Wolf Eyes - Burned Mind (9 tracks) +Album Reviews

Authentic Industrial Music

Crypt | Arkham | 11/05/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This could also be titled "A fresh approach to old school Industrial", but I don't feel the term "old school" is relevent.

The use of tapes, guitar noise, samples, crackling electronics, screaming synth noises and factory-machine rhythms brings to mind SPK, Throbbing Gristle, NON, Whitehouse, and even the great Merzbow. It's not "music" in a traditional way, although there are pleanty of mechanical rhythms buried underneath the noise. This is sonic Da Da. It's more likely to piss off the average listener or frighten them away, than it is to be played at the average pseudo gothic club. This isn't EBM or whatever else that gets the "Industrial" label slapped on it in other words. I wouldn't exactly call it Noise-Rock in the vein of early Swans either. This is more like what Throbbing Gristle was up to in the late 70's. Oh by the way, I discovered this band purely by accident. I was browsing through the "experimental" section (which contains everything from Krautrock to Industrial) at a record store and I just happened to dig the cover, a wonderfully macabre pen and ink drawing, and bought the album without ever having heard of the band before. I'm very pleased that I discoverd Wolf Eyes."

You are slowly dying...

Alex Whelan | San Jose, CA | 08/19/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"...and this is all you can hear.

Now, to get this out of the way, this is unpleasant music. The band knows this. We as listeners know this. The point of the music is not to be consumer-friendly. You think DOA-era Throbbing Gristle was thinking about mass appeal? Fuggettaboutit.

No, this is a manifesto. This is a sonic map to your darkest fears. This might not frighten you (it should, though), but it should at least make you rethink a few things.

Music by definition is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Some people think that Frequency LSD by Masonna is just as musical as Beethoven. I'm not sure if I completely agree, but the point is music can be anything aural. So, everyone who has beef with this album being "pure noise" or "talentless" or "unlistenable" are missing the point. It's SUPPOSED to be UNLISTENABLE. Whitehouse makes noise because it's noise, not because it requires talent or anything. So does Wolf Eyes.

All the complaints in the world about this CD are all basically about the same concept: it's not music. I don't really know what to tell you all. Your definition of music is different than ours. We accept this not just as music, but more importantly as ART. This does take talent, it does take effort. Trust me (I'm a noise composer myself), this takes plenty of time. It might sound sloppy, and it might sound talentless. But some of the most revolutionary, influential bands were the same way.

Mudhoney (who I believe were among the first true grungers) sounded like absolute garbage when Superfuzz Bigmuff first came out. But it wasn't about the music. It was the MESSAGE: the combination of garage punk and the DIY attitude of the first wave of punk had not been done before to that extent. They (along with Green River and a few others) created a revolution. But their musicianship? Awful. But by that time, it didn't matter.

I realize I may be rambling a bit, but you have to understand where I'm coming from. I try to compose music like this. And I'm nowhere near as good (yes, GOOD) as these guys. It takes effort that you might not immediately see. But it's there.

So, enough bashing. Let's take this for what it really is: a statement. A piece of art. Whether you think it's music or not, it deserves to be noteworthy. That's all that really matters."

What is Dada?

Chris | Austin, TX | 06/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"According to its proponents, Dada was not art -- it was "anti-art". For everything that art stood for, Dada was to represent the opposite. Where art was concerned with aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. If art were to have at least an implicit or latent message, Dada strove to have no meaning -- interpretation of Dada is dependent entirely on the viewer. If art is to appeal to sensibilities, Dada is to offend. It is perhaps then ironic that Dada became an influential movement in modern art. Dada became a commentary on order and the carnage they believed it reaped. Through this rejection of traditional culture and aesthetics they hoped to destroy traditional culture and aesthetics.

According to Tristan Tzara, "God and my toothbrush are Dada, and New Yorkers can be Dada too, if they are not already." A reviewer from the American Art News stated that "The Dada philosophy is the sickest, most paralyzing and most destructive thing that has ever originated from the brain of man." Art historians have described Dada as being "in reaction to what many of the artists saw as nothing more than an insane spectacle of collective homicide." Years later, Dada artists described the movement as "a phenomenon bursting forth in the midst of the post-war economic and moral crisis, a savior, a monster, which would lay waste to everything in its path. [It was] a systematic work of destruction and demoralization...In the end it became nothing but an act of sacrilege." Dada was "a revolt against a world that was capable of unspeakable horrors." Reason and logic had led people into the horrors of war; the only route to salvation was to reject logic and embrace anarchy and the irrational.

wikipedia."

To each their own...

waht | usa | 07/15/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"To simply say "oh this is just noise, no notes, no real structure" as a complaint...just shows how narrow your world is, and "this is bad noise" is more a compliment than a complaint as I am sure the members would see. I have heard enough to know that this is a fairly easy to digest recording. And don't think this is DaDa or some form of industrial sound, it simply is not. These members have spent decades destroying sound to static which almost makes this project of Wolf Eyes an almost pop band by their own standards. This is sound and "music" at least by track dissection, and yes, their are folks that can and do actually enjoy the sounds made here. It is a sound and a mood, a moment, and just plain chance...and this is what I appreciate - you take risk is just letting it happen. "Music" is usually 2 things...the bands that rehash the same crap with a different name, or people who actually test and try themselves to see what new thing they can find. This will be the future. If you don't care for what Wolf Eyes has found here, thats fine but at least respect the fact that these guys are trying to find a unique moment. Embrace the challenge and maybe you'll come away from it a bigger person? support Hanson Records."

Powerful Industrial from a Young Band

G. Laur | 12/10/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I am very new to Wolf Eyes, having only heard "Burned Mind," but I have to say that I am highly enthusiastic about their music. How is it that a musical group creating such powerful soundscapes of ominous noise has until now escaped me, a long-time enthusiast of all things industrial and noisy?

Wolf Eyes has taken the sound of hardcore punk, violently stripped it down to the bare essentials of throat-wrenching vocals and noisy guitar, and fused it with abrasive electronic soundscapes reminiscent of Faust and Throbbing Gristle and roaring tape noise similar to the work of Merzbow and Whitehouse. What is striking is how utterly EFFECTIVE this amalgamation of sounds is. Forget the accusations that this kind of music is "talentless" and "unmusical," Wolf Eyes are scratching and pounding their way towards a sonic apocalypse, and there are moments of exalted musical chaos here that I have not heard since I first bought Einsturzende Neubauten records. This is a powerful, scary release that is industrial in the original sense, for once, rather than the contemporary sense that tries to pass off a processed drumbeat, some gloomy synths, and dour lyrics as "industrial."

I must, however, dock this a star. As brilliantly constructed as this stuff is, there are few sounds here that can't be traced to past innovators, and sometimes things sound a little too familiar, almost imitative. Half a star off for that. The other half star off is due to the brevity of the disc - time seems to fly REALLY fast when this is playing, and when I listen to pure industrial noise, I want to get swamped in it and linger for a while. But hey, I whole-heartedly recommend this anyways - it's authentic, frightening, uncompromising, and very cool, and it's the kind of thing that could make an excellent entryway for those uninitiated with noise."

Search - Wolf Eyes :: Burned Mind

CD Details

Synopsis

Similar CDs

Similarly Requested CDs

Member CD Reviews

CD Reviews