Reviews Search

Wolf Eyes, "Live at Banfields East"

Thosewho have had the pleasure of seeing Wolf Eyes live know that someof their on-stage announcements can be a littlemore on the Bill & Ted side rather than the sort of vitriolichate expected from a trio jamming nasty freeform noiseshit. With their past releases ranging from the blackest of black noiseto stiletto drones it was only a matter of time before they addeda disc of spoken word rambling/stand-up comedy/on-stagenonsense to their catalogue.
American Tapes

With more than a few noise lovers falling happily into the stereotypeof obsession with things all dark and serial-killerish this release islikely to rub many Wolf Eyes fans up the wrong way; lucky then thatthis is a limited spray painted CD-R edition of only 18 copies. Liveat Banfields East sounds like the contents of a dictaphone that thelocal stoner left in the corner of a noisy bar than a collection withany real form or structure. This is a lo-fi, chaotic and scrambledcollection of recent on-stage shouting that catches wandering trains ofthought, strange monologues, hurled abuse, befuddled hilarity and someclassic one liners (“A word of advice...never ask a guy wearing an EvilDead t-shirt if you can see his gun”). The closest this gets to anykind of Rollins style Spoken Word is Olson's (I think) thoughts on StarWars and Canada and if it sounds thrown together, it’s probably becauseit was. As it’s recorded in a typically lo-fi style it’s oftendifficult to tell what the hell is going on and who is shouting what atwhom, but for all that there are definitely laugh out loud moments.But, as with anything that roots itself in comedy, this release's daysare numbered from that very first listen.

samples: