Old Wounds by Young Widows
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Tour Dates 09/09/08 Ear-X-Tacy Louisville, KY
10/14/08 TBA Detroit, Michigan 10/15/08 Sneaky Dee’s Toronto, ON 10/16/08 The Casbah Hamilton,ON 10/17/08 Mavericks Ottawa, Ontario 10/18/08 Club Lambi Montreal,QB 10/20/08 Truro TAAC Grounds Scotia 10/21/08 Pictou Youth Centre New Glasgow,a Scotia 10/22/08 POP EXPLOSION FEST @ Gus’ Pub Halifax,a Scotia 10/25/08 Church Boston,MA 10/26/08 Death By AudioBrooklyn,NY 10/27/08 Barbary Philadelphia,PA 10/28/08 Talking Head Baltimore,MD 10/29/08 Nara Sushi Richmond, VA 10/30/08 Snapshot Greenville,SC 10/31/08 THE FEST 7 Gainesville, FL 11/01/08 THE FEST 7 Gainesville,FL 11/02/08 The Hanger Athens,GA 11/03/08 Milestone Charolette, NC 11/04/08 Pilot Light Knoxville, TN 11/05/08 Drunken Unic Atlanta, GA 11/06/08 Bottletree Birmingham, AL 11/07/08 Lola’s Fort Worth, Texas 11/08/08 FUN FUN FUN FEST!!! Austin, Texas 11/09/08 Prophet Bar Dallas, Texas 11/10/08 The Conservatory Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 11/11/08 The Bluebird St. Louis, Missouri 11/13/08 Cahoots Louisville, Kentucky 11/14/08 TBA Milwaukee, Minnesota 11/15/08 Beat Kitchen Chicago, Illinois 11/16/08TBA Indianapolis, Indiana |
Post by Soup
Steve Sindoni left Louisville, KY’s Breather Resist in 2005. Despite the loss of their singer, Breather Resist went on with Evan Patterson, their guitarist, taking the mic, and they changed their name to Young Widows. Well, Young Widows do still carry on some of what Breather Resist was doing. But instead of noisy post-Hoover math rock and post-hardcore, what we have here is something that takes more influence from things like Fugazi and The Jesus Lizard, still exploring the territory of post-hardcore – and in fact, they’re working with Converge guitarst, Kurt Ballou as a producer – but in a completely different way.
What Evan Patterson brings to the table vocally is a slightly more raw approach that brings to mind The Stooges as much as it brings to mind any hardcore band. There’s more untrained singing on this album than trained screaming, and it sounds awesome. The opening bass riff to “Took a Turn” sets this album up as the closest thing to a straight-up rock record you’ll find anymore, without ever having to define what that even means. “Old Skin” is based on a repetitive guitar line that swirls and lacerates everything within earshot. “The Guitar” explores minimalist territory, with most of the song being based around a repetitive bass line with equally repetitive vocals, with a noodling guitar building up over it. “21st Century Invention” takes an awesome bassline and bludgeons you in the head with repetition with guitars cutting through the muck. “Delay Your Pressure” is about as close to straight-up punk rock as you’ll find here. Gnarly guitar noise and shouted vocals, over a drum and bass hardcore assault. Of course, it breaks down at the end into a reverb-soaked swamp of rhythmic noise. “Feeler” kind of reminds me of Fugazi’s “Nice New Outfit,” except with the bass cranked and the guitar set to “screech.” This track rules. And the last track, “Swamped and Agitated” is a rock song with heavy bass and drums and the guitar providing awesome riffs to accent any given moment of it. I particularly like the part where the guitars sound kind of like air raid sirens. Near the middle, there’s a cool drum and bass breakdown.
Overall, this goes above and beyond the typical post-hardcore album. You can hear a little Joy Division, a little Fugazi, a little Breather Resist, and a little Jesus Lizard here, but it all comes together into a pretty cohesive whole. These guys definitely stand on their own.
They’ve got a tour coming up. They’ll be appearing at The Fest 7 in Gainesville, and they’re touring the US and Canada. More info can be found at the band’s official website (which, honestly, is a link to a bio, a blog, and a MySpace page, so I’m not gonna bother linking to all of that stuff).