United We Stand is a new three-track wall noise release from Leeds UK’s Meanwood Beck. Each track runs dead on the seven-minute mark, and each nicely blends thick ‘n’ murky noise craft with rewarding details/ touches.

Meanwood Beck seemingly takes its name from a stream in West Yorkshire, England, which flows southwards through Adel, Meanwood and Sheepscar into the River Aire in central Leeds. It’s one of the projects of Peter Beswick (Utterblight, Carrion, Aspects & Fragments, D¥$FUNCTion, and Gold). This release/ digital EP is Meanwood Beck first release, and it can be found here. Cover artwork-wise we get a photo of  Leeds graffiti sprayed street- with the releases title as part of the picture.

We open with “Pleasure Doom”. Here find a blend of blunt & murky droning and constant electro-trickling descent. The former sounds like the looped sound of an ageing car engine, while the latter is like the rushing of water. The elements nicely get slowly but surely mixed into each other, and by the end of the track one's mind is really trying to define where one texture ends & the other begins, also as we progress I’m sure I can make out some brief field recording elements- but this may be my imagination.

Next is “Whatever, Man”. Here get a mix of rolling hiss, distant road drone, and slightly choppy sub-tones. As the track progresses I’m making out this distant sort of eerier knocking/ lightly echoed tones- this really pulled me deeper & deeper into the track to fully figure out its exact shape/ possible origin.

Finally, we have the title track- this finds a distant chugging ‘n’ churning industrial underbelly, topped with a blend of mid-ranged juddering & rushing static. As the track progresses both elements seem to get more urgent/ pressing, and you keep thinking one element will suddenly envelop the other- but they never do.

All in all, I enjoyed the murky & grim city-based vibe of the walls featured on United We Stand. At points, I’m getting the feeling of denser/ set material from Howard Stelzer, but there are certainly way more bleaker undercurrents here.