A while back Metal Postcard Records out of Hong Kong sent me a huge shipment of singles including this one from Sydney based Wow. No longer active, Wow was a duo of Matt Crib and Bree Carter. I wasn’t sure what the Australian connection was to the label until reading that founder Sean Hocking used to live in Sydney and must have come across these guys there in the couple of years they were opening for Crystal Castles over there. The Mid 2000’s were dominated by Girl Talk, Dan Deacon and Crystal Castles where it was the rule to further destroy unnatural synth sounds in a way that Shitgaze was simultaneously doing with Times New Viking and Psychedelic Horseshit. It’s dirty reach extended to the bedroom of Wow and Matt was destroying a few of his own rhythms for them to try their hand at an updated Gang of Four bleak sound.
A”-Side’s Common Species" nails a repetitive, choppy riff together like some kind of ultra modern post punk architecture and this is the video game soundtrack to the construction. Heavy handed hard waves crash against this natural bassline with layered vocals from peppy kids and jittery guitars. Chopped syllables from a unison force of Devo-ettes. They come together into hard line, military grade formations from the sounds of the future that failed to hit the first time. A cold post punk sound like Prinzhorn Dance School if they were the product of a military academy. Serious and built out of solid cinder blocks and massive 4x4’s, it’s aware of it’s own shortcomings and doesn’t look like anything else.
B-Side’s “When You're Dead" has a heavy, metallic stomping repetition with a new order chorus effect guitar line. Like contemporaries Bloc Party they had a bare stripped down approach to their pop. The guitars are solid again and just as spotty and dedicated. A weighty chop beat lines up off into the horizon and they work on instilling some kind of humanity through repetition. It sounds counterintuitive, and this side has something to do with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sloppy brutish snarl as much as glitch. It devolves as it goes, the vocal turning into another synth sound in their arsenal that they have no problem tossing right into the fire.
Check out Metal Postcard's page for places in the US to pick this up, or try contacting Sean directly for an international shipping quote.
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