Meatwound are not sure what they are beyond four musicians generating noise and aggression. That’s not a negative, either. Now on their fourth album, they release their latest effort via Threat Collection Records, famous for being the label set up by recording engineer, Ryan Boersch (Melvins, Helmet, Norma Jean, Tomahawk). You’ll often see their music mentioned in hardcore and sludge metal circles, but Macho is more akin to an industrial grind of alienation for 2025.
A high-powered synth bass circles around the same note like Ministry in the Twitch era in opener, ‘Compressed Hell’. You know the fumes will escape up your nostrils. A muscular voice yells about “annihilation” before the beat connects and the guitar noise enters like a cold draught from outside your door. The severe vision of the future imagined by Godflesh comes to life here and in ‘Mount Vermin’, where a mid-tempo groove with subtle eighth note kick patterns operate as the engine. This time the slashing high-register guitar leads the way. “In this life together / In this isolation / Who do we trust?” roars Daniel Wallace. You can almost discern a melody among the amp distortion.
Meatwound’s music is harsh and as tough as a ten-hour shift on a factory production line. ‘Obese Variants’ captures them at their best. A clunky bassline and shouting vocals fight with an agitated drumbeat. Here, the guitar stands back and focuses on an extra layer of ambient pollution. The rumble of the bass in ‘Labor’ churns like a dumper truck in neutral gear. This feature is as important to industrial noise metal as cherry blossoms are to the Japanese aesthetic. Wallace excretes his word as if held at gunpoint and handcuffed by people demanding a false confession. This is what Nailbomb would sound like if they returned with a new album in 2025.
Killing Joke will come up as a reference point for this music. That’s understandable, although Meatwound are closer to what Napalm Death aim for when they dabble in industrial metal settings. Sometimes, they need neither bass nor pounding snare drums. ‘Frank Stallone’ is a rare vitriolic workout with only programmed percussion and shouts of “lifelong aberration” for the first two minutes and eighteen seconds. Then, the hissing guitar distortion bursts through the speakers like water filling up the bowels of the Titanic. In recognition of Ministry’s Land of Rape and Honey, the aim in ‘Pigs, Tu’ is to repurpose thrash metal as a bass-heavy grind. The vocals are loud enough to unsettle you and distant enough to stew in unattended pain. Here, Ari Barros plays his guitar like an industrial hose pipe that’s beyond the control of one man.
The aggression on this record is not blind. Think of it as the determination to cast of the everyday shackles of life. Closing track, ‘Exodus, MF’, is the most metallic offering on the record and equal to anything on Fudge Tunnel’s swansong album from 1994. It’s the sound of urban stress. Most of humanity participate in this chaos and learn to live with it. Meatwound remind you what it’s like when your spirit can no longer go along with these compromises.
JVB
Verdict
Release Date: 09/05/2025
Record Label: Threat Collection Records / Pax Aeternum Digital
Standout tracks: Obese Variants; Labor; Exodus, MF
Suggested Further Listening: Ministry – The Land of Rape and Honey (1987), Fudge Tunnel – The Complicated Futility of Ignorance (1994), Kollapse – AR (2024)