Friday Full-Length: Coma Wall & Undersmile, Wood & Wire
Posted in Bootleg Theater on October 8th, 2021 by JJ KoczanDespite their melodic foundation and ready use of vocal harmonies, Undersmile never made for easy listening. The Oxfordshire-based four-piece released their debut EP, A Sea of Dead Snakes, in 2010 and followed it with a split with Caretaker in 2011. By the time they got around to issuing 2012’s full-length debut, Narwhal (review here), through Future Noise Recordings and Tartarus Records, their methodology of grim atmospherics, a nautical thematic and duly weighted, undulating, oceanic progressions was well set. That Narwhal peppered its 79-minute run with interludes and shorter pieces did not lessen its impact.
Comprised then and now of vocalist/guitarists Hel Sterne and Taz Corona-Brown, bassist Olly Corona-Brown and drummer Tom McKibbin, Undersmile in 2012 would do something I can think of few other heavy acts doing in quite the same way. They went acoustic. By starting another band. And then they released a split with themselves the next year, with Wood and Wire (review here) appearing through Shaman Recordings and Future Noise.
Eight, nine years later, there’s still a part of me that wonders if Coma Wall needed to be a separate band, and there are arguments to be made on either side. Hel and Taz have done Coma Wall appearances as a duo over the years, and certainly it’s a more attractive moniker for a gig poster than Undersmile (Acoustic) or something like that. At the same time, doesn’t spinning Coma Wall off into another band limit what Undersmile could be? I guess Jo Quail might show up on cello for either incarnation, but what if Coma Wall wants to plug in and get heavy? What if Undersmile wants to do an unplugged set? How strict do the lines become between one and the other?
But they’re not really separate and I don’t think they were intended to be. Otherwise they’d probably have done the split with someone else. With full-band arrangements, Coma Wall made their first offering with Wood and Wire, the title of the six-songer (three tracks per band) hinting at the interplay of acoustic and electric-based fare that played out across its 42-minute span. In “Summer,” “You Are My Death” and “Cutter’s Choice” — the latter an Undersmile cover from the first EP, because of course — Coma Wall put together full-band unplugged arrangements. At the time I likened it to ’90s-era MTV Unplugged — not at all a jibe in my mind — and specifically, to Alice in Chains‘ performance in that series. The harmonies between Sterne and Corona-Brown in “You Are My Death” follow a cascading pattern that a plucked banjo punctuates along with the snare drum set back in the mix, the bass rolling alongside in a way that comes across as not quite as full as “Summer” before it, but still in a similar vein.
Both pieces have hooks to provide memorability despite their slow unfurling, and “Cutter’s Choice” in Coma Wall‘s hands becomes a welcome highlight of intricate guitar work and a roll that immediately calls Sap to mind; dark in atmosphere, organic in execution. When Undersmile take over with “Soil,” “Killer Bob” and “Hives,” the procession is very much one of having been built up — that is, one band is meant to lead to the other — and “Soil” starts quiet before kicking in.
Still, that initial burst of tone is jarring — one imagines less so when an actual vinyl platter is flipped between “Cutter’s Choice” and “Soil,” but I spare you pretending I’m not listening to the digital version — and those same harmonies from “You Are My Death” that made the idea seem almost sweet become part of a densely droning effect.
These songs are actually on the shorter end for Undersmile, though “Hives” tops eight minutes. Narwhal readily went past a 10-minute mark without blinking. But what matters is the plod. Undersmile were never just about being slow, and their lumbering on Wood and Wire is essential to creating the particular downer ambience of their style of doom. Even with its all-the-volume-you’ve-got-worthy distortion, “Soil” remains righteously melodic, and the same is true of “Killer Bob,” which turns for seven and a half minutes to a tempo that’s so excruciating you almost have to laugh about it.
The drone, though. It’s the drone. Earth-style drone. That’s what stands out to me in revisiting Wood and Wire, and it comes out in “Killer Bob” and the down-to-minimal stretch of “Hives” that answers its plunging trajectory with further willful plodding — and is that some acoustic guitar to tie it all together? — as the four-piece convey an utterly hopeless landscape. You can see the trees and the water (and the wolves) on the cover art. By the time “Hives” is finished, the feeling is more that the forest in the background has been burned away and ash and trunk parts are all that’s left. Not so much a rising fog as residual smoldering.
No, Undersmile were never easy listening. They were, however, consistently undervalued. In 2015, the band released their second long-player, Anhedonia (review here), through Black Bow Records, having recorded with Chris Fielding at Skyhammer Studio. Broader in scope and massive in sound to match, it would be their final release before their breakup the next year. So it goes, right? Two good records, some cool shows, played Desertfest here and again. A decent run across seven or so years. More than a lot of bands get. Fair enough.
Well, they’d reunite late in 2019, which was great news except that nobody knew the world was about to end. Coma Wall released three songs recorded by McKibbin in 2020’s Ursa Minor EP, but like everybody’s everything, any and all larger-scale 2020 plans were scuttled owing to the pandemic. To my knowledge, the show Undersmile would have played on Oct. 24 as part of a three-day weekend bill dubbed Restart the Heart at Camden Town’s famous The Black Heart (no babies allowed; I’ve tried) venue alongside Jo Quail, Conan, Trippy Wicked, Wren, Gurt and many more, would have been their first post-reunion, but alas, they canceled last month.
So it goes in a time of “another time.” In the meantime, Taz and Olly Corona-Brown, as well as McKibbin and Tom Greenway double (triple?) in the sometimes-banjo-laden hardcore weirdo outfit Drore, who have been releasing tapes since 2016 and whose latest single “Lone Ranger by Kittens,” is up now for streaming at Bandcamp.
Whatever comes, if anything, will or won’t. What is, is.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
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I don’t remember what had me thinking of Coma Wall and Undersmile this week. Or last week. Probably something in the Quarterly Review put it in my mind, but I can’t recall what off the top of my head. You know, I wrote 70 reviews for that thing. 70. And the first message I got about it was from some dude being like, “So I guess I didn’t make it, huh?”
Yeah, I had said that I’d work his record in. But come on. I didn’t even get a day to feel like I accomplished something when it was over. I’m sorry that the guy was disappointed — now I am too. Because I did 70 records in 10-per-day installments back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back and it wasn’t enough. I said to The Patient Mrs. last night it’s the first time I’ve done a Quarterly Review and felt like it wasn’t worth the effort. I guess after doing it for more than six years, that’s a pretty decent track record though. Enough that I’ll do another in December or January, anyhow.
But god damn, that kind of became the tone for my whole week: “What the fuck am I doing?”
There were so many other releases I didn’t get to either, and more stuff came in all last week through the contact form. I had specifically slated a premiere for Wednesday so I’d have to stop. I wish I hadn’t. I could’ve used the extra day to cover stuff like Enslaved, Ascia, No Mute, Nothing is Real, Doctor Smoke, Dome Runner, Wooden Fields, Wooden Earth, Trip Hill, Octopus Ride — there, that’s 10. And that was a quick glance at my desktop.
It is intensely frustrating. And I know there’s an entire league of stuff out there that I can’t get to. I wish I had an outlet for just putting something there and being like, “okay, this exists,” but I don’t. There’s no keeping up with an algorithm like Spotify or YouTube channels with tens of thousands of subscribers who just put records out there and people get notifications and then watch some record and buy merch or whatever. Even if I had the time I don’t think I’d do that, but shit it looks efficient.
I have the Gimme Metal show, but come on. I don’t have any listener statistics or anything, but I see mostly the same heads in the chat room every other Friday — and I appreciate that, make no mistake — but I can just imagine a whole ton of people clicking right off as soon as the first riff of whatever weirdo shit I’m playing kicks in.
It’s been 12 years of my life. This is my life’s work. For what?
For music, I guess.
Have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head. Hydrate. Gimme show next week, plus way more premieres than I actually have time to write. Look out for Black Willows on Monday. Record is a beast.
Thanks for reading. Please buy a t-shirt.
