Eyes are what Power Electronics used to sound like before Japanese Noise came along. So, yes, they are retro (those 'Hamburger Lady'-style oscillating death drones and the inevitable distorted Whitehouse-ish vocals that every Noise act out there has used for decades), but their importance is down to the fact that they are marketing themselves to the indie/grunge set rather than the usual harsh noise/extreme metal crowd (by the way they dress, the people they associate with - close ties with the indie aristocracy - , appearances in magazines that would never normally cover this area of music etc.), and these are people who were probably not even aware that this style of music existed (or whose idea of experimental noise = indie bands like MBV or Big Black)
So, if you're an indie kid looking for a relatively painless way into Noise/experimental electronics, and you find the Japanese scene a bit on the harsh side, you could do worse than start here.
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