New York, NY (Top40 Charts) South Carolina's only grind band, WVRM, are preparing to release Colony Collapse, their debut release under the Prosthetic Records banner.
An uncompromising collection of 14 short, sharp shocks, Colony Collapse is a product of its surroundings, an anthology of its environment, and a detailed record of the lives of the people who made it. Over the course of their preceding three splits, four EPs and two full lengths, WVRM have experimented with pushing their personal and musical boundaries; Colony Collapse captures the evolution of their sound and politics in one relentless and violent release.
Far from being a leading light in a burgeoning local scene, WVRM are the only light in a miniscule scene in Greenville, South Carolina. Whilst the city is also home to death metal stalwarts, Nile, there is no flourishing hotbed of musical activity to be found. This creative isolation is just one of the driving forces behind the forceful aggression of WVRM.
WVRM'S music is political in nature, but far from a broad rage against the machine, their lyrics take a micro-look at the effects of socio-political entrenchment on everyday lives. Proudly working class, they explore both the psychological and physical meaning of being so. WVRM trace the lineage of their ancestral progress, and what it means to participate in a community that lacks upward momentum.
Recording between April and August 2019 with the band's own guitarist, Derick, in the producer's chair, the band felt free to experiment. They made use of noise pedals, violin, a Chinese prayer bowl, cello and Tibetan prayer bells alongside their more traditional instruments. The resulting cacophony is a more textured kind of grind than is the norm.
Stating that their music sounds as it does - nihilistic, vicious, caustic - because of where they're from, because of who they are - WVRM are striking out to redefine what extreme music from South Carolina can be. Whilst there's no doubting that they are definitively a grind band, WVRM take inspiration from the development of a rich variety of ever-evolving sounds coming out of the Southern states over the past several decades; traces of a sludge-doom sound echo through the album, as it has done in previous releases.
The artwork depicts a bee crawling over a human skull, created by a local artist by Wes Brooks. The image represents the titular colony collapse - a phenomenon that occurs when worker bees leave behind the queen bee and collapse the colony. Imbued in the one image are multiple concepts including the extinction of humankind, as well as the idea of workers taking control of the life and death of society.
Colony Collapse is WVRM at their abrasive, vitriolic best.
