Photo by Jeff Schaer-Moses
Wolvves frontman Aydin Immortal crowd surfing for the first time during a performance at Phoenix Arizona’s Trunk Space.
Immortal, who is known in his hometown as an electric performer with a serious attitude streak, stated that Wolvves intends to take their talents to Brooklyn because many of the group’s biggest influences are currently living there, but also because the band feels that “if you are going to do anything noticeable you have to do it in New York.”
It may have been with hopes that New York and the rest of the country would take notice of their music that Wolvves decided to put their new album out for free, a move which the group made following the free release of their friends Injury Reserve’s debut full-length Live from the Dentist Office in the Summer of 2015.
Wolvves’ much anticipated record, which was announced nearly two years ago, can still as of publication be downloaded off the group’s bandcamp page for the cool price of $0.
“Music isn’t something you should have to pay for. Merch should be extra shit, not the music itself,” says Immortal about the band’s decision to let their long-awaited sophomore full-length out to the masses at no cost.
The price of the record is definitely not a commentary on its quality because Paradox Valley is far and away the best work Wolvves has done to date. That’s not to say that their previous releases Whatever, Go Demon or Go Home, and Live Forever aren’t good. It’s just that with Paradox Valley it feels like the group has really found the happy medium between hip-hop and punk rock that they have been looking for since their first single “Dance” hit the internet back in 2012.
The new project even allowed the group to dive headfirst into the realm of hip-hop with the record’s second track “With My Niggas,” which is more or less a rap song with some guitars in the background, while its seventh track “Gasoline,” which was recorded live, is more in the vein of a straight-up punk song, blazing guitar solos and all.
Perhaps it is the band’s new lineup — featuring Immortal on guitar and vocals, Edward Marie on bass, and Sean Pantea on drums — that has empowered Immortal to let his hip-hop side shine brighter on this new record.
While the ever exciting frontman is no stranger to changing lineups (“I feel like I have had as many jobs or girlfriends as lineup changes; people in Phoenix are flaky”), this particular changeover seems to have led the introspective punk to a level of musical maturation that the others did not.
Not unrelated to the band’s decision to switch coasts is the fact that all three members are now people of color and all feel that their current home in the desert isn’t quite with it as pertains to matters of race: “Arizona is more racist than a lot of places we have been,” says Immortal.
The band has also faced racism in other parts of the country, naming Washington as a place where they felt the bias was particularly egregious. But no other state is known quite so well for its serial and systemic racism as the Copper State, and as a man who has struggled with issues of race not just throughout his career but throughout his life, Immortal is looking for better for his revamped musical lineup.
Wolvves is currently on a two-month national tour, and among many other firsts the angsty punks will be making their first ever trip to New York City to play The Cake Shop in Manhattan’s Lower East Side on September 27th and Aviv in Bushwick, Brooklyn on September 28th.
