by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
There’s a lot to love about Adelaide’s Wireheads, a band that can dart between post-punk with a roaring ferocity and a jangly minimalism, sauntering from pop splendor to punk sheen in a blink. Led by the charismatic Dom Trimboli, the lyrics are always laser focused, capturing the mundane and the extraordinary together, intertwining the absurd with the drastically immediate. The sextet manage to balance brains and muscle, with subtly tangled structures pairing together with perfectly imperfect harmonies, heaps of well oiled guitar fuzz, and an innate sense for when to unwind and when to recoil. Wireheads separate themselves from the pack with that dynamic notion, their songs evolve, the elastic nature of it continuously pushing toward the snapping point. They’ve reshaped a common sound and thrive when shifting the direction.
The band released five albums in their first four years together, but it’s been six long years since they shared the Calvin Johnson produced Lightning Ears. While they were away from Wireheads, their creativity never lapsed as members released music as Dom & The Wizards, Workhorse, Introduction, Zipper, and beyond. As Trimboli found himself sitting on a batch of songs that could only be Wireheads, the members found themselves pulled back in, coming together to create their exceptional new record, Potentially Venus. Due out June 23rd via Tenth Court (Spice World, The Sprouts, Ostraaly), the band sound unnervingly alive, the time away resulting in a deeper bond. “Hook Echo,” the record’s first single is built with a ripping backbone, the bass absolutely clobbering the mix of rusty guitars and and motorik drums. Everything about “Hook Echo” boogies, from the driving flush of riffs to the doubled (and perhaps tripled) vocals in the chorus. Just as everything seems locked in, the band surge into a rattling guitar solo and warped cosmic synths ahead of the bridge. Trimboli’s expressive vocals and narrative lyrics are sticky with hooks, creating earworms with gentle nuance that cracks and pops in all the right places.