Head With Wings - Without Intervention

by Julie Cruickshank

published: 5 / 12 / 2023

Label: Head With Wings
Format: CD

intro

Head With Wings’ new album thrills with inventive, layered soundscapes

Head With Wings made waves with their 2021 EP ‘Comfort in Illusion’. The band, US-based guitarists Brandon Cousino and Sayre Whitford, drummer Mike Short, bassist Joe Elliott and vocalist Joshua Corum have released a new album, ‘Without Intervention’, which builds on their reputation as an exciting musical talent. The album opens with ‘The Dream Broker’ a dense, tense, tumultuous piece: “Your honeysuckle mind/Is a twining vine/I watch the tendrils climb/Closer to the light”, which leads into the swirling, proggy ‘Task of Breathing’. ‘Remnant’ is a brief, spare tone poem. ‘Galaxy’ drives the pace of the album along through stuttering drums and urgent vocals. ‘Comfort in Illusion’, running at nearly nine minutes, features insistent vocal harmonies shot through with tumbling drums and pealing guitar: “Man, he’s delusional/We’ve been here before/It’s the land of the false alarms”. ‘Bell Chimes’, just over a minute of what could be studio improvisation over bells chiming, sounds almost experimental. ‘Three Months’ injects light and shade into an angst-ridden exploration of trauma: “I see faces rapidly appear/Then they vanish quickly as they come/The flickering”. Final track ‘Absolute Zero’ plugs into a powerful, insistent groove overlaid with soaring vocals. Head With Wings have, in ‘Without Intervention’, produced an album of fire and intensity, and continue to prove themselves one of today’s finest