Wage War just successfully released their second LP, Deadweight. The album carries over the combination of heavy metal and melodic harmonies that Wage War contained on their debut LP, Blueprints. The album opens with “Two Years”, an intro to the album that is mostly harmonic instrumentals until about halfway through where Briton Bond’s screams pierce through the serene sounds, setting the stage for the album. The next song on the album, “Southbound” is one of the heavier songs on the album. The song is about the frustration of dealing with accepting oneself. The emotions are heavily shown through the multiple breakdowns and intense screams from Bond.
“Dont Let Me Fade Away” is one of the more melodic songs of the album. The song was released as a single off of the album. It contains a catchy chorus with Cody Quistad’s clean vocals repeating
“Don’t let me fade away, don’t let me fade away
I just can’t make another day
Don’t let me fade away, don’t let me fade away
I’ve been torn down to nothing”
The song ends with an abrupt outro breakdown, with a final line of “Give me a sign, Tell me everything will be alright, Give me a sign, These idle hands adept for a crime”. The song is one of the most successful of the album. Another one of the heavier songs on the album is “Deadweight”. There are very little clean vocals in this song, only harmonies to the chants of the chorus. The song expresses hatred towards an unknown person, with a breakdown resulting in Bond’s screams of “Why don’t you just drop dead?”.
The lightest song on the album is “Gravity”. The song is a cry for help, containing mostly Quistad’s vocals with Bond harmonizing with quieter screams. The song depicts someone who is drowning, and is begging to be set free. The album closes with “Johnny Cash”, a song about love, specifically, the love that “Johnny Cash wrote songs about”. The back and forth of clean verses to intense screamed verses creates high energy and emotion. The closing verse is a call and response with Bond’s screams and Quistad’s vocals. The final breakdown of the album contains the lines
“Forget my name
Forget my face
It was all just empty space
Deadweight
No longer part of me”
Overall, I believe the album was extremely successful. Wage War did not stray far from the sound presented on their debut album Blueprints. However, the album incorporated more electronic harmonies as seen in the introduction track. While containing a lot of heavier songs such as “Stitch” the album included more of Cody Quistad’s clean vocals which are especially featured on the track “Gravity”. Wage War is currently on The Deadweight Tour (Part One) with special guests Gideon and Various. They will also be on tour this fall with fellow Ocala, Florida natives A Day to Remember as well as playing multiple dates of Self Help Festival. Check out the list of dates below!
