The record finished before my pasta was al dente. There are more songs on “Excruciating Pain” than minutes.
“Excruciating Pain,” released March 4 from Blind Rage Records, is a follow-up to “Noise, Death & Chaos,” an equally cheery and only slightly longer 12-song LP from 2024. Three of the tracks from the full-length — “Anhedonia,” “No Sympathy,” and “Soul Cancer” — are just over the 20 second mark, while “The Lower Depth,” the longest track on the album by a wide margin, comes in at an unprecedented 2:41.
The 12-song album runs just under 12 minutes.
The 2024 LP was a split release between Blind Rage Records and No Time Records, and was only recently celebrated with a release show this past February. It was also the first time the band performed in front of an audience.
D’Arcy Rix-Hayes, Wounded Paw’s lyricist and vocalist, is the main reason for the delay — he lives in Canada, and the rest of the members live in Dayton. When D’Arcy flew down for the February show, he also laid down his vocal tracks for “Excruciating Pain,” which was engineered and mixed by Shaun O’Shaughnessy.
D’Arcy’s trip was purported to be a 48-hour turnaround between traveling, the show, and the recording, which is very apropos to the sonic in-and-out hardcore of Wounded Paw.
While the vocals may be garbled to the untrained ear (i.e. a non-hardcore punk listener), the brutal guitar riffs may also seem like nothing, when there’s actually quite a bit of nuance happening underneath the distortion.
The same can be said about the lyrics, and the intentions behind them.
“Punk has always been anti-authoritarian,” said Gwen Downing-Groth, Wounded Paw bassist and owner of Blind Rage Records. “In that tradition of being a hardcore punk band… it’s not to say every band has that same message, but I’d argue most of the good ones do. It’s very much anti-war, anti-imperialism.”
Many of the song titles on “Excruciating Pain” likely shouldn’t be committed to print, but names like “Factories of Death” and “Only Cowards Believe in Peace” should give you a good sense of the others.
There is a palpable energy to the music, as if something is pent up and can only occur in high-octane bursts. The music says what it needs to say, and never lingers. There are no guitar solos, no excessive fills; it’s just in your face and to the point.
But if you say “hardcore” in a room full of people who say they’re into hardcore, they’ll likely all have a different definition of what that is. The spectrum is not exclusively made up of short, fast, and loud bands. Wounded Paw just happens to be one of those hardcore bands that makes short, fast, and loud music.
And it’s music you can listen to while boiling pasta.
Brandon Berry writes about the Dayton and Southwest Ohio music and art scene. Have a story idea for him? Email branberry100@gmail.com.
More info: Wounded Paw’s 2025 EP “Excruciating Pain” is now available digitally on Bandcamp and streaming. A 7” vinyl is slated to release later this year.
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