WOLD – Working Together for Our Privacy

By Brian Krasman

Somewhere between sleep paralysis and the effects of medicine head lies Wold. The first two swallowed together make a scary combination, and that’s before Obey and Fortress Crookedjaw even enter the picture. Jarred from the midst of REM sleep, though not entirely, unable to move an inch, experiencing visions you never imagined the deepest caverns of your mind could generate, and on top of that gripping the woozy whirring of the medication as it sails the bloodstream.

But you awaken eventually. Maybe it’s only a few seconds. But the experience sticks with you. You revisit. You wonder when it’ll happen again. IF it’ll happen again. It wasn’t real, yet it was. What if next time it lasts even longer? Or worse yet, it never ends. OK, snap out of it. Common sense. It’s just your mind playing tricks. Right? Sure. But why can’t you shake the terror, the panic? Must sleep again … Maybe use fewer pills next time.

Comparing Wold’s new black static poison clouds of experimentation “Working Together for Our Privacy” (out on Profound Lore) to the aforementioned very real, very possible experience is not a stretch. It may even be treading lightly considering the terror and nausea conjured by these three instrumentals – if slathering your mind with blankets of noise, occasional, almost-by-accident melody, and the buzzing of million hornet nests can be labeled “instrumental” at all.

Each piece will bring a vision, a tremens, and you’ll be held hostage. It will be the worst possible abomination, too, but perversely, you’ll want the journey to keep going. What is the depth of such horror, and why does it arouse you? Maybe it’s because these claustrophobic and bloody phantasms are based in our human-devour-human society, the one where rape and murder no longer are worthy of an eye blink. That’s where you live, dear dreamer.

“The Secret,” the opening dose of suffocation, has you almost begging for the minimal waves of guitar haze, considering the swarm that feeds off you in the meantime. “Death Spiral” is just that, but it’s made even more terminally dreadful because you know you can’t hide from what trails you (after all, it’s in you mind, isn’t it?), and the deafening grinding is almost like a power saw chewing through metal just to get to you. Clutch the floor, dig your nails into your palms, but it’ll do you no good. “Lovey Dovey” then pokes at you, holding your tongue to the sander, making sure you can taste every last drop.

What’s more, if what stalks you isn’t your gray matter eating at you, it’s someone who looks … just like you. Normal. Every day. Ted Bundy. Or … Obey and Fortress Crookedjaw. It’s always when you least expect it, from the people you’d never suspect, that the cold hands steal your breath as you let down your inhibitions.

“Working Together For Our Privacy” won’t comfort everyone. Likely only a select few will find solace in this formless invader. But for everyone who thinks graveyard death metal and the most evil of black metal is truly the epitome of fright, those are mere bayonets, and you really should try to wake yourself before this daisy cutter that is Wold wipes you from existence, leaving no trace of your pitiful existence.