Wormwood - Starvation

There is indeed a market for intentionally ugly music. No one would have thought it possible just a few years ago, but music like the endless distorted beating Wormwood propels to the unwary listener is in fact able to fulfill some cravings and satiate certain needs. Hailing from Lawrence, KS the quintet known as Wormwood creates this sort of distorted vertical vortex, on a sonic level of course. The songs are unconventional and abruptly mix non-pretty genres like doom and crust punk. The sound is organic (this is produced by Billy Anderson so it couldn't really be any other way) and heavily relies on low tones, yet some of the oddest, most austere and relentless aspects of Starvation derive from the unlikeliest of places; the ghostly, ghastly and somewhat eerie voice of keyboardist Lara Haynes. She provides this sort of counterbalance to the music which is of course like most sludge, crust and punk, inherently ugly, and manages to infest every track that features her angelic vocal presence with this almost twilight zone quality. Eyehategod as led by Enya if you will and if you can even imagine it.

I had been listening to Starvation a few days ago and managed to scribble some random notes, some scattered thoughts. One of the phrases I put down was 'how I feel when I eat too much'. I guess I was referring to this feel of uneasiness, of not belonging because I am re-shaping my body beyond nature's original intentions. This is ugly, ugly, ugly. Now, there must be some sort of cosmic connection between myself and Wormwood but perusing through this gorgeous digipack I noticed the word 'gluttony' written on the back below the painting of this naked man whose body is wrapped by roots. I kind of got it and I did not even have time to read through the lyrics, which are all included in the insert by the way, and I shit you not I wasn't thinking of the record's title.

Included in the record is a cover of The Smiths' "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me"; unrecognizable at first, the middle and the end it is exactly what you hope a band does with a cover; takes full authorship and destroys the song's original beauty morphing it into an utterly nightmarish psychological trip, but Wormwood makes it its own and that's the point of covering a song. In the end Starvation leaves you feeling uneasy, feeling like crap, like when you ate too much and are at that middle point between a brutal barf and the next spoonful of Indian rice. Yummy.

[ Discography ]

Label: 20 Buck Spin | Item Code: Various | Country: United States | Year: 2007 | Genre: Noise