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Included in Byron Coley/Thurston Moore's Bull Tongue Top 80 of 2006. 77. NIGHT WOUNDS - Allergic to Heat LP (Woodsist) Nice, L.A.-based noise-spasmo trio, recorded live a the practice space and doing a cover of VOM's "Electrocute Your Cock" in everything but name! Semi-harsh guitar-stun dynamics and some no-waved based simple ass rhythm charts.REVIEWSEast Coast weirdo rock label Corleone gets a West Coast blood transfusion, but the results sound just as Providence damaged as anything actually raised and bred in Rhode Island. Best known around these parts as the label that brought us the rubber encased, supremely damaged metallic onslaught that was Throne Of Blood (and rest assured we have been hassling the label constantly for a repress), Corleone offer up this latest blast of off kilter propulsive noise rock drone jam groove that fits pretty cozily amidst their like minded but opposite coasted noisemaking brethren.
Night Wounds have all the right ingredients, angular scrape and skree guitar, chaotic but strangely funky drums, blown out bass, strangled almost new wave vocals, even a saxophone that manages to skronk and kick ass and not sound at all cheesy (which is quite a feat, apologies to Gerry Rafferty). The cool thing about Night Wounds is they almost sound like they could be some forward thinking no wave/new wave band from back in the day. A killer blend of Crispy Ambulance, James White And The Contortions (due mostly to the sax and the damaged jazz vibe), Pylon, and a handful of others whose names escape us right now. All tangled up with bursts of nineties style mathy complexity, stretched out hypnotic grooves, and squalls of noisy chaos.
Imagine if Factory Records had continued on, it's not difficult to imagine that Night Wounds might have embodied "The Factory Sound" circa 2007. A weirdly catchy, super groovy, damaged and demented, gloom infused tribal workout, alternatingly woozy and weird, freaky and funky, as likely to send the dancefloor into a herky jerky frenzy as it is to make the pit explode in a sloppy sweaty tangle of limbs.- Aquarius RecordsHere's an LP I'm so late on I think it's gone plum out of print...but the CD version was put out at least fairly recently on Corleone so at least it's still kinda topical. You probably know by now so I'll just swing through the formalities - Night Wounds is an L.A. based unit who were the trio of Patrick, Ryan and Toby when "Allergic to Heat" was laid down but they could've expanded/contracted since then, I ain't knowing. They're also pretty busy, with a one-sided 12" also due on Corleano in addition to splits in varying formats with like-minded neophytes Soft Shoulder and Knitwitch, 10lec6, AIDS Wolf, Twin Crystals and Shearing Pinx. So plenty of other chances to catch em on wax if you missed this one indeed.
I will preface anything about to say with this - I don't really feel a lot of this new new noise rock clutter that's typically spawned from California or Providence or Montreal or anywhere for that matter (well Russia and possibly Zimbabwe aside). So I was predisposed to be indifferent (or hostile) to Night Wounds before I even played them. Now I won't say they flipped me on my head, but there are great moves all over this record, even enough for a miser like myself to feel rattling his bowels...if not to step out onto the dance floor just yet. Dig opener "Allergic to Heat", introduced by a clarion sax call and a steelwork stomp that digs into my shins and elevates my cullions in a way I've not yet known. There's only one line out of all the sneering vocals I can actually make out and it's "I wish I knew" and every time it rolls around it's just like fuckin' yeah, you know? I get the same feeling whenever "Ex Best Friend" crumples into mega-distorted Naked City type flip outs before whipping back into considerably fucked post-punk slobber, then grinding to a near-halt (must be all those DJ Screw influences I hear about) and ripping out a supremely styrafoam sax chomp from way deep inside the group's own intestines. Less thrilling to me is the rather straight-forward, anthemic "Nineteen" with its repeated chorale of "nineteen/act your age" and the angular, grinding riffage of "Caving In". Both to me seem lesser than what the group is capable of, but it's no raw deal since the LP closes off with three excellent numbers. "Hex Appeal" and "Damage" are both rampant bloodfeasts driven by drumming that thuds and resonates like a well-oiled/programmed machine, but no robot could handle the limbic workout doled out by the former, augmented by zoned out horn shrieks. The militant drumroll march of "Damage" keeps things pretty rigid throughout, allowing only for a shaking guitar scrawl unsolo to pull it through to the homestretch. And it's quite a stretch. At 8 minutes, "X.O.T." represents almost a third of the album's running time (a perfectly succint 28 minutes), and it brings together just about every one of Night Wounds' disparate influences to showcase them under one roof. Starting out with another sax solo amidst a rubble of scorched guitar noise and sloshed drums (not at all unlike a pared down version of those Borbetomagus and Voice Crack tete-a-tetes), the track slowly grinds into a skewed noise/funk rhythm, intermittently exploding with spurts of free improv/fire music wailings and dark, almost sludge metal menace. I'm wheezing over here.
Listening to Night Wounds, one can glean a whole lotta influences packed into their sweet n' sassy approach - This Heat, Faust, Black Flag, Dead C., D.N.A., Mr. Bungle circa "Disco Volante", the Residents, Iggy and the Stooges, Fugazi, Big Black, Liquorball, Butthole Surfers...you could go for days. The trick (and what makes em so likeable) is that they never sound exactly like any one of em, instead melding all parts together in a sweaty gob of gunk that makes for a pretty sweet ride, even if there are a few bumps along the way. You might say it should be no other way. If this doesn't sound like your bag, give it a shot anyway. I was a non-believer and came away quite impressed. If it does sound like your bag and you haven't heard it yet, you'll be in dirty, stinky heaven.- Outer Space GamelanIt is nothin short of a goddamn pleasure to encounter a record from a Los Angeles band what's got it's limbs 'n lungs attuned to avant styled scraping's. The Thin Wrist label ably provides as much w/every release by in house trucker's like Open City or Curtains & the Not Not Fun collective have a veritable Spahn Ranch of sonic assassins loose on the landscape as well. And as if that weren't enough, here comes this long player from Night Wounds bringin it's own brand of aural slaughter to the barnyard. Released on the Woodsist label, 'Allergic To Heat' is a solid block of dunt that fuses the distant Kraut thump of nascent Savage Republic w/the No Wave distillation of (early) Silver Abuse & End Result that's capable of peelin both skin 'n paint, either of which is dandy by me in these frigid times (I could stand to lose a couple pounds & an apt. makeover wouldn't hurt). Not that I'm insinuatin Night Wounds studied the moves of any of them bands. Hell, for all I know, they might've woke up one mornin, heard something by Sightings or Blues Control, thought they was Pop bands & figured it weren't a bad racket to be in. Some people's got strange notions. All's I know is that they's armed w/both squall 'n thunder & hats off to Woodsist from providin the lightning to ignite this record like a Mars bonfire. Nice screen printin on the jacket too. Let's see...a NYC label makin itself available for an LA band...I do believe we's all FINALLY startin to 'just get along'. Amen for that!- SiltblogOne more from Woodsist is the Night Wounds LP called Allergic to Heat. The excellent cover art is not unlike Puff's, but the music of Night Wounds is quite a bit different. They're an L.A. band with a young/wild aggro-pound guitar-slash approach that reminds me a little of Chicago's Coughs, but Night Wounds extend the form significantly with complex and patient structures, and a strange harmonic vocabulary that has a real melancholic heft. On Side 2 it really opens up, most notably during the long last cut "X.O.T.", in which the guitar scorches the desolate earth, the percussion becomes the babelogue among the displaced masses, and then a galloping groove fearlessly emerges to gather them all up and take them to a new home, flames licking at their heels right up until they slam the door shut behind them. Seriously, it's a pretty good LP.....- Blastitude
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