a review of some UK metalcore band

Metalcore band Wolves follows up almost 10 years after releasing a promising EP

The whole Wolves rhythm section is just slamming counts when “A Stolen Horse” opens. This blunt force is countered by a clean, flat vocal harmony. Twenty seconds later, the song turns to airy, echoey notes pinging from guitars against more heavy drums and clean vocals.

The metalcore band is fond of these abrupt changes. The tracks often sit just at the edge of traditional songs' reach; Wolves tests and favors a math-curious approach. Songs on “Self-Titled” level up and level down rather than flow, and the music engages you more than it moves you.

I still like groove, though, and Wolves flirts with it from time to time. “All Or Something,” for example—after a typically halting 45-second opening sequence, the band hits a confident little riff that takes the song into and out of a heavy groove.

The album’s promotional copy cites Every Time I Die, Dillinger, and Poison the Well. Those bands? Okay, maybe some. But from that great era, I’d suggest Wolves are a bit more like Candiria than ETID and Dillinger.

These musicians played in other bands before forming When the Wolf Comes Home in 2016 and releasing the EP Gone Are the White Flags on Damage Limitation Records soon after. They stalled out after that but finally are releasing a worthy full-length metalcore album, “Self-Titled,” on September 5, 2025, on Ripcord Records. The drums sound crisp and deep with a very light touch on the cymbals. The guitars are full and tight, the bass seamlessly filling in the bottom end. The band says four members share vocal duties.

The Poison the Well reference makes sense when you hear songs like “The Rich Man and the Sea.” This is metalcore—some clean singing complimented by hardcore scream-shout singing, and chugging riffs that bookend more melodic guitar sections. This song recalls those turn-of-the-century Poison the Well albums.

Slow, patient, and heavy, “A Guide to Accepting Ones Fate” opens with generous guitars. And here is another groove that deserves a call out—at 1:35, a curly riff takes hold, and the band really jams. A few moments later, it’s gone.

 

something about "Ylem" by Sunless

When songs on Ylem offer an opportunity for resolution, Sunless always takes a pass. Instead of allowing for the emotional release of a headbanging breakdown or final minor-to-major chord change, this Minneapolis-based death metal trio always chooses yet another stutter-step to keep you off balance.

My favorite song, "Spiraling into the Unfathomable," starts strong with a chaotic onslaught. Then the song pulls through nimble riffs and irregular beats, throwing lots of elbows and fingers. Most of the album is like this—dense, dissonant, mathy metal. Guitars slice thin cuts of spoiled notes, the snare drum pops like popcorn, and a raspy vocal growls to this kaleidoscopic examination of the dark.

Passion is channeled into proficiency, and emotional connections wither during the endless pursuit of curiosities. Ylem, through intricacy and denial of resolution, sublimates violence more than a lot of other death metal albums.

Sunless will release Ylem, the band's sophomore album, on October 29 on Willowtip Records. The album is billed as part two of a trilogy that began with the band's debut, Urraca, from February 2017.

something about "You Were Never Really Here" by Jonathan Ames

Joe's job is rescuing young girls who have been kidnapped and trafficked into the sex trade. You Were Never Really Here describes a job that will probably put Joe out of his misery.

Joe, a former Marine and FBI agent, gets hired to save the daughter of a corrupt politician in New York. But when he briefly disturbs operations at a brothel, Joe becomes a threat to a conspiracy and soon learns the stakes are higher than just a few months' income for a sex trafficker. The threatened trafficking organization murders the few important people in Joe's life. Joe, a deeply damaged human being, responds immediately by going on the offensive. He intends to brutalize his way to the crime boss who just destroyed the life Joe had come to accept. Now he has nothing left to lose.

"You Were Never Really Here," a slim novella published in 2013, was a huge departure for American author Jonathan Ames, whose work tries to be humorous. A gritty film version written and directed by Lynne Ramsay came out in 2017. It stars Joaquin Phoenix, who is real and the best actor of all time.

The book has a clumsy description of Joe early on. I wanted Ames to take us deeper. But, nevertheless, You Were Never Really Here was a highly engaging but too short read.

something about Tom Perrotta’s "Mrs. Fletcher"

Tom Perrotta excels at combining middle-class drama and satire. His stories, including Mrs. Fletcher, sprout from small sagas in American suburbs. The titular character is Eve, a fifty-something divorcée and mother of an entitled, popular, teenaged son named Brendan. Brendan is starting college, and Eve is starting life in an empty nest. The coming year defies expectations because it is Eve rather than Brendan who begins to dabble and explore. Perrotta's easily digestible novel sets up tension between a mature woman starting a new chapter in her life and her immature son's struggle in a new environment in which he is no longer at center. This is an enjoyable story of contemporary sexual politics.


Notes:

• Mrs. Fletcher was published in 2017. The book was adapted recently into an HBO series.
• Here is a fair review in The Washington Post.

something about "Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times" by Mark Leibovich

Mark Leibovich is The New York Times Magazine’s chief national correspondent. I am not a regular reader of his column, but I read his previous book, This Town, which I described as the author wallowing in the networking and social maneuverings.
 

He kids DC's political players about the unseemly side of their work but never condemns them. Leibovich paints an absurd picture and sort of shrugs it off. His easygoing prose makes a shrug seem like the natural reaction. This Town delivers the goods for political junkies—especially if you tracked national politics from 2007 to 2013. Hearing how embedded Washington correspondents are is discomfiting. But if disillusion has already set in, the disappointment in This Town lands softly.

I think the same is true of Big Game, a book about the National Football League (NFL). Leibovich rightly positions professional football as one of America's biggest cultural forces. And he attached himself to the league at a seemingly pivotal time. In 2017, the NFL was more successful than ever, but scandals, such as players protesting during the national anthem and the escalating reality that concussions are destroying players brains in real time, were threatening that success. 

Leibovich does not deny the issues that cause the league's front office anxiety. But he overplays the attention-grabbing distractions, like Deflategate and the eccentricities of the billionaire team-owner class. Leibovich never really reckons with the larger, more serious issues.

I found the book very entertaining. But I never felt like the league and the owners were being confronted with a game-changing sequence of events. I agree with Joe Nocera's assessment in The Washington Post. Nocera says Leibovich "has a book-reporting strategy that consists of attending events (Tim Russert’s funeral; an NFL owners meeting), hanging around the periphery and writing what he sees, with plenty of snark and personal asides for good measure. He’s a good enough writer to keep you from wanting to throw the book against the nearest wall. But if you look closely, you’ll realize he has nothing to say."


Notes:

• My favorite part was definitely Leibovich getting drunk on Jerry Jones's bus.

One of the drivers in Jerry's employ, an African American gentleman named Emory, opened a back cabinet stocked with $250 bottles of "Blue." No doubt Jones could afford the smooth booze, but he also mentioned a qualifier. "It's the stuff it makes you do after you've had it that you might not be able to afford," he said. I relay this by way of transparency into Jones inhibitions, which after a few more supersized pours from Emory were weakening fast.

Leibovich asks Jones which means more: the Hall of Fame jacket or another Super Bowl ring. Jones, drunk, finally admits the jacket is more important to him.

• "Are these the last days of the NFL?" by Joe Nocera, The Washington Post, 13 September 2018

(posts) Converge's "A Single Tear"

Note: I enjoy the song very much but not the video.

something about the Roger Waters album, "Is This the Life We Really Want"

Last month former Pink Floyd bass player and singer Roger Waters released Is This the Life We Really Want?, his fourth solo effort (not counting his three-act opera, Ça Ira). Unlike the previous three, the new album could almost be mistaken for a lost late Waters-era Pink Floyd album. It is fantastic. Passages and arrangements echo The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, and The Final Cut. But this is not a nostalgia project. Waters' patented simple, impossibly catchy musical and lyrical refrains and singing to his own acoustic guitar-driven tunes provide a framework around which the album often employs traditionally Pink Floyd sounds. (Finding and using those sounds without sounding like a Floyd knockoff should be credited in large part to the accomplished, deft producer, Nigel Godrich.) This album is more Floydian than Pink Floyd's post-Waters-era A Momentary Lapse of Reason. And, yet, Is This the Life We Really Want? is undeniably a Rogers solo effort. His vocal retains its edge, but he is restrained and sounds less emotionally charged than he did singing with Pink Floyd. (Obviously, this can be attributed in part to his having aged.) The perspectives and opinions expressed in the lyrics are more political and more outwardly focused than his Pink Floyd lyrics.


Note: The bass guitar is brilliant on this album.

another opinion

This week USA Today published an opinion by the Heritage Foundation's John Malcolm supporting the presidential authority behind Executive Order 13769 ("Executive Order Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States"), the so-called "travel ban." President Trump may have the authority, but Malcolm's argument in support is flawed. He writes, "Presidential authority to protect our homeland should not be second-guessed by courts based on some hidden intent divined from tweets and statements made by surrogates in the heat of a presidential campaign." First, Malcolm's attempt to attribute to surrogates Trump's Muslim ban campaign rhetoric is wrong. In December 2015, during the campaign, candidate Trump said at a rally, “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.” Second, and worse still, Malcolm tries to nullify the intent behind campaign promises. Of course candidates make false promises, but we still have to pretend the promises are true.


Notes:

• At issue is the scope of presidential power over the border. The Supreme Court has allowed parts of President Trump's travel ban to go into effect and will hear oral arguments on the case this fall.
• The "he did not mean it" argument was once part of the legal defense.
• Every previous President made an empty promise.

Source: "Travel ban is president's authority," USA Today, July 5, 2017