Read the Mercury‘s complete Big Ears 2016 coverage here. Visit the Big Ears website for the full lineup and schedule and ticket information.
Saying that 2004 was the year noise broke is probably hyperbolic, but there’s no question that Wolf Eyes’ first album for Sub Pop, Burned Mind, released that year, and the accompanying press coverage, turned some people on to what can be intentionally forbidding music. Not that anybody got rich off it, but the band went from playing beer-soaked, weed-infused basements to playing major international festivals and sharing a stage with Anthony Braxton, something that must have seemed unlikely—if not impossible—when Nate Young started Wolf Eyes as a solo project back in the mid ’90s. The fact that the group never toned it down and sounded as abrasive and manic as ever was pretty cool. The world changed, not them. That is, until recently.
The dudes remain snotty, skateboarding, sunglasses-at-night smartass punks, even as they enter middle age, uncompromising in their art and lives. But with the recent addition of guitarist Jim Baljo, Wolf Eyes’ sound has altered course as much as it ever has during their career. They’ve curtailed their campaign to shock and batter listeners, focusing instead on a stripped-down sound that owes much to early industrial music.
2013’s No Answer: Lower Floors was the first obvious move in this direction, but there are times during last year’s I Am a Problem: Mind in Pieces where Wolf Eyes sounds almost like a traditional rock band. Not that there are verse-chorus-verse songs or anything to sing along with, but rather than tortured screams, Young’s vocals are halfway legible, and Baljo’s solos tread dangerously close to guitar heroics.
A few years ago, the band’s John Olson declared noise dead, a deliberately provocative statement made all the more powerful by Olson’s status. Who was going to argue with him? Kids late to the game who could never match Wolf Eyes’ influence or success? It’s no coincidence that Olson said that around the time Baljo joined Wolf Eyes—the band even christened their evolving sound as “trip metal.” It was sort of tongue in cheek, but mostly not. For more context, check Olson’s cheeky Twitter account, where he retweets any mention of the term, or attaches it to images of the most bizarre products of American culture. As much as anything trip metal is probably an experience, one best taken in at a Wolf Eyes show.
Wolf Eyes plays at the Standard (416 W. Jackson Ave.) on Thursday, March 31, at 10 p.m. Jim Baljo of the band will also perform with his instrumental noise quartet Chatoyant at the Standard on Thursday at 8 p.m.
Eric Dawson is Audio-Visual Archivist with the Knox County Public Library's Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound, and with Inside the Vault combs the archive for nuggets of lost Knoxville music and film history to share with us. He's also a longtime local music journalist, former A&E editor of the Knoxville Voice and a board member of the nonprofit performance venue Pilot Light.
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