By Ollie Stygall
You can sit out in the sun feeling the heat warm your face, listening to birds sing and maybe in the distance you hear some kids playing or someone mowing their lawn. You take a sip of a nice cold beer and life feels tranquil, you feel at peace and genuinely happy for a brief, fleeting moment. Then Wrongens come along to shatter your illusions, smash your dreams and hold up the futility and disgust of everyday life right in your face with an ugly, brutal assault of vicious noise.
Wrongens come from Exeter and uphold a tradition of excellent punk rock from the city going back many years centred around the legendary Cavern Club, including Annalise, Shoe, Kids Near Water and Crooked Little Sons (to name a few).
Wrongens don’t make for an easy listening experience, and they clearly don’t intend for it to be. Listing Gallows, Slaves and IDLES amongst their influences they spit out a vitriolic, snarling 5 tracks in a mere 9 minutes that bridge the gap between hardcore and metalcore as they dance deftly between raging, speed fuelled blasts of grinding punk and slower breakdowns in time honoured hardcore tradition. That said, for all their bile and aggression there is always an insistent, nagging sense of melody that keeps the songs front and centre in your attention, particularly in the guitar work of Sam Lightfoot and Jordan Morris who weave around each other and throw in some real earworm twists that compliment Ollie Goodchild’s raw, guttural vocals. This is never more evident than on the spiralling interplay that takes over the midsection of ‘Light’ and offers some…ahem…light to the shade. Wrongens are the soundtrack to being body slammed in the pit with a shit eating grin on your face.
Wrongens are young, they are full of piss and vinegar and they have a long future ahead of them. This EP, their first, is only the start of what they’re going to be able to achieve.
They sound like a band that, if they can harness the power of this EP live, will blow up a stage and make it hard for any band that follows them. If they sound this good now I can’t wait to hear how they sound on their next few releases. As an old man still in thrall to punk rock Wrongens manage to give me hope for the future of the genre as well as putting the fear of shit up me!
You must be logged in to post a comment.