Wake – Misery Rites

Band – Wake

Album – Misery Rites

Country of Origin – USA

Genre – Deathgrind

Release Date – February 23rd, 2018

Label – Translation Loss Records

Author – Hayduke X

Some days, you are just in that mood. You know the one I mean. The mood where the next person to look at you wrong is going to have some broken bones. May I suggest, instead of committing assault and ending up incarcerated, that you throw on some headphones and listen to the bone crushing abomination that is Misery Rites by Wake. This album contains a rare kind brutality that is both swirling chaos and crushing contusion at the same time.

Misery Rites is the fourth full length and eighth overall release by this Calgary based quintet. Over that time, they have refined their sound into the dissonant madness on full display here. Some albums are brutal to the point of near inaccessibility. Wake has managed to create an album every bit as brutal, but which first draws you into the nightmare. I think it’s the swirling riffs of Arjun Gill and Rob LaChance that get their gnarly hooks in you, drawing you into the maelstrom. Once there, you brutally beaten by the bass lines of Reid Gennutt, struck repeatedly by the blasting darts of Josh Buekert on drums, and throttle into submission by the punishing Kyle Ball vocals. None of this seems pieced apart like that however. The entire dissonant nightmare is coming at you from all sides, all at once. And then they slow down, light you on fire, and watch you burn.

Unlike prior albums, Misery Rites is lyrically more personal than political. It speaks to the repeated cycles in life of trying to rise above only to fall back down. There is hope, but only failed hope. Perhaps that is why the album feels so visceral, like a spiritual gut punch bringing the listener to their knees. The crystal clear production allows every bit of hope and rage and failure to be felt in full. Deathgrind is brutal by its nature, but only the best bands playing the style can make the brutality mean something as well. Wake find themselves leading the entire pack.

Recommendation:  Napalm Death – Cattle Decapitation – Wake.

Rating:  5/5