WeaksaW – The Wretched of the Earth

[schema type=”review” name=”WeaksaW – The Wretched of the Earth” description=”Label: Lifeforce Records” author=”Juho Karila” pubdate=”2016-05-27″ ]

I’ve always liked French bands for some reason. They always seem to produce a unique, fresh and uncomparable sound, like the masterminds of Gojira and Hacride has proved us many times over the years. For that reason, I was delighted to get another French band to dig into and I can’t say I was disappointed with the second album of WeaksaW, a 5-piece groovy steamroll from the city of Montpellier.

The title track to open the album, hits us with a tremendous force of punch-in-the-face crooked guitar riffs and a really low growly vocals. While it’s straightforward, it’s catchy due the groove and expertise in arrangements that outshines many bands with even more years of experience; the metalheads from the sacred land of baguette and berets must have it in their blood!

While the opening track is full-blown thrashing without moments to relax or catch a breather, the second one “Josh” takes a more crooked approach and introduces us to the progressive side of WeaksaW, which reminds of Gojira in terms of complexity of the arrangements, but only in a good way. The song shifts between perfect drum-guitar groove and crunch to sections with effected clean guitars during which the song almost stops before going in again while staying true to the cold and dark soundscape which is the trademark of WeaksaW.

All of the songs in the album balance somewhere in between of metalcore and progressive-technical death metal and aren’t really following a clear song-structure and the mood can shift from heavy shredding crunch to almost a complete halt like in “XYY” which I want to raise up as my favorite one of the album. It’s not only the easiest song to approach with a little bit simpler arrangements and the groove is produced not with crooked riffs but rhythmic gimmicks, yet again without compromising the core of the band.

“Zabveniye I” fades into an ambient outro and is the first truly calm part of the album, which is a nice change of pace and marks that we haven’t heard all the album has to offer.
“Zabveniye II” proves the last assumption. While it starts like any other song, it introduces synths in the chorus and is the slowest song in the album, etheric and dreamlike. While sounding still like the band, it’s one of the weakest ones, offering, sadly least of hooks to keep intrest up.

“Natoma” is probably a conscious choice to come right after, fastest song in the album but has a feeling of trying too much. The high-speed shredding feels forced and made for the sake of being fast and that costs the band in lacking the consistency and groove, which are the cornerstones to make “The Wretched of the Earth” a great album. While the song is not all about speed and we’re given the trademark groovy riffs, it just doesn’t quite make it.

While majority of the songs are mid-tempo, which often makes me feel like it’s making many songs and bands lacking the punch and amount of aggressivity needed in metal, WeaksaW uses them as their strongpoints and by showing dinstinguishing prowess and skills in making very dynamic songs and arrangements the band gets you in a chokehold without letting go; not that you’d want to get out.

This is a great album by a great band who has a clear concept of what they want to do and highly recommended for anyone looking for prog in their technical death metal with a groovy twist!

Lineup:

Leo Sendra – Guitar
Bryan Tronquet – Drums
Charles Villanueva – Bass
Tristan Haillot – Vocals
Erwan Billon – Guitar

Tracklist: 1. The Wretched of the Earth 2. Josh 3. XYY 4. Zabveniye Part I 5. Zabveniye Part II 6. Natoma 7. Whitetip 8. The Expressionless 9. Storyteller 10. Admiral Cunt

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