(This is NCS writer Gonzo’s review of a comeback album from Boston-based There Were Wires that was released in late June by Iodine Recordings.)
When you think “heavy music,” the small slab of New England known as Martha’s Vineyard almost certainly won’t be what comes to mind first. And if it is, I want to know where the hell you’ve been hanging out lately. But never mind that.
Way back in 1999, the band There Were Wires formed in that quiet suburb, and they proceeded to play every sweaty New England club and basement venue they could crawl into. At the time, their sound was rooted in hardcore punk’s raw aggression, and they quickly found a home on Deathwish Records soon after. But after the release of their 2004 album Somnambulists, the band played what they presumed to be their final show, and the members went on to form other acts such as Doomriders, among others.
Now, over 25 years later, There Were Wires have made a return that’s just as ambitious as it is unlikely. Vessel is probably a record that nobody saw coming, but despite that, it deserves your full attention.
Admittedly, this band was all but a blip on my radar during their Deathwish years. Maybe that’s because those years at that label were and still are nothing short of inimitable. When you’re a hardcore band competing for attention in the shadow of albums like You Fail Me, you’d be forgiven for having a shoddy memory of anything else.
But Vessel, wielding a sound that’s fused together by post-hardcore’s muscle and the sludge-adjacent ooze of bands like Neurosis, is a triumphant return from a band that never got the credit it deserved. “Massive House Fire” is a track that first got my attention, with its monolithic riffs and cut-through-the-noise choruses deftly powered by vocalist Jaime Mason. There’s a lot of similarities to Rosetta’s atmospheric take on post-hardcore here, which is undoubtedly fueled by the collective experience of There Were Wires during their hiatus. The songs sound expansive, and every one of them is given ample room to breathe. Nothing is rushed here, and the fact that this record was largely recorded in 2023 shows the band wanted to focus on getting everything exactly how they envisioned.
The attention to detail continues throughout Vessel with the pounding assault of “Puncture Wounds”, a somewhat restrained but no less catchy banger, and the moody interlude of “No Dark Corners” gives the album some room to breathe between its persistent heaviness. “I’d Lock You in a Dream” enters more experimental territory, no doubt a nod to the band’s expanded musical palette. I have an enormous soft spot for bands that aren’t afraid to slow it down, get a little weird, and add some variety into their sonic backbone, and Vessel offers ample opportunity for this.
Some listeners might see their patience tested with tracks like “Unraveling Light” and “Resurrectionists,” but “The Carousel of Sickening Bliss” charges things back up right when it should. That song might very well be the album’s unlikely highlight, with its shout-along-friendly chorus and razor-sharp riffs. If the band get themselves on a tour in the coming year, that’s the one I’d be yelling for them to belt out.
The closing atmospheric sludge of “1901” has some subtle notes of Cult of Luna sprinkled in for good measure, and it works well. It’s hard to expand a sound like this without either stumbling into self-aggrandizing or recycled territory, and There Were Wires deserves a nod for doing it so well—especially after such a long time away.
All told, Vessel could’ve easily been a heavy-handed comeback attempt that tried to cash in on the band’s early years in hardcore punk, but they took a different route entirely. They used their absence to create a record that not only expands their sound into something unique, cathartic, and ultimately satisfying, but something that inspires a look into their overlooked early years as well. Don’t sleep on Vessel.
https://therewerewires.bandcamp.com/album/vessel
https://www.instagram.com/therewerewires
https://www.facebook.com/IodineRecordings/