WOLF EYES

NO ANSWER: LOWER FLOORS (De Stijl)

18/20

Wolf Eyes return! Well, the seminal Midwest noise unit are so prolific it’s hard to stress they’ve ever really been away, but with the snappily titled No Answer: Lower Floors, they lurch back into view with a tweaked line-up and a further measured step away from their trademark battering cacophony. Now comprising the long-affiliated Crazy Jim Baljo alongside stalwarts John Olson and Nate Young (the record also including contributions from ex-members and scene perennials Aaron Dilloway and Mike Connelly), the band here maintain an unexpected level of sonic clarity and minimalist technique. Young’s simplistic, insistent kick drum beats form the base layer of record opener Choking Files – a metered exercise in ominous mid-range drone overlaid with Olson’s disorienting doubletracked spoken word – and the chaotic Born Liar, the chattering static and weirdo feedback of which aligns it somewhat with the grimy dungeon noise of Connelly’s most recent work with Hair Police. From here things get a little more interesting. No Answer and Chattering Lead present melodic lulls formed around loops of pinprick whine and treated guitar. The slow burn of album centrepiece Confessions of the Informer is wildly effective, oscillatory waves of stretched down loops, hyper-minimal beats and eerie guitar figures repetitively and slowly pulsating, the track frequently dropping in to near silence. If the smeared, clearcut construction of Confessions … is atypically meditative in tone, the hypnotic grind of Warning Sign acts as an appropriately grating conclusion to the record, a minor hark back to the punishing distortion of Wolf Eyes’ past work. Classic stuff.

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Words: Tom Howells