In 2017 we devoted significant attention to Futility Report, the debut album of the Ukrainian iconoclasts White Ward, hosting the premieres of two songs and then of the album as a whole. It was (and still is) brilliant in a way that few albums are in any year. In its extravagant inventiveness and unexpected stylistic juxtapositions it could have been a train wreck, mangled bodies strewn about like broken toys, and fractured machines burning in a jumble of warped iron and splattered diesel. Instead, like mad scientists who are in fact visionaries, White Ward produced something through their unorthodox splicing of diverse musical genres (which included black metal and jazz) that was as enthralling as it was deviant.

In the abstract, contemplating how White Ward might have improved upon Futility Report in a second album is an odd exercise, because it assumes the possibility of gauging greater or lesser degrees of success when there is no objective measuring stick at hand for their kind of bohemian rhapsodies. At a minimum, however, it’s possible to say that the band’s second album, Love Exchange Failure (due for release on September 20 by Debemur Morti Productions), is still non-conformist, still surprising, still electrifying. And while it’s obvious that White Ward still have no inclination to follow any straight and narrow path, their new compositions seem more cohesive, and more powerful in their capacity to evoke strong emotional responses, without at all repressing the adventurous spirit that drove the first album from beginning to end. Continue reading »