Wounds – ‘Die Young’

If ever an album title was appropriate, it is this one from this young Dublin hardcore quartet.  Just like the band’s previous EP, ‘Dead Dead Fucking Dead’, the album is somewhat of a cathartic experience, dealing as it does with the band’s recovery after vocalist Aidan Coogan almost died in a horrific accident when he fell from a fourth-balcony, resulting him being in a life-threatening coma for six weeks.  It is an incident which the band openly addresses on the album’s artwork, which shows Coogan’s naked torso, complete with the horrific scar which has left a permanent mark on the young guitarist’s body…

As with their explosive live shows, the resulting album is a testimony to a band hungry and determined to live life to the fullest, with an in-your-face punk’n’roll hardcore sound is honest and refreshing, and references everything from the classic garage sound of The Stooges through to the modern fuck-you attitude of the likes of Cancer Bats.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJuA2q7SfXk]

Opener ‘Killing Spree’ swaggers out of the speakers with a streetwise confidence that raises a defiant middle finger with its naïve maturity – a coupling which sums up the overall feel of the album:  a collection of angst-fuelled party-time anthems underpinned by a cognisance of the mortality which so nearly robbed them of their chance to make their mark on the musical landscape.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXZq75tDxC4]

The band are also not afraid to stray from the angry path, such as on the broodingly progressive ‘Choke’, but by and large stick to a highly functional formula which blends punky brashness with catchy melodies and a songwriting sensibility that defies their youth.

Track list:

1. Killing Spree
2. Trouble For The Sake Of It
3. Dead Dead Fucking Dead
4. No Future
5. Choke
6. Bombs
7. Desperate Times
8. The Pile
9. Binge
10. Dead Road

‘Die Young’ is out now on In At The Deep End.

Wounds have been confirmed to appear at the inaugural Slam Dunk Ireland festival in Dublin on May 29^th.

http://www.woundsband.com/http://www.iatde.com/