UNFD
12 July 2024
In Hearts Wake are a band that I thought I’d possibly previously reviewed, and that I also thought I’d very likely shit canned. Turns out that I was mistaken, which means I’ve now got the opportunity to shit can them this time around for their new album Incarnation. Only if the shit canning is justified, though, but let’s see how they go.
Before we get started, though, I should note that the band have recently parted ways with long-time bassist and clean vocalist Kyle Eric. Going by that, we might just get an album full of screams without that pretty stuff. Hopefully, but let’s just wait and see.
The album kicks off with accapela screaming vocals which are very quickly backed up by an electronic drum beat. Spitting Nails (Wheel of Fortune) then gets underway as a thrashy little number. It keeps up the pace and breaks every now and again for some quick samples and electronic drumbeats. Eventually they hit the ever so expected breakdown, and it bangs!
Next up is Hollow Bone (The World) which kicks off with some stuttered guitar stabs and a couple of nasty little snare rolls. This one kinda has come clean vocals in it through the choruses, but they are smothered by dirty raspy screams. Let’s just call it melodic yelling. It’s got quite the anthem vibe to it.
Winston McCall of Parkway Drive pops in for a visit on the next rack The Flood (Justice), and it’s a screaming good time! The riffs are heavy, solid and grooving, and they fit in really well with Winston’s vocal style. As the songs title suggests, there is a theme of flood waters which also appears in the samples that overlay the track alongside the electronica samples scattered throughout. Big track!
You may have noticed the doubled-up names of these tracks. In the actual track listing, the titles in brackets are upside down. Vocalist Jake Taylor explains this in the press release, so I’m just going to copy and paste it for your interpretation, rather than trying to re-explain it and no doubt fucking it up.
“INCARNATION is the shadow counterpart and sequel to the band’s debut album DIVINATION, with each song inspired by the meaning and ideals of a particular Major Arcana Tarot card. There are 22 Major Arcana Tarot cards in every deck and 11 tracks on each record, bringing the vision to completion 12 years later.”
“But much like a coin with two sides, cards flipped upside down deliver the reversed meaning,” Taylor continues. “Polarised in every way, INCARNATION explores the dark underbelly to mirror and stand diametrically opposite to DIVINATION.”
While I was doing all that copy and paste stuff above, I missed Orphan (The Devil). Well, I kinda didn’t really miss it because it was just brutally assaulting me in the face with all its electronic, almost dub-step style, overdubs pounding my ear holes. I’ll have to relisten to that one, but for now I’ll keep rolling on.
This next one has a very calming electronic intro. That doesn’t last very long though as the big riffs, pounding drums and heavy vocals take stage. It’s called Gen Doom (The Hierophant) and it’s a bit of an odd one that shifts tempo and feel throughout the track. One minute it’s fucking heavy, and the next it pulls back to that gentler electronic vibe at the start of the track. There’s lots of air throughout the track too, which gives the noisy parts the necessary room to breathe, and then explode.
I can’t even say the name of this next one, or translate the Japanese (?), but it looks like Shishigami シシ神 (ssǝɹdɯǝ ǝɥʇ). And by the time I found somewhere to copy and paste that from, the track had ended. But look at that, it did the upside-down text thing that I was talking about earlier. Anyway, that track was a bit of a banger and featured someone called Katio Nagai of Paledusk.
And now I’m feeling like a bit of a Tyrant (The Emporer). Well, not really. It was a good segue into this track though which is a heavy and thrashing one. There’s alot of talk about cutting heads off in this one, which explains the overall ferocity and aggression of the song. Good jam, fucking good jam even!
With all those heads, they’ll have no trouble Feeding the Dead. See what I did there, yeah, that was well played. I didn’t get a chance to add the brackets bit though, which was (Temperance). This is just getting confusing now. I struggle with just one song name on most occasions. These guys are really making me work for this review.
Oh yeah, the song. It starts with another electronica intro and is then followed by some big drums and heavy guitar chuggs. It’s pretty much one big breakdown with electronica samples over the top of it. Well, a few big breakdowns one after the other.
Fuck me, there is like 70 guests in this next one Michigama (The Magician). I mean, I may have overexaggerated that just a little bit, but there are at least three including Chad Ruhlig of For The Fallen Dreams, David Gun of King 810 and Alfonso Civile of Heartsick. And maybe also some bloke called Don, or maybe that’s Alfonso’s other band. I really have no idea, so we’ll just move on as the album say’s “Oh Yeah, What a Banger”.
Shellshock (The High Priestess) featuring Garret Rapp of the Colour Morale is the second last track of the album. And, well, it pretty much follows suit with the rest of this heavy fucker of an album. There’s only so many times I can explain breakdowns, so I won’t do that again for this track. And what that leaves me to talk about is a bridge with big clean vocals, which I’m guessing are the guest vocalist. It’s just another great track.
Last up is Transmission (The Sun) which accelerates like a heavy punk or OG hardcore track through the first verse. It’s actually the longest track on the whole album, though, which makes sense when the bridge slows the track down to take it back to almost a heavy ballad vibe. Not quite, though, it’s just melodic and a lot slower than the rest of the album. It’s not long before the heavy makes its way back into the mix, though, but the songs still hold its slower tempo. I’d call it a storytelling song, but I have no idea what the story is about. How good were lyric books back in the good old days of vinyl, cassettes, and CD’s. And before you start, no, I’m not a fucking boomer. So, fuck off, Doomer.
Right, so I’m gonna make a big call here, and probably piss off some mates who have released stuff earlier this year. Now, I could be very wrong because the year is only young, but this could be the best Australian heavy music release of the year. So, I’ll just end with saying … “Oh Yeah, What a Banger”.
