Wipers- Over The Edge (1983)
On one of my many visits to the Cosmic Hearse (an infinitely better and far more worthy blog than my own) I was confronted by this post.
I won't use such hyperbole as to say that the album posted changed my life but it was perhaps one of the best and most surprising albums I have downloaded without knowing anything of the band themselves.
The thing that really struck me about the album was the guitar work, it is simply superb. There's the angular and driving power chord riffage one would come to expect from any 'punk' album but there is melody, haunting, beautiful melody. This is no more perfectly exemplified than on the likes of Doom Town and the title track itself. The guitar work, the vocals and the lyrics all lend this album a sense of maturity, not in terms of simply being a tight nit group (which they undoubtedly are) but also of purpose and meaning; this is an album that deserves to be heard and deserves to be praised. This is no throw-away release from a band finding it's feet, this album is assured, direct, powerful.
Forget the fact that the Wipers influenced a swathe of grunge bands from Mudhoney to Nirvana and listen to the album on it's own merits. This album tells a story of a particular place in time and space, it is a document of life in Portland for this group of young men in the early 80s.
Nothing I have said in this post is worthy of this album, nothing I can say about the band or the music they produce can adequately convey how good this band were and their discography is.
So here is a shamelessly stolen link from Cosmic Hearse, if you download from here make sure to visit that blog and leaves comments there. It really is worth your time....
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