If you enjoy intense and aggressive guitar rock the new release from Wire Lines should appeal to you. “Harvest Verses” is the New Bedford band’s third album, their first full-length, to be released digitally and on vinyl this Friday, August 20th. The collection of songs features the unmistakable voice and delivery of Kevin Grant, a Fairhaven resident who has been a formidable frontman in the South Coast music scene for more than two decades.
But Grant doesn’t have the album’s only notable performances – bandmates Jeremy Medeiros (guitar), Ryan Parker (bass), and Ted Ilsley (drums) combine for a vociferous and unrelenting barrage of sound that is skilled and inspired.
“I think for some people heavy music is an outlet for adolescent nervous energy or something, it isn’t that for me,” says Grant, 45. “We live in an intense and aggressive world. I like heavy music the same way I like snowstorms, or swimming in big waves at the ocean, or looking out at a huge mountain. It’s elemental, and it’s a great feeling to be in contact with and contributing to something with a lot of power. It reminds you that you are part of the world’s fabric. It’s exhilarating.”
And “Harvest Verses” is exhilarating. The record will be available directly from the band’s label at blindragerecords.limitedrun.com, or in record stores worldwide through Revelation distribution at revhq.com/collections/new-releases. It is also available at wirelines1.bandcamp.com.
The band has a video available for the song “Lines In Sand.”
“I don’t go into writing sessions for an album with an idea or concept about what I want it to be about, but typically a theme will arise organically,” Grant says. “An album is written over the course of a year, and wherever I’m at mentally during that year will sort of guide where its headed. There are references to nationalism, xenophobia, mortality and loss of self-meaning on this one. Streets in every city were burning and alt-right/White Nationalist groups felt they had carte blanche there for a bit. And we are facing a virus which is still far from done with the human race. It would be dishonest for me to write lyrics that didn’t acknowledge what was happening.”
And Wire Lines is happening largely because of the band’s personal chemistry.
“We get along well as people,” Grant says. “We all have similar thoughts about the band, and we value our collective freedom to embrace different styles within what we do. And I think our individual skills complement each other well. I like lobster, and I like peanut butter, but I don’t want to eat a lobster and peanut butter sandwich. If your interactions are no good you can be great players but your band is still going to be a peanut butter and lobster sandwich.”
And Wire Lines is taking part in the vinyl renaissance.According to Grant the experience of a 12-inch album is something unique.
“With digital stuff being constantly available 24/7 on our phones, computers and TVs I feel like your physical album should be something you want to hold in your hands and take care of, it should look and feel nice,” he says. “We had intended on self-releasing the album on vinyl, but we were contacted by James at Blind Rage Records out of Dayton Ohio who really wanted to put it out and has been great to work with. We couldn’t ask for a better situation than we have in my opinion. We are in with a great roster of bands over there and he’d already been picking up a bunch of our sister bands out of the New Bedford hardcore scene.”
Grant says that Wire Lines’ sound has its influences but isn’t derivative.
“You could pick individual songs and hear influences, but the next song might be way off course, as might be the one after that. We just want to make music that sounds good to us, and I wouldn’t be interested in sounding like anyone else or anything else. That would sound terrible to me, no matter how well it was executed. I want to do new things; I don’t even want to sound like me if I can help it.
“If I ever ‘mellow out’ musically it will be because my voice or body have given out, not because I had aged out of it.”
Sonic SouthCoast 