Wrench In The Works – Lost Art Of Heaping Coal

“Neato! A new CD,” proclaimed an excited Jose. Eagerly, the young man carefully opened the package that he would have otherwise ripped to pieces had he not been careful. Turning the envelopes new orifice towards the ground, gravity got the better of the contents and plopped them into the waiting hands of our keen music reviewer. “Two CD’s, how delightfully uncommon! I wonder what I have here?” inquired Jose. “Wrench in the Works and My Epic. Perhaps I should look over the press packages that accompanied these albums to see what I’m getting into.” Suddenly a look of disdain mingled with apprehension crossed his face, “Contempo-noise and a band for fans of As Cities Burn, Thrice, and Cool Hand Luke… what a strange combination. Perhaps these press packages are misleading; I should take a listen before judging them further.”

And listen to them he did, although rather selectively, picking arbitrary songs to get a picture of what these new bands are attempting to achieve with their music (something he often did when beginning the reviewing process). Minutes into My Epic he decided it surely was not music he could “get into” as the hip kids say, he would have to pass it off on some other poor chump to be reviewed. Wrench in the Works, on the other hand, was worth his time.

“These noise bands always seem to be hit or miss, especially the more recent examples. I’m only two-and-a-half songs into the album and I’m already losing patience.” The young man wasn’t about to give up on his review, but the thought definitely crossed his mind a few times. “The press package draws some parallels between this band and Converge and Zao. I’m not sure if I entirely agree with that,” pondered Jose. “While the bands definitely are alike in that they play heavy music, Wrench in Works definitely throw in their fair share of generic modern metalcore moments. These breakdowns that litter some of the songs are positively painful. It’s nice that they try throwing in some lead and melodic moments over top, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the rhythm is working against what any lead elements are trying to accomplish.” Jose was vexed. “Although I don’t dislike this as much as a lot of the other metalcore floating around the scene right now, it’s really tough to listen to for a prolonged period.” Jose couldn’t help but have trouble imagining someone actually taking a half hour out of their day to listen to this CD the whole way through. “A few songs is no problem, but by the time I hit the fifth track, the whole experience was becoming too much to handle.”

Unfortunately for Wrench in the Works, like so many other bands, fifteen minutes was about all Jose could take. His review was nearly at a close and there was really no reason to keep listening. A brief glance at the lyrics to hopefully find some redemption in an otherwise mediocre CD wasn’t enough. The band wrote about using the usual vague metaphors and nods at their religious beliefs; not bad, but nothing life changing. Glad to be at the end of his review, Jose gave a sigh of relief and began to declaim his feelings to nobody in general. “I wouldn’t say this CD was a complete waste of time, it had a few moments, but I’m very glad that I did not buy it.”