Customer Reviews

Dread

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I like Wolf Eyes. I think Dread is a great record. I completely understand though where someone might be put off by them. And that's fine as music like this either takes time to digest or will never become disgested.

That said, to call Wolf Eyes "anti-music" is an overstatement. These guys, and Black Dice, actually have form and rhythm to their music, unlike, say, Merzbow or a number of other obscure avant-garde acts (my roommate freshman year of college downloaded a record of a guy who recorded refrigerator hums and not much else).

Still, all the songs on Dread are incredibly harsh, disturbing, obnoxious, difficult, yet alluring and superb all the same. For music like this, you really have to be in the mood or have had lots of exposure to atonal noise.

When I first heard The Boredoms (Pop Tatari I believe), I did not "get" it, but eventually it clicked. Wolf Eyes is the same way. But if you never come to "get" it, I completely understand.

Wolf Eyes, Dread (Bulb, 2002)

Oh, HELL yeah. The mighty Wolfies deliver four tracks of rhythmic noise, distorted vocals (distorted like Sutcliffe Jugend, not distorted like death metal), and all around crunchy goodness. Two long tracks (Desert of Glue, Wretched Hog and Half Animal, Half Insane) are bookended by two short tracks (Burn Your House Down and Let the Smoke Rise). The four songs are all so different in execution it's hard to point to one and say "this is best," but really, "Burn Your House Down" is so frenetic and noisy that everything afterwards kind of sounds like an anticlimax. (An excellent anticlimax, mind you). Are Wolf Eyes the best thing that ever came out of Michigan? It's entirely possible. ****

Honestly it's not that I don't get noise...I've been in "avante garde" music projects over the years. I'm pretty familiar with noise in all its genres and am a fan of everyone from Mezbow to NON to Aube etc... I just honestly can't wrap my head around why these dudes are so popular. Some of the tracks are great, others are just as mediocre as your little brothers first foray into guitar feedback. They really don't cover any new territory that hasn't already been covered. It's good, just not that good. As a point of reference I think the Mezbow/P'Orridge (A Perfect Pain) split was exceptional.

if instead of worrying about the occupation of international financing operations by vampires, lee scratch perry was in fact a werewolf employed part-time at a failing k-mart in a michigan suburb where heavy industry had left sometime in the 1970's and went home to a converted garage apartment with cheap wood paneling with black-light posters depicting mountains and trees illuminated by electrical storms while he manufactured songs on thrift-store electronic devices held together by duct tape he would have very likely produced this album, possibly the crowning glory of wolf eyes' career thus far. like quaaludes triumphing over a ritalin overdose: both discontinuous (fragmented bleeping plus eruptions) yet pleasingly monotonous (thudding, banging, pounding), this is a decomissioned war chariot of an overloaded station wagon with too many miles on it reconverted for the bearing of the heaviest of dread in initimable fashion.

In response/(to duh hataz): the difference between the negative response to wolf eyes' music and the positive is kinda just perspective ears. if anyone thinks this music is 'brutal' or 'pretentious' or any other flagerantly misused adjective in the hata canon of hate, you should listen to more 'music' and hate the musicology and assumptions patched to the ideology of your perceived avant community(or kill all mortal members of throbbing gristle and whitehouse[which you can then speculate the artistic intregity of]. & so my six year old sister thinks Sonic Youth make 'bad noise' but someday she'll hopefully hear something prettier. hopefully u will 2.

(he breaks a bottle of coca cola on a timpani and dances with his fine,muscular legs)

reading the two forgoing one-star reviews of "dread", or any number of responses to wolf eyes' live sets posted on sy's online discussion boards, is evidence that for every "wannabe hipster punk" [sic] cringing and nodding along in insincerity, there is at least one "buckle-headed fascist," to use byron coley's term, waiting in the wings. knee-jerk gainsaying like this can make me forget the fawning fanboys (and girls) showing up at animal collective and lightning bolt shows with increasingly embarassing questions for the performers, and give me a little hope that noise music may continue to thrive in semi-obscurity for the moment.

with regards to the complaints raised in these reviews, wolf eyes need no justification for those who have been moved by them. visitors to the salon jeered at Manet's Olympia and audience members smashed seats at the premiere of La Régle du jeu. the reviewers here would do well to keep this in mind.

this band is a vortex of blips and buzzes. although at first i was skeptic as to another black dice esque prog noise band, i was actually impressed. remenicent of early skinny puppy, maybe even nine inch nails somewhat. it's not dancey but it's got a beat. it's definately dark, but not too cheezy. a more bleak look into the mind of a derranged group of individuals who happen to be good at taking apart their analog toys and looping it with a tape machine. go on brother.

anybody whose talking about that wolf eyes as like art is stupid as a stick. the wolf eyes are just a bunch of kids who make the perfect soundtrack for riding a skate board on PCP. the reason why you dont get it is because you think too much and because you dont actually listen to music.

I too witnessed this horrible group (will not call them a band)as an opening act for Sonic Youth. After sitting through an equally bad "group" called -Hair Police- I said to my friend "thank god thats over with there is no way that this next band can be as bad as the last one..." Hair police consisted of a guy w/ a sampler which spewed out noise and feedback, a drummer who banged, out of time, on a piece of sheet metal, and a dude who beat on his guitar without every using any sort of fingering on the neck - just strummed on open out of tune strings. Later he just threw his guitar around on the ground and screamed nonsense. We were laughing out loud! Others actually applauded!

Wolf Eyes: 3 guys with samplers - each sampler had various noise and racket. they each pressed play on their units and then headbanged. One of the three picked up a guitar and made some random noise on it. repeat for 30min. OUCH! The waitress started walking around to everyone and asking if they wanted foam earplugs. My friend and I were near tears. I have been to close to 250 shows over the years and seen many terrible opening acts, but there two bands were by far the worst!

Sonic Youth eventually made it to the stage and were great as usual - I don't know how they did it, but they almost made the show worth my time.

If anyone claims that these two bands are listenable or are talented, that person would be a wannabe hipster punk. I realize that Thurston himself on the subpop website says that the latest Wolf Eyes album is the best SP release since "Touch me I'm Sick" (Mudhoney - later covered by Sonic Y). I don't know where he's coming from. I know they are into freedom and free form art and no rules - whatever. I agree with Erik - You should know the rules before you break them. If you are going to see Sonic on this leg of the tour - show up late!

First of all this doesn't even warrant a single star but I had to rate it in order to post my review.

Let me start by saying if this "noise" is supposed to be controversial then please read on because I am going to write a controversial review......complete with strong opinions, because I have the right just as Wolf Eyes has the right to produce this......"art-of-noise" bullsh*t. "Noise rock", avant garde/experimental or whatever title you noise-lovers choose to give it, I do not understand! I assure you it is not my lack of intelligence or my lack comprehension....nore is it a lack of artistic understanding, for I am infact an artist. Perhaps it is simply taste which, of course, is a relative thing. I don't think thats it though.

My question; What is Art? Obviously this is not an easy question to answer. Let me make an example. Back in the 70's a man walked out on the street's of New York City and fired a gun over and over again into the air claiming it was art. Is it? Let's then take this concept a step further and say this same man killed someone, on purpose (even with the consent of the person being killed), could he call this art? Was it art when Vincent Van gogh cut his ear off and sent it to his lover? What I am getting to is; Does art have Boundaries? If not, for you advocates of "no Boundaries" then how do you define music? How do you define art? How do you define happiness or anything what-so-ever???? For example I can not say this band is monkey because it doesn't make any sense. I must use words, that have definitions, that are comprehensive in order to make my statement intelligible.

With this said it's obvious things need boundaries in order to define them. So as far as music goes, could I walk out on stage and begin breaking a bunch of glass bottles and call it music? I'm sure some of you are thinking "of course, you are expressing yourself through sound and you can call it what you want. Besides it's obvious you are expressing the chaos, insanity and fragmentation of life". If this is what you are thinking it's pretentious bullsh*t.

Lets take another example such as Jackson Pollock. His art is abstract and hard to recognize but atleast it still resembles art. When asked what his work means pollock replied with a question "do you look for profound meaning when looking at a field of flowers...no.....nore do I look for meaning after making love to my wife. His art is chaotic but it still has talent and a methode behind it, as picasso's art as Sonic Youth's music as Godspeed you Black Emperor's music as Rachel's as avant garde jazz. You must understand music, develope an ear for it and learn to play an instrument before you can take it apart and put it back together in a different form and call it music. If I have a shirt and sow a piece of meat to it, it is still a shirt.

This level of chaos doesn't last this long. This is why Sonic youth, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Theloneious Monk, Tortoise and many other great avant garde experimental artist don't create just a wall of noise. It slips in and out of it which makes much more sense to the sane individual, unless you are insane and if you are only then will you understand this noise. I'm assuming most of you are not insane therefore you are simply not being honest. Insanity is no joke so please for the sake of the truly insane, don't pretend you are.

I am a lover of all kinds of music and this band, who I had the misfortune of seeing live (opened for Sonic Youth) is an abomination of music!!!!! It is anti-music as is there predecessor's Black Dice! When my car back-fires i do not call it music therefore one should not call this music!

I have a request for someone who likes this band to write a intelligent counterpoint to this review. I am curious what you see in it for the sake of an interesting discussion.

eRiK joHAnSeN