AMG Review of Dead Hills

Charlie Wilmoth
All Music Guide

After a long string of releases on tiny labels like Hanson and American Tapes, Dead Hills marks Wolf Eyes' first effort for the larger Troubleman label, and it's a shocker, mating cold, rudimentary, electronic beats with terrifying feedback scrapes. "Dead Hills 2" is especially noteworthy: it nicely captures the ferocity of early Swans, with its lumbering tempo and its vocals, which sound more like retching than singing. The other two tracks aren't quite as incendiary, but they're effective: "Dead Hills" establishes a suitably creepy mood with clouds of beat-less ambient noise, while "Rotten Tropics" is a bit like "Dead Hills 2," but with the vocals pushed a bit further into the background. Dead Hills is an exciting, confrontational record that should appeal to fans of everything from death metal to Merzbow to Throbbing Gristle.