Solid Mass. DIY garage music with the soul of 90's alternative radio. Frictionless digital ruptured by the spike and shred of raw emotion. Impenetrable. Unbreakable. The weight of consequence coming down. Crushing that which has no light within it. Taking genre and overclocking it until it glitches.

If Wicked Louder's "Frustrated Mess" has one unifying theme, it is that of life at the edge. Edge of what, you ask? The edge of the sea, the edge of the road, the edge of a breakdown. The edge of a breakthrough.

You can scream into the void when you're at the edge. You need to scream into the void when you're on the edge.

The use of vocal distortion to set a mood is notable. It coquettishly hides the words behind noise so the listener has to work harder to discern them. But that in itself is a form of expression, changing a whisper to a scream, or vice versa.

In songs like "Caustic Pawn" the Casio-style Sonic Youth-ness of the opening continues into the discordant emotional scribble of the lyrics. The tempo of "Ragamuffin Hammer" is a dragging syncope with sound effects, layered again by vocals that encourage careful listening. The guitar solo is reminiscent of The Church in its psychedelic maziness. "Bomb Circle" is both unique and affecting in the way the vocals sound like screaming anguish in a whisper while your world blows up around you and you're caught in the tornado of shards.

It's unsurprising that the liminal aspect of water is a key background to some songs. Living on the ocean will do that to a person. "Love in Vein" evokes what happens when the tourists wash away with the tide, leaving the townies to their own destructive devices. The jazzy intro of the single-worthy "Halcyon" makes one think that the singer will be making their way up Melancholy Hill while they wait for the UFOs to guide them home. The creepy start to "For You", with the laughing sound of a demented Jack-in-the-Box setting the tempo, sets the scene for an army of misbegotten children marching along to a home, any home.

"Kudzu", that most southern of American highway flowers, is a minimalist, swampy song, with notes of timpani, REM, and the drone of mosquitoes. "Cold Comfort" is cold indeed, with a familiar industrial needle-scratch glitch of a beginning and the tintinnabulation of the bells. It is short and sharp, with an abrupt ending that feels like abandonment.

"Manifest Her" is redemptive, with a bridge out of English folk music but the darkness of "The End" by The Doors, only romantic and with zero murders.

Whatever way the songs come across to you, recalling the sound of your most closely-held musical influences and the person you were when they influenced you -- be it the lacy Victorian ironwork of The Cure, the pop-yet-political messages of Jesus Jones, the nihilistic and raw worldview of Nine Inch Nails, or the simple three-piece harmonies of Dada -- interpret Wicked Louder's "Frustrated Mess" your own way, because no one can interpret it for you.

Cassandra Phoenix
archiveofourown.org/users/the_rogue_bitch/works