Cyberpunk Essentials: Open Your Heart to Oozing Wound
/Hello CyberPunk Essentials Readers.
I swear I’m trying to figure out a way to open these up without saying “hello cyberpunk essential readers”. I’m doing research - reading all the great music writers. How do they open their pieces? It seems they all to open their pieces with “Hello Readers.” Lester Bangs,Robert Christgau, Bob Pitchfork: every music critic ever article ever written starts their articles this way. No one has figured out how to start these without saying hello. It is super fucked up.
Anyway, hello Cyberpunk essentials readers. Wanted to talk a little bit about one of my favorite modern metal bands: Oozing Wound. Comedian and killer artist Sarah Squirm debuted a music video for their song “Surrounded By Fucking Idiots” the other day. It’s gross, very funny, and it rocks: they call this “The Bastard’s Trifecta.”
I love Oozing Wound. They got riffs for days and some of the best named songs out there. The music is funny and cathartic, and it totally rips out of control. Today, I’m walking down memory lane and spinning some of my favorite tunes. Play loud:
RETRASH
Everyone I Hate Should be Killed
Great song with an agreeable premise. Comes out with a burning riff right out the gate. Totally unstoppable: greasy, vicious: Great music for chasing down a depraved lunatic through the woods by the light of the moon
Call Your Guy
Beautiful bass walk in. You put this on and you immediately start stalking the pit. Even here, in quarantine, as this song leads in I’m making a circle, my shoulders are hunched, I’m huffing big breaths, ’m doing the Kubrick face where I’m looking up and you can see the whites of my eyes. I’m holding my hands outstretched, making sure my cats are not in the way as I prepare to do a cool slow motion thrashing dance.
My cats do not understand, and that’s fine. At this point of the day they’re taking naps - they’ve had their moment of thrashing already today, doing laps up and down the hallway, trying to impress me enough so that I feed them. It’s worked: I was impressed so I fed them - they’re napping now. Meanwhile, I’m losing it in the pit to the Oozing Wound song “Call Your Guy.”
The song crushes, after the walk in there’s a lovely stomping lunge build, that moves into a straight thrash, and then into a truly triumphant punctuated riff, sending it home, leading me to dance so hard I am ripping up the carpet doing the “grabbing pennies” dance. My cats and finace are as far away from me as they can possibly be. That’s fine. I am enjoying myself with the sublime art of music.
Welcome to the Spaceship, Motherfucker
Another unbelievable and great song name. Come on man. I’m pumping my fist: Hell yes. Fuck yes dude. Hell yes.
The riff begins like a curse, a “fuck you” that blasts straight through the minds eye, into the vault of memory, melting all wrongs done to you by your enemies into a molten flame. From this flame you will build a great sword, and in time, you will wield it in a transcendent quest. For another era. For now, dig the riff.
Tremendous thundering riff here. Not fucking around. It gives you everything you want, a beautiful walk out, fist pumping brutality, into a classic rollicking thrash riff. See you later, alligator!
EARTH SUCK
Going Through the Motions Til I Die
Another walk in to a riff delivered to us by the the gods of hell. It rules. The production on this album whips ass - every riff feels like an axe pummeling deeper into your skull. It’s a beautiful thing! The louder you play it, the closer those bladed tunes get to the jewel of your brain, purifying it, making you powerful.
The opening line crushes: “I’ve lost the will to live an honest life” Hell yes, brother. Definitely vibing out to that.
It’s a beautiful thing when you run into a 6 minute song that feels short. I’m impatient: I see a 4 minute song and I’m rolling my eyes, declaring loud “who do we think we are, Emerson Lake and Palmer???” I look around the room, smiling at my very clever reference. My cats and fiance aren’t reacting a lot, but they’re just playing it cool being around such a smart and interesting music listener as myself.
Anyway, I’m an impatient baby, I love hooks, I love songs that are 3 minutes long, but I love even more a song that know how to space out something longer that does not let up. This tears ass top to bottom. Respect!
Hippie Speedball
Wonderful droning walkout, with a tremendous, heading banging “GJN GJN” bass and drum kick - leads into a delirious doom headbanger, leading into a tense dancy riff, back into that drone. I unconsciously started whipping my head to this song, almost throwing my headphones off. When a song inspires you to move without your even thinking about it is a surefire testament to the power of the tune.
I’m awed by the amount of incredible riffs this band can stick into a song. Most bands get 1 riff for their whole life. Oozing wound gives you 5 life affirming riffs in one song. Unreal.
WHATEVER FOREVER
Rambo 5 (Pre-emptive Strike)
If this title doesn’t have you jonesing to cruise through your streaming service of choice to the next washed out Reagan Era day glo gore fest while pounding an extremely shitty beer, I don’t know what to tell ya, bub. It’s over for you.
God damn the production just pumped up again. Everything feels that much more powerful. The axe is going deeper now, and I grow more powerful with every swing. The light is coagulating into a vision of truth - hope you’re seeing this too ;)
The quivering chorus guitar riff takes the cake - a shuddering thing of beauty.
Diver
All time riff here. This was the first song of Oozing Wound I had on repeat. These riffs clean impurities like fire - like taking a sauna where the screaming heat sinking into your pores pushing out your impurities is not heat but the Coppola classic Apocalypse Now made airborne. Cathartic and cruel, a soothing tune to meditate to.
Also, as the song wraps up, the melody of the outro has me verklempt. I’ve never noticed before, but something in outro guitar riff has a timbre of melancholy, which adds a layer heartbreaking emotional intensity as the song subsides: an emotionally resonant to drive the thrill of thrash even deeper into the brain.
Everything Sucks, And My Life is a Lie
Another all timer for song titles. On top of that, the riff is lovely: where others devastated, this grieves. The rythmn heaves as the guitar pulls a tingling high end. Reminds me of The Jesus Lizard’s “Zachariah” - another killer a downtempo crusher to implode to.
HIGH ANXIETY
Surrounded By Fucking Idiots
Kicks in with a tremendous crunch. I love the way vocalist Zack Weil sings “Every day/ Every night/ Every Moment of my life” His tone expresses it all: the disgust and fury of the tedium of the working weekdays. The band gets the mind numbing of the day, and rends into it with a fervor. Who can’t relate!
Birth of a Flat Earther
Lyrically killer, the song walks through a man piecing together the perceived paradoxes that birth a flat Earth believer. Weil delivers paranoid and furious - his voice churns with a tense hate, you can hear him piecing together that he’s been lied to his whole life. It’s funny, cathartic, and hate to say it, but not entirely unrelatable!
The band builds beautifully for the first half and tears it down on the way out. Screaming guitar feedback gives way to a doomy build, establishing a spaced out tension that reaches its crescendo at a spectacular lyrical drop: “There is no space/so there are no SATELLITES.” The birth is complete band lets loose from there. A crushing, beautifully built song.
***
These are my go-tos- but here’s the thing, in a month or two I’ll probably have more favorites. The catalogue is deep, every song has a life you can get lost in. Cards on the table, I had to change my shirt because I was sweating too hard absolutely ripping to Oozing Wound. Is that going to happen listening to Steely Dan? No way, dude. Just my body’s way of confirming Oozing wound rips, and its time you accepted them into your life.