Wedge - Killing Tongue

When a band's debut album features a track about the singers girl being 53 years old maybe somewhat intriguing enough but when it’s a 61SG guitar this all begins to make perfect sense. Such an iconic musical instrument would immediately be held in such high regard due to its place within the music created during the halcyon days of the psychedelic rock scene in the 60’s and early 70’s.
Cut to 2018 and the SG in question has matured further in the years between the first and second album and so has the sound on Killing Tongue the new album by Munich based band Wedge. Needle down hit the grooves and straight away were in with Nuthin’ fast paced and loose all staccato muted guitar riffs that builds into an organ midsection before diving back to the excellent riff.

Album taster Lucid carries on this fast paced motif with a driving wah pedal, drum and bass led song interspersed with occasional shimmering guitar strums and organ fills, the building guitar solo carries the song to its crescendo. Somehow just as we’ve re-joined the early rock days of the 70’s the mood changes via otherworldly chimes and space echoes opening a portal back into psychedelia. Opening with pulsing keyboards, eastern guitar rhythms grow into stoner hand claps before bursting back through into a tale of living on the road on Tired Eyes which at seven minutes is pure mid 70’s California sunshine excess.

Those heady days continue with Quarter To Dawn, dreamy acoustic guitars and piano with a hint of Santana in the percussion and guitar break. High Headed Woman follows on with this sunshine album sound in a way I can only liken to that of The Sheepdogs, personally it conjures up images of cruising along the Pacific coastal highway wearing your aviators.
Returning back to the heavy retro rock sound with title track Killing Tongue were thrown into deep organ driven rock over the next three tracks, Alibi with its slow psych guitar opening riff building into a funky track with great lyrics and chorus, up there with Lucid as a stand alone single maybe. The intro and swing Who Am I reminds me of the atmosphere of early Alice Cooper band albums, this is a band bang on form with superb musicianship. What a better way to end the album than rocking out with stripped back rock n’ roll Wedge style, the last song Push Air delivers just that with cranked valve amps literally pushing air from the speakers.

This is an amazing return from Wedge, the sheer diversity of the musical styles within this album is outstanding and may fool the casual listener into thinking Wedge are a much larger group of musicians than the trio that they are, such is the sonic expanses of Killing Tongue.

Viva el Swain


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