Band:	King Apathy
Album:	Wounds
Style:	Black metal, Post-metal
Release date:	February 22, 2019
A review by:	RaduP

01. Civilization Kills
02. The Scars Of The Land
03. Cleansing
04. Great Depression
05. Revelation Time
06. He Missed The Stars
07. Reverence
08. Wounds
09. Earthmother Rising

This band used to try to blend black metal and post-punk as Thränenkind. That didn't work out as well as it ideally should have, so now, under a new name, King Apathy makes a post-black metal album about how awful the human race is.

I first gave this album attention because it was tagged as both black metal and post-punk. I assumed that that would be a mistake or something because I found it odd to find that combination on Metal Storm. After noticing that King Apathy is actually the new name of Thränenkind, I decided to start chronologically with their first two albums. And to my surprise, there it was: post-punk. And the band did hit the post-punk mark quite well, but when it came to actually blending it with black metal, it felt very awkward. The other album, which actually gave this project its name, diminished the post-punk sound for a more conventional post-black sound. So now, on Wounds, that is continued.

There still are bits and pieces that are somewhat reminiscent of their post-punk sound, like the opening of "Cleansing", but overall this feels a lot closer to Harakiri For The Sky and Downfall Of Gaia than The Chameleons or Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. But this did make King Apathy have their own sound, separate from the aforementioned ones, a lot more melodic and shimmering, as if instead of trying to blend post- in, it completely ingested it. And speaking of genres, it's kind of time to admit that the black metal element of it is closer to neo-crust than actually black metal.

And with how emotionally pessimistic this record is, it's to its advantage that the black/crust vocals are largely quite intelligible so that they can clearly get their "look at the state we're in" message across. But just in case you didn't, they made sure to include some speech samples once in a while just to get the point across. And for how emotionally potent the whole album is and how there still is a tangible hardcore influence, there still feels like there's quite a lack of actually punchy and impactful moments. Wounds feels like it constantly stays in that mid-paced area where it sounds nice but it doesn't really feel like it's actually going anywhere. The best moments on the whole record are where it actually picks up pace or slows down, songs like "He Missed The Stars" or "Cleansing" or "Great Depression".

Wounds is a pretty important record with a pretty important message, but its lack of actual dynamism in songwriting does hinder how well it can get the point across. Yet it's still quite essential that once in a while we do look at what we've done to this earth.