Wolvestribe — The Early Years

This CDR is part of a ten-release set from Harsh Noise London, and comes in a DVD case; Wolvestribe is a name I’ve seen crop up, often accompanied by glowing praise, so I was interested to finally hear them. The Early Years didn’t set me alight, but perhaps the clue to that lies in the title. The album appears to compile their first ’studio’ recording and a live performance, both recorded in 2019.

Part I of The Early Years, ‘The Paths to the Formation of Symptoms,’ the ‘studio’ recordings, consists of nine tracks which, for better or worse, can be reasonably summarised as: squalling feedback over beds of blunt bass drones, with electronics, vocals, and flanging noise. Obviously not every track sounds exactly the same, but the range of colour, dynamics, and atmospheres is very limited - or focused: which word you choose rather depends on whether the sounds click with you. They didn’t really click with me. Perhaps the main issue really for me is the lack of obvious or discernible structure. There are none of the structural elements that characterise a lot of modern Power Electronics/Industrial: synth loops, beats, loops, etc - or at least if they are present, they are oversaturated to the point of illegibility. Thus the recordings fall into that category of Harsh Noise-esque PE, and to my ears are rather uninspired in terms of texture and attack. The whole album has a digital tone to it, in terms of sound sources, a slightly plastic feel. This isn’t analogue snobbery on my part, I just broadly prefer digital sounds to be hard and clear; here, they are saturated to the extent that they are blunted, not agitated. The vocals vary in presence from ‘buried in the mix’ to ‘very buried in the mix,’ and I feel they suffer for this; they are controlled and commanding, with little shrieking histrionics or bellowing aggression, and deserve a stronger presence. Part II, ‘How it is on this Bitch of an Earth,’ is essentially more of the same, but feels much more focussed and dynamic; whether this is due to it being a solo live performance (the work of Kshayaath, where ‘The Paths to the Formation of Symptoms’ was a duo of Kshayaath and Harry HTV Westwood) is unclear. However, its spitting noise, feedback, and bass rumble is captured more sympathetically, though with volume fluctuations which will upset your speakers. Whilst the tools used appear to be the same - though the vocals are now indeed screaming - here Wolvestribe do achieve the passages of overload and churn that Part I threatened.

As I suggested in my introduction, the title of The Early Years would indicate that these are old recordings being looked back on - possibly in an overt comparison with where Wolvestribe stand now. Certainly the difference between Part I (recorded January 2019) and Part II (recorded July 2019) would attest to a sharpening of skills, composition, and sound. The sounds on ‘The Paths to the Formation of Symptoms’ don’t grab my ear, though they do evoke a dirty sci-fi atmosphere; however, the lack of overt or sustained rhythms or motifs means that the listener is really left with just those sounds, and I only have so much room in my heart for that flanging/tight delay ‘jet’ sound. Saying that, there are sections where something gels, like the repeated synth stabs over drones and feedback during ‘Predator and Prey.’ The live ’How it is on this Bitch of an Earth’ is much more accomplished and engaging, it’s the earlier material revisited but with teeth and claws, bare and bloodied. I am now off to see where precisely Wolvestribe do stand right now.