Wetnurse - Invisible City Review
by Mark Hensch
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New York City's Wetnurse delivers a tour de force album with their sophomore effort Invisible City. The record is that rare effort mixing complexity and innovation with catchiness and obvious passion.
Over the course of its 48 minutes, Invisible City bustles with urgent progression. The disc feels like a rush hour traffic jam, with genres of all stripes speeding towards the same spot and colliding in a remarkable stasis in the middle. As for how it sounds, try combining the otherworldly rhythms of Voivod with the technical melodicism of latter-era Death and the paranoid aggression of Converge. Add in the mind-altering textures of Quicksand and the alternative-universe arena rock of Cave In and one is almost there.
The key word there is almost. Invisible City borders on the indescribable, its songs fitting in with no particular genre or culture within the musical landscape. Despite this, Invisible City never once veers off the course of catchiness. Each song is frenetic, heavy, and infinitely memorable. The end result is that a CD which can be appreciated as an entire album or on the basis of each individual song. The general atmosphere is kaleidoscopic, with listeners never having any clue where a given track will take them next.
"Conversations with the Moon," for example, glides in on wings of moody acoustica before kicking out a vicious hardcore brawler replete with sparkling guitar freakouts and wicked shredding. Album high point "Not Your Choice," meanwhile, stabs eardrums with infectious melodies buried in raw groove riffs. "Growing Pain" hovers between moody atmospherics, furious shredding, and a lush wall-of-sound climax. "Life at Stake" continues this trend with creeping fuzz soon exploding into a mix of hypnotic rhythms and triumphant riffing. The whole thing collapses into an extended clean guitar jam, ending things on a rustic note that is hardly expected. "Sacred Peel" crushes eardrums with Smashing Pumpkins psychedelia turned heavy metal and awe-inspiring technicality. After this, "Your Last Flower" chugs with Southern-tinged grooves and melodic shredding. All this aggression chills out circa "Missing Lion Returns," a track which starts blistering but ends with soothing noise tempered with delicate female crooning. All these tracks lead into the epic "Slow your Spell, Miss Hell," a winding masterpiece which unfolds into a grand examination of heavy music's various forms.
As hard as it is pigeonholing Invisible City, the fact remains that this is a wicked album from a very promising band. Wetnurse have created something fresh and interesting with this CD, and from the sound of things the future will be even brighter. Get this when you can.
Wetnurse's Invisible City
1. Conversations with the Moon
2. Not your Choice
3. Growing Pain
4. Life at Stake
5. Sacred Peel
6. Your Last Flower
7. Missing Lion Returns
8. Slow your Spell, Miss Hell
CD Info and Links
Wetnurse - Invisible City Rating:10.00
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