| CD REVIEW Woe |
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Band: Woe Philadelphia-based band Woe originally started in 2007 as a solo-project by multi-instrumentalist Chris Grigg. Inspired by both the classics and the underground scene, he recorded a first demo, Absinthe Invocation: Five Spells Against God, but because of frustrations with the current scene (too fake, too image-driven), he didn’t really want to ‘grow’ too much. Slowly on, Woe, however, underwent some evolutions with a positive result: the musical progression and the recruitment of ‘real’ members to turn Woe into a band, able to perform live, instead of just acting like another side-project. 2007 saw the release of the first full length studio album, still created as a solo-project, called A Spell For The Death Of Man, released on CD by Stronghold Records. Many reviews described it as ‘the shape of USBM to come’. With some members from different related Philadelphian bands, Chris Grigg and his Woe-project were able to perform live on stage, which did increase the ‘popularity’ (damn, what a f*ckin’ definition) of Woe. The second full length, Quietly, Undramatically, has been recorded by Woe as a full-member band, among whom members of, for example, Woods Of Ypres (the Madden-brothers, both involved with The Green Evening Requiem too) and Rumpelstiltskin Grinder. The album picks up where A Spell For The Death Of Man left, yet with a positively matured angle (thanks to the evolution into a full line-up combo). The main tempo is fast, the sound is freezing and the production is underground-oriented yet not (too) primitive either. The whole gets performed with a subtle Thrash-attitude, but it cannot be compared to any Thrash-creation – attitude does not necessarily mean sounding like, of course. The album isn’t the most varying release this year, yet a few times it includes ‘other’ elements: some acoustic pieces, additional punkish harmony chants (the title track, or “Hatred Is Our Heart”) or grindingly blasting explosions (“Without Logic”, which does have, in contradiction to what I mentioned above, a certain thrashing approach). Final track, “Hatred Is Our Heart”, by the way, is the most Nordic-sounding one on the album, and it’s a tastefully poisoned present to end this intense album with. 82/100 Ivan Tibos. |
