Album Review: DeadWax – Nu-k
Reviewed by Matthew Williams
Having had the pleasure of seeing Yorkshire’s rebel rousers Deadwax a few weeks ago in Stockport, when they supported Blackgold I immediately grabbed the opportunity to review the promo when it became available, as they’d whetted my appetite that evening.
Let’s put this in context to begin with, if you don’t like an explosion of heavy bass, rock guitars and UK rap, then you aren’t going to like this album. This quartet are an infectious bunch with boundless energy which you discover when that guitar riff drops on opening track “Famous Style”. You get exactly what you hope for, with frontman Jake Milburn commanding from the start, but as I sort of expected, it’s different hearing them on record than it is live. The intensity levels aren’t there and the sound is cleaner, however, when I listen to “Bang On” and “Shook” two songs they performed when I saw them, you can easily sense just how crazy their live gigs must be due their awesome beat drops, hardcore, spitting lyrics, which are all wrapped up in a punky aggressive attitude.
On stage, vocalist Milburn described their sound as “nu-metal with a UK flavour” and that northern tongue is in full affect across this album. If this means rap-rock is back in favour, then I’m all for it, but there’s a drop in tempo during “Aftershock” which changes again on “Frequency” allowing them to showcase more of their talents as the track crosses a few genres with a mix of tones. There’s a guest appearance from Pengshui’s Illaman during “Hit Back” as they take a pop at the AI generated, blue ticked musicians who can’t handle the live setting with the more laid-back vibe showing their versatility.
The raucous nature of their music comes back with a vengeance on “Big Man” as the grime inspired words come flooding out of the frontman. This is where the band are at their best, with a heavy drum sound from Ben Millington, complimented superbly in the rhythm section by bassist Solomon Price which allows the guitar sound of Henry Skinner to pop off at different angles. I don’t quite understand the point of “Bigger Man” at the end, all 27 seconds of it, but it shouldn’t detract from the fact that this is a cracking album which will put Deadwax and their alt-grime/nu-metal music firmly on the UK map.
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