ReView: King Yosef – The Ever Growing Wound EP0

King Yosef
Album: The Ever Growing Wound EP
Category: Industrial / Hardcore / Noise
Label: Bleakhouse
Release Date: 2022-05-02
Author: Ilker Yücel (Ilker81x)

Tayves Yosef Pelletier – a.k.a. King Yosef – has cultivated quite the niche for himself in the annals of modern underground music thanks to his abrasive blend of industrial noise, post-hardcore aggression, trap beats, and all points in-between. The Ever Growing Wound is his latest EP, wherein one can expect these elements compounded by unorthodox progressions that seem to stress urgency and force above all else. Interludes like the introductory “Descent” and the title track do present an almost cinematic mentality with their incorporation of operatic choirs and guitar passages befitting an epic spaghetti western, while the real meat of the EP comes from the bristling distortion of insipid bass sequences and grating, screaming vocals in tracks like “Fair Bloom,” “Violence Breeds Violence,” and “A Noise Begins.” King Yosef wastes no time punishing his listeners’ ears, but it is in those disparate moments when the noise dissipates, the screams descend into malevolent whispers, and the ambience becomes a strained and distant afterthought that the fury of his arrangements amplify to levels that will be nigh intolerable for the uninitiated. And just in case you’re concerned that he’s incapable of anything resembling traditional songwriting, “Shifting Eyes” and the closing “UV Ray” possess moments of outright catchiness; this is especially so on the latter track, which is the closest The Ever Growing Wound comes to providing an “accessible” industrial/rock track with actually decipherable vocals and strident guitar riffs. Opting for a perhaps less abstract approach than his earlier output, King Yosef has stated that the EP is just a steppingstone for what is yet to come… are we prepared? Somehow, this writer doubts that we are.
 
Track list:

1. Descent
2. Fair Bloom
3. Shifting Eyes
4. The Ever Growing Wound
5. Violence Breeds Violence
6. A Noise Begins
7. UV Ray

 
King Yosef
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