Deaf Wish 'Lithium Zion' (ALBUM REVIEW)

Album number five from Australian noise-monsters Deaf Wish is upon us, and its a full-scale thunderstorm from down under(storm). The Melbourne four-piece stepped into a proper studio (Head Gap Recording in Melbourne) for the first time to record Lithium Zion, their second release on Sub Pop Records, but their acidic take on homebrew punk rock remains firmly to the left of the pH scale. 

Unsurprisingly, the band are not here to compromise and opening the record with the discordant ‘Easy’ feels like a challenge to weed out those who can’t hack it. It’s certainly the least accessible cut on Lithium Zion but is far from a battle to get through – if you know, you know – and on the other side is a raucous garage-punk record of the three-times-the-speed-limit variety.

This is in no way 38 minutes of brainless thrashing – the chest-thumping stampede of ‘Ox’ works its way up to a dizzyingly psychadelic feedback whirlpool and ‘The Rat Is Back’ could be Joy Division pulled through a wormhole and pumped full of E numbers.

Equally, though, ‘Metal Carnage’ lives up to its name (or at least the second part of it), a frenetic neck-snapper that moves so fast it almost trips over its own feet on the way to an artfully jarring outro. This provides the musical template that turns the middle part of the record into nothing short of a riot, peaking with the divine pandemonium of the instrumental title track, which whips an earworm melody up into a tornado of thrashing guitars and blunt force trauma. 

This kind of muscularity is hinted at throughout on the record, and is all the more affecting here because of how carefully reigned-in it is on other tracks. The hectic lead single ‘FFS’, given a snotty swagger from guitarist Sarah Hardiman’s vocals, is a case in point, driven by an urgent riff which sometimes simmers and sometimes boils over. For all the jokes levelled at drummers (how do you know if the stage is flat etc…), this song shows just how much the tubs can dictate the mood of a track, with the hypnotic riff taking on several different shades depending on what’s going on with the rhythm section at any given time. 

From start to finish Lithium Zion teeters on the edge of utter bedlam, and the best thing is you wonder if you would even notice if it plunged headfirst into it. Maybe it has been there this whole time? Regardless of where on the map of musical sanity it is, it is a magnificent return to form from a band who probably down a beer in one and chew up the can afterwards. 

Words - Joe Ponting

Sub Pop/Deaf Wish