Last year, I had the pleasure to have one of the blog's staff members recommend me an album with a chicken on its cover. It was a very commanding and distinctive chicken and the album which it prefaced was just that: commanding and distinctive. This was OK WAIT's WELL, a muscular album that straddled the lines between post-rock and post-metal in a very engaging way. It also ended up in our Top 50 Albums of the Year and with good reason, that reason being that it's very good. Now, Hamburg's OK WAIT are back with "Damage", the second single from their upcoming release SIGNAL which is way, way heavier than anything on WELL and also features a horse on the cover. Progress! Anyway, head on down to check this absolute beast of a noisy track and we'll chat a bit once you recover.
Holy smokes! I definitely didn't notice that this track was six and a half minutes long because it has such a powerfully compact energy to it. The first two thirds of the track are what I've come to expect from OK WAIT, namely really well made, somber, and tight post-metal. The riffs are brilliant and the percussion even more so, lending everything a metallic punch that's a delight to hear. But where the hell did the unbridled energies on the second third of the track come from? Blazing blast-beats, unfurling feedback, and a whole heap of added aggression turns the closing passages of "Damage" into a blistering onslaught that works hauntingly well with the images of industrial decay that accompany it.
Overall, this track ends with me needing to catch my breath, ambushed and pulverized by the extra heaviness that OK WAIT have infused into this track. Make sure you head on over to their Bandcamp to pre-order the full album; it's every bit as convincing as single.