A wise woman once said, “the world’s a mess, it’s in my kiss.” It’s true; the sensual world is capricious and cruel and is going to still be around, fucking people over, long after you’re gone. What to do? Give up? Cry? Pray? Good luck. There’s no future; the past, to be quite honest, wasn’t anything to write home about. And yet here we still are, getting shoved into every locker available while the world flexes its stupid muscles and laughs. What could you possibly play on your Walkman as you wipe the snot from your face and wait for daylight? Head Wound City is here for you, wiping away your tears, telling you that, no, it’s not going to be OK… But it’ll be over soon.
Formed in 2005, Head Wound City is made up of members of The Locust, The Blood Brothers and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They all come from diverse backgrounds, steeped in metal (thrash and grind in particular), goth and every permutation of hardcore and punk imaginable. They are loathe to get into direct musical comparisons, knowing that any band used as a frame of reference here will be written on their tombstones (not by you, you’re great, by the other writers). Yes, the shadow of The Birthday Party looms over all of them, if Nick Cave was raised on powerviolence and a Classics Illustrated version of the Old Testament. Or maybe it’s the sound of powerviolence-conceived brats who were listening to Mutiny in Heaven when they should have been reading their scriptures. If Head Wound City don’t exactly worship a god or wraith they at least suspect that we’re going to get—or are already getting—what we deserve. Point is: God is either dead or seriously pissy, and Head Wound City was raised by inattentive bats, and it shows/works.
“I started to wonder if humans are inherently violent, or if violence is the inevitable result of the systems of power we put in place.” That’s Jordan Blilie on the name of the new album, A New Wave of Violence, taken from the Raymond Pettibon zine. It’s a name that well-represents the band’s dominant theology and place within a musical history. Written over a week’s time in January 2015 and produced by Ross Robinson (Sepultura, Slipknot, At the Drive-In), their stated goal was, “More depth, less irony. Eliminate irony altogether. Grow up and get rid of it.” Head Wound City is forever dead serious and wildly absurd, trying to make sense of the awful whole, always with an eye towards the fire of love, a world aflame and its/their inevitable end. It’s not a hopeful album, exactly, and Head Wound City is not a hopeful band, exactly. Losing—as the tradition of rock music/life in general demands—is a given. But the band and work are a full-blooded rejection of prayer, giving up, and any other version of dying on one’s knees. Or, if it’s not as serious as all that, they’re at least committed to giving the world some trouble before they go. [Zachary Lipez]
