Luminescent Wake Wake
Timeworn
•
February 8, 2015

Loud, pissed off and raucous as hell, 'Luminescent Wake' by TIMEWORN has to be the angriest thing Norway has produced since Anders Breivik. They're another of those infuriating bands who are inexplicably good at messing up the established pigeonholes and these ten tracks of screaming vehemence can only be described as "Post-Mastodon-Punked-Up-Not-Quite-Doom" Metal. They're heavy enough to please the mosh pit, while forward thinking enough to satisfy the desires of any pseudo-intellectual fan of sonic extremity. In other words, this one fucking rules.
'A Fire Warning' for example is a slow burner and for its first two minutes is so stripped back you could be fooled into thinking this will be a ponderous Post-Metal album. It opens with a guitar riff that sounds like it's echoing through the mist from a lost fishing vessel, but just as your senses have been lulled into a false sense of shoe-gazing security, it explodes into life. Frontman STIAN doesn't so much sing as hack his vocals up from a pair of tar blackened, cancerous lungs and the power chords slam with a ferocity which only intensifies with 'Old Foul Hag.' Significantly faster and much shorter, this is a furious burst of unholy anger designed to induce the kind of circle pits that people bring flick knives and broken bottles into.
'Frozen Nails' meanwhile is essentially a brick being thrown through a window turned into a Metal song, while the blinding 'The Oncoming End' and the title track make for a wicked one-two punch at the album's heart. As vicious as it gets though, there are constant fluctuations in the anger, there's even a guitar solo that could have been on the FLASH GORDON soundtrack in there.
It's a far more violent album than you'd expect given that it has what looks like a poor attempt at the Thundercats logo on the cover art, but it's not just mindless chuggery. This is brutality with a brain and if you want a Scandinavian alternative to the likes of FEED THE RHINO or BLACK TUSK look no further. And just in case there was any misunderstanding, our lawyers have instructed us to state they don't have anything to do with Anders Breivik. Seriously, we cannot emphasize that enough.
8 / 10
Excellent
"Luminescent Wake Wake" Track-listing:
1. A Fire Warning
2. Old Foul Hag
3. Frozen Nails
4. Shokoti
5. Madness Rides The Star-Wind
6. Through The Eyes Of A King
7. The Oncoming End
8. Luminescent Wake
9. Language Of The Beasts
10. Cellular Dissidence
Timeworn Lineup:
Stian - Vocals
Erlend - Guitar
Oliver - Guitar
Svein - Bass
Fredrik - Drums
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