Often, listening to live recordings and demos gives the impression of missing-out. Something is lost, the energy of the live performance or the sharp, clear separation of a professional mix. These are the dimensions of the music that give us physical reaction, our hearing sends word to the rest of the senses that real shit is going down. Without this surely we’re only given a snapshot, a blurred-out image of a music that can only trace its real potential.
This is not the case with Worm Hears. Shows in Belfast, London and a slot at this year’s Stendhal festival has seen the London-based outfit demonstrate their electrically-charged alt-punk. Unique in sound and effortlessly cool, Worm Hears’ confident musicianship has proven itself and is due its breakout.
In light of this, a look at the three-piece’s online demo EP underscores nothing short of fire. A true passion for noise animates the demo tracks. Hauntingly beautiful in its craft, the band give us a rough taste of their fevered, modern alt-punk. A taste of what’s to come, and one that is infinitely replayable.
Superfuzz from bassist Sam drives the sound alongside drummer Gabriel’s jackhammered rhythms. In guitar and voice, front-man Charlie Loane bends sickly sweet rhythms into modern grunge. Howling against independence, adulthood and the self-same loneliness you’ll find out there, the band blends romance and loathing in a lyrical triangle-choke that keeps the live EP fevered to its close.
Sparse guitar and sedated vocals introduce ‘Only Wanted’, a track that acoustically and lyrically maps out bare rooms, bare mattresses and the margin between adulthood and ‘whatever’ before its Siouxsie-esque breakdown. Discomfort is made danceable in the breakneck instrumental before a bold, confident and soaring guitar line closes the track.
‘Oh No Cars’ and ‘My Head’ underline the dissonant center of the live EP. Unflinching rhythms and unnerving melodies go hand-in-hand in the tracks, underlining the tribal aggression at the heart of the band’s punk sound. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying- with more abrasive moments feeling like the listening experience of laying down in midday traffic, the band finds a balance that’s cathartic.
The sound finds its greatest strength in its unflinching honesty: “I should feel happy or grateful…but I don’t.”
‘Would It Be So Perfect’ cannibalises the best parts of Jeff Buckley and Bauhaus in its hypnotizing rhythms and vocal intensity. With a melodic shape made out of equal-parts beauty and terror, the CD’s closing track is a delicate lullaby stretched into an overdriven freewheel through the track’s landscape of broken thumbs, hunger pangs and fusing bodies.
Somewhere between sweet and seething, Worm Hears take music to its boiling point. Not without a healthy dose of raw talent, the band has proven their sound on both sides of the water. And they’ve only just begun.
Photo courtesy of Fenella Whiteley Photography
