Wailin Storms

Wailin Storms keeps getting bigger.

In personnel and sound, the band has expanded with every release. Frontman Justin Storms, the outfit's lone constant, started the project as a Southern Gothic duo, issuing the predictably spare if effectively moody Bone Colored Moon EP in 2012. For 2014's Shiver EP, Storms enlisted a drummer and bassist to fill in some of the negative space. The crew infused his increasingly propulsive songs with a much-needed rumble, like Samhain casting shadows over The Gun Club. And finally, for the full-length debut, One Foot in the Flesh Grave, Storms has finished the job by relocating to Durham and expanding Wailin Storms into a proper quartet.

Storms, along with Bats & Mice drummer Mark Oates, lead guitarist Todd Warner and bassist Steve Stanczyk, gives these songs the heft they require. Scorching single "Ribcage Fireplace" bursts at the seams. Behind Storms' raw howl, itself a perfect hybrid of Glenn Danzig and Murder City Devils' Spencer Moody, Oates forces the band forward. Storms and Warner summon gusts of distortion and reverb while Stanczyk cuts clanging, low-end riffs through the din. It's the sort of murky maelstrom The Men used to conjure and which Destruction Unit still does.

Even in quieter moments, Wailin Storms maintains an intense air of foreboding. "Walk" opens with comparatively sparse guitar strumming and light drumming. Echoing Nick Cave's steely menace, Storms sings, "See you walking down, down, down/With your hair always to the ground/Lips, lips, lips I wanna taste/Arms all around."

Early on, Wailin Storms garnered surprising comparisons—Roy Orbison's evocative rockabilly and the Birthday Party's tense post-punk, Danzig's dark blues metal and Screamin' Jay Hawkins' haunted hollers. Those contrasting influences still have their place, but One Foot's roster allows for more dense arrangements and a more confident presentation. Wailin Storms feels like more than an exercise in duality now. At last, this band is ready to find an audience to grow alongside it. - INDY Week, Bryan C. Reed

So what happens when a band cooks up a bunch of songs that defy genres and is able to channel their influences through the lens of honesty? This is just the case with Wailin Storms, whose soon to be released album One Foot In The Flesh Grave sounds like a morbid plate of hot grits covered in zombie blood. This band knows how to write songs that channel the gothic past of the south while still keeping the ghost of Robert Johnson happy. Have a dark fucking open mind – let the Wailin Storms blow right in, and you will not be disappointed! - CVLT Nation - Sean Reveron

5.) Wailin’ Storms – One Foot in the Flesh Grave (Magic Bullet)

Prior to Fest 14 this year I started reading the bios some of the bands I’d never heard of before. After learning that Wailin’ Storms were from my home state of NC, I began to question how the hell I had never heard of them before. They had transplanted from Texas to the Durham area and had been playing shows in the area. I listened to their EP, Shiver and absoutely loved it and I made sure I was going to go see them perform at Fest. Not long after that it was announced that their new album was going to be released on Magic Bullet Records and I got even more excited.Watching them at Fest was probably one of the highlights of that weekend for me. They were so intense and their music made me imagine Young Widows fronted by Glen Danzig making a country western album

One Foot in the Flesh Grave came out late in the year, right before Thanksgiving just when all the other websites start writing their album of the year lists. It’s as if the year was over and there wouldn’t be any more new music. Because sites like [take your pick of mainstream music news sites] were in such a rush to be the first ones out there with their list of music that is nearly identical in every way they skipped right over this brilliant record that they probably wouldn’t have bothered listening to anyway because it wasn’t hyped.

The day this went online I listened to it from front to back and then immediately listened to it again. I haven’t heard an album all year that felt so much like a complete piece of art. The tone of this album is haunting and oppressive at times. The guitars are simultaneously twangy and soaked in reverb, and the vocals are, yes reminiscent of Danzig circa Samhain, but come from a more intense and personal place. “Walk” is one of the most powerful songs of 2015, give it a listen if you don’t believe me. - figureheads ov pop

The humility and restraint, these are two things that Wailin Storms seem not to know at all. And listening to One Foot In The Grave Flesh (in Magic Bullet ) points to what I would call without any hesitation even the grandiloquence of excess. With a taste and conqueror displayed for theatricality and drama. But it has class and we did not at all and, in the case of Wailin Storms is high class in question simply . And I can forgive all this American group (NC), including its pervasive rage and black knight ways. Because nothing Do not Forget The Sun is one of the most beautiful album openings that was given me to listen in recent years. And then I go bluntly: One Foot In The Grave Flesh is one of my favorite albums of 2015. Amateurs Gun Club, of swamp, gothic punk and other non-assignable bullshit, this disc is for you. An album where there is nothing to throw (seven titles but only what titles!), An album of rare intensity, inhabited, lightning, lightning, sparkling beauty. Mystery Girl , Walk , Lost , Light As A Feather, Stiff As A Board .... titles keep coming inexorably cause enchantment. A disc that it is still very difficult for me not to listen repeatedly when I put it on the board. As a drug. As a consuming passion. Finally 2015 will not have been completely rotten. - le zebre

WAILIN STORMS
Why: As best as I can tell, Durham's Wailin Storms are dipping down to Texas only for the Blurt showcase on Saturday and an early-evening show at the Dizzy Rooster. That's a shame, as it seems their arid, warped mix of punk and metal could really find a wider audience in the Texas sun. Last year's One Foot in the Flesh Grave seems like a righteous soundtrack for a weekend that can get weird. - INDY Week - Grayson Haver Currin

Wailin Storms - "One Foot in the Grave Flesh"
Doom punk? Swamp rock? Reviewers apparently have a problem with the term genre practiced by Wailin Storms. I think it's just a combination of blues and noisy rock, punk or blues, used for example to specify the sounds of Gallon Drunk, The Birthday Party and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. But names are not important here. The most important is music. And this is really delicious. The desperate vocals, pounding guitars, exposed the rhythm section. For this grim aura, known achievements of the masters of Gothic. Graves, death, loss, mystery. It's strange, it's debutants, not a team with kilkupłytowym achievements. For dessert cover. As unique as the whole release. For such vinyl albums were created. Jakub Buszek - uwolnij muzyke - Jakub Buszek

Music industry these days is so immediate, so anxious, following altogether what is trending and what is more suitable for an elusive, decentralized target. Popular is no longer a matter of months, but days and hours. The attention span has decreased dramatically and good records like “One Foot In The Flesh Grave” will end up being unfairly pulverized by those who are already penning down some pointless, random end-of-the-year lists. Wailin Storms should be hailed because it is great music: perpetrating an aura of rebellious sadness while channeling long-gone haunted spirits of Southern delta blues, so that they can all morph into a vibrant, dissonant workstation of post-punk tonality. The old and the new brilliantly evoked by Justin Storms in a debut LP that will make any Wovenhand devotee hooked for a long time. - Ponto Alternativo - Emanuel Pereira