Wristmeetrazor pack alluring darkness in a sometimes ugly, sometimes captivating sheen on their debut full-length, the Jan. 18 Prosthetic Records release Misery Never Forgets.
The tracks feel reminiscent of a classic screamo sound while ultimately veering off their own wild directions, taking that push that made true screamo originally so noteworthy even further. We’ve left the realm of questions about interpersonal relationships, practical progress forward in life and beyond and fallen into pure existential dread.
Ultimately, the band sound brutally caustic like few others, taking extremes of straightforward but noisy hardcore and relentlessly chaotic screamo and blending them to a somehow tasty pulp.
They do not play a gimmick, instead crafting an effective mixture that relays a palette of inspiration in place of a short term aim to grab onto some golden ring that represents a standard for heavy music. In the chaotic hurricane of snarling sound the band churn out, there’s an overwhelming sense that these are real people involved relaying their real drives, and in that element to their presentation, Wristmeetrazor avoid a shallow grave that they could have found themselves in had they restricted themselves to an “aesthetic.” Neither the music nor the themes packed into their new record feel nearly entirely for shock value, and therefore while they certainly won’t stick with every listener, they’re perfectly poised to be just the right band for some.
Aside from the confrontation of the demons that hide in the shadows, the band push their style of music ahead with a relentless ambition matching their emotional one. Wristmeetrazor sound like just as they wish to unearth whatever we’ve just been avoiding in the dust covered corners of our minds, they want to rattle open the cage of whatever musical ideas we’ve been allowing to languish for too long.
There’s power in the deranged snarling vocal and guitar, and Wristmeetrazor know this, allowing for an invigorating feeling to permeate their work. They’re not monotone, falling into slow but deeply emotionally rocking interludes just as they thrash around violently in their more direct tracks, and these elements to Misery Never Forgets help to drive home the idea that they really know what they’re doing.
Perhaps, it turns out, the most power lies not in running but in diving right in.
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