Deaf Wish
Pain
SUB POP
5/10
“In my heart, there is blood. In my heart there is only blood,” Deaf Wish guitarist Sarah Hardiman intones at the beginning of “Dead Air,” the thrashing penultimate track of the band’s serviceable full-length Sub Pop debut, Pain. The statement sums up the Melbourne noise-rock band’s admirable approach to music—direct, pulsing, and always coursing forward—even if the results don’t always reach their intended heights. For eight years the band has done time in the Australian punk underground, and much of Pain is devoted to wiry, tangled post-punk, brief and intense on songs like “The Whip” and “Sunset’s Fool.” But it seems as if Deaf Wish has gotten too caught up within its own influences to bring something truly new to the noise-rock table. It’s true that there’s blurry romance in the band’s sound, too—songs like “Sex Witch” and the electrifying “They Know” possess a sensual undercurrent that sits beneath the band’s aggression, but the blandness of Pain ultimately leaves listeners cold.
