The second album from Danish metallers Swartzheim is an unrelenting blast of prime thrash, designed to rip your face off with its scintillating riffs, and heavy breakdowns. Typically old school, with blackened punk vocals, it’s akin to being slapped in the face repeatedly.
Short and sweet, as any good thrash should be, the title track sets its stall out and it doesn’t let up from there. The drums rattle ‘No-One To Blame’ into submission as the snaking riffs intertwine with the screamed vocals. Infused with more than an edge of punk, it’s production his an all bones shaking to the max sound. It’s certainly going to keep you awake through its short existence, and you will listen to it. It insists.
As the album progresses it seems to actually get heavier. By the time we are being ‘Discarded’, the speakers are rattling with icy rage. It’s a delightful wall of noise which borders on the avant-garde, with only the classic approach to thrash metal playing providing some genre solidity. You have to wonder how these musicians calm down after playing their songs. You can imagine collapsing in a heap is probably not their thing. Intensity of living at a thousand miles per second.
If face-ripping thrash is your thing then you can’t go far wrong with Wounds. It’s a brutal assault on the senses, where the band always know just how to work the sheer ferocity. There’s a moment during ‘Spitting Nails’ where you feel like they have your sense right on strings and let go just at that moment when the guitars spit out once again (yes, I know…Spitting…spit). It’s this unerring ability to keep you on tenterhooks throughout which makes the album such a satisfying, if exhausting experience.
