The blues is often associated with the devil, to whom many claim musician Robert Johnson sold his soul. New Jersey's Old Wounds' "Dead Beat Blues" is certainly good enough to warrant suspicions of a similar meeting at a crossroads. However, the crossroads here is that of metal and hardcore, while the catalyst to the cacophony is less devilish (no faux-Satan worship here) and more Eighteen Visions.
On Death Projection, Old Wounds prove they're the spiritual successors to Orange County's weirdest purveyors of eyeliner-stained mosh anthems. Similarly dark, "Epilogue of a Possession" experiments with singing, as the Jersey boys have sparingly throughout recent releases, similar to Eighteen Visions' later material. Meanwhile, the tremolo picking in the aforementioned blues-take brings in a quick death metal flavour, a la Until the Ink Runs Dry's proto-deathcore (thx Sergeant D).
The two songs sandwiched between, "Ritual" and "Bloodpact," manage to take the intensity of Martyr A.D. and drive it through your heart until it stops, Cave In-style. Ultimately, it's a diverse little slab of metalcore, whose only fault comes via its format: a seven-inch doesn't sate the appetite for blood instilled by Old Wounds, making the wait for a sophomore full-length that much harder.
(Good Fight)On Death Projection, Old Wounds prove they're the spiritual successors to Orange County's weirdest purveyors of eyeliner-stained mosh anthems. Similarly dark, "Epilogue of a Possession" experiments with singing, as the Jersey boys have sparingly throughout recent releases, similar to Eighteen Visions' later material. Meanwhile, the tremolo picking in the aforementioned blues-take brings in a quick death metal flavour, a la Until the Ink Runs Dry's proto-deathcore (thx Sergeant D).
The two songs sandwiched between, "Ritual" and "Bloodpact," manage to take the intensity of Martyr A.D. and drive it through your heart until it stops, Cave In-style. Ultimately, it's a diverse little slab of metalcore, whose only fault comes via its format: a seven-inch doesn't sate the appetite for blood instilled by Old Wounds, making the wait for a sophomore full-length that much harder.
