At present I am in a very bad mood. This, truth be told, is no rare thing. Also at present, my ailing Creative Zen is having one of its frequent fits of pique where it locks down and continues to play one album over and over and over. The album that it has chosen as a soundtrack to my recent wrassles with the black dog is ‘The Future Is Wide Open’ by Walls. I am not sure whether my technology is trying to empathise, or whether it simply wishes to witness me go on a grand old killing spree. Either way, it is an apt choice and has at least allowed me to better get to know the band’s last hurrah while my vinyl copy is locked up in storage somewhere.
It is not a happy album. This should come as no surprise if you’re even half familiar with the band’s previous output. Every single note, roar and rending noise is somehow filled with hate, anger, bitterness and despair. ‘Just Complain’ opens things up like a scalpel blade through gangrenous flesh, a sharp blast of focused hostility and barbed wire dissonance. This frantic pace is pitted against the feverish lurches and drain-circling spirals of tracks like ‘It Never Rolls Right Off’ or ‘A Piece Of Rope’, both of which recall Swans, Unsane or even Toadliquor as much as the troubled, troubling hardcore of Cold Sweat, Rorschach and Born Against.
The whole thing thunders. It seethes and bubbles and grinds its teeth. It has a stubborn way with it and will not relent. And while it is very good indeed, it makes you wonder just how a band this angry and this dysfunctional could put even three 12″s and a couple of 7″s together before collapsing inward in a blubbering, shit-streaked heap. Frankly, the mind boggles.
Ta-ta then, Walls. I hesitate to say it was nice while it lasted, but the mess you’ve left behind will at least be appreciated.
