“Wounds are not simply healed by time, they are viciously cauterized.”
In the six years since releasing their debut EP, Michigan’s Wounded Touch have lingered on the periphery of the broader metal and mathcore scenes. But now with multiple releases to their name and a steadily growing live presence, the group return with their strongest effort to date with their sophomore full-length A Vivid Depiction of Collapse. Sonically informed by genre greats of the early 2000s, Wounded Touch blend nostalgic influences with stark, poetic lyricism to create a record that stands as a lasting, impactful journey of self-reckoning in the face of emotional collapse.
With a stilted, robotic voice and spastic, dissonant guitar work, opening track “If I Could Make Your Pain My Own” sets its hooks in, drawing attention with a bit of tension-building before you’re thrown headfirst into the fray. As jarring of a start as it is, the underlying message of wishing you could alleviate a loved one’s pain is a resonant one, only amplified by the jagged and noisy soundscape accompanying it. The contrast of harsh vocals and instrumentals alongside more sentimental messaging is beautifully discordant, and further exemplified on the following track “Shield of White Roses“.
Finding solace in the transformative power of love, there’s an almost call-and-response approach taken with the clean vocals interspersed throughout the track. The sung refrain “you gave me sunshine” gives flowers where they’re due, but it’s swallowed by a mounting sense of anguish as “Shield of White Roses” progresses. This is reflected in its lyricism, which remains poetically eloquent throughout; “a forest fire rekindled endlessly until forgiving rainfall kissed my skin” beautifully conveys the song’s message, but the turbulent spiral into closing repetitions of “I was a fire, and you were a prayer for rain” betrays the desperation underscoring the sentiment.
On a record titled A Vivid Depiction of Collapse, a turning of the tides was inevitable, and as the intensity begins to ramp up, so does the feeling that things are starting to truly unravel. The manic guitar work on “Dreams In Triage” matches its frenzied vocals, and the track’s final breakdown is positively violence-inducing. The use of the word triage in the song’s title implies a cold or clinical approach in its sorting of victims, but lyrically, it reads like both a eulogy and a confession; mourning the loss of past relationships, past dreams, and past selves alike while also taking accountability for the part played in their downfall (“I was the shooter and I was the witness for every version of me no more, for every hope lain beneath white sheets.”)
One of the first singles released for the record, “Choleradio” burns bright and fast, using its brief runtime to critique a voiceless, emotionally detached society. Shrill and pissed off, the vocals push back against the stoic facades “the audience” hides behind, likening them to a mute Greek chorus and their silence in conformity to a disease (“They will not sing. They have no voice, only their stoic facade.”) Final single “Consequence and Broadcast” acts as a bridge between Wounded Touch’s past and current sounds, described by the band as both a “trail of breadcrumbs” between their debut record Americanxiety and A Vivid Depiction of Collapse, as well as an intentional channelling of their early aughts post-hardcore influences. This is another track that makes effective use of lyrical repetition to create lasting a musical impression, with increasingly frantic repetitions of “I have no words left to offer or give you” creating a heightened sense of anxiety that is offset by the melodic elements woven throughout.
The transitions between songs across A Vivid Depiction of Collapse are so seamless that interlude “[Save Point]” might escape notice as being its own track. The minute-long instrumental smoothes the way into the record’s second half, though it is less the calm before the storm and more the safe haven at the eye of it. Standout single “The Damning Variable” comes roaring in with a scathing takedown of artificial intelligence usage in the creation of art, a hot-button issue in an age where AI’s prevalence in everyday life seems both exponential and inevitable. Rather than just deriding the practice as simply lazy or uncreative, the track instead emphasizes the human need to create, and the human emotions and experiences that fuel the creative process—things that a machine cannot feel for itself, but can only imitate (“No machine has been unmade by the haunt of nostalgia’s decay. No oil-laden vein has severed nor oxidized at the numbing arrangement of words for want of another’s touch.”)
“Every Grieving Piece” doesn’t quite tug at the heartstrings so much as it carves away at them with a serrated edge. From the weight of guilt and regret, to the unbearable physical and emotional voids left behind by loss, it is a visceral encapsulation of the haunting and gnawing nature of intense grief. Once again making use of lyrical repetition to maximize emotional impact, the screamed echoes of “don’t go, please stay” across the track provide an outlet for the anguish pouring from every second of its runtime. The dropout into the atmospheric “…And Taketh” is sudden, but masterfully done. The old adage about never meeting your heroes comes to mind, as the lyrics grapple with the disillusionment of idolizing figures who ultimately succumb to their own human flaws (”How can I find comfort, how do I reconcile if the ones who most inspired triumph were also just flesh and blood?”) A well-paced slow burn, “…And Taketh” effectively stokes the smouldering ashes of “Every Grieving Piece” into the fire starter needed to ignite the record’s explosive closing run.
There’s a sense of symmetry in how A Vivid Depiction of Collapse begins and ends. Though it’s not a perfect mirroring, the closing tracks “An Unscarred Purpose” and “Vultures Await Them, Son” parallel both the messaging and sonic intensity of opening tracks “If I Could Make Your Pain My Own” and “Shield of White Roses. By the time “Vultures Await Them, Son” reaches its incendiary climax, love is no longer just a source of pain or healing, but a driving motivation to endure and find purpose in the aftermath of ruin. This resolve is echoed in every increasingly vitriolic repetition of “it ends with me” across the final minute and forty-five seconds of runtime, the vicious declarations a drawn-out series of controlled detonations as the track collapses in on itself in spectacular fashion.
Channelling years of persistence into something searing and unforgettable, A Vivid Depiction of Collapse proves to be a visceral and cathartic portrait of grief, love, and survival that doesn’t just demand your attention—it earns it, and rewards it. Every track feels indispensable, deliberate in their intention and crafted to cut to the emotional core. Each one presents a distinct emotional rupture worth unpacking, a different piece of debris to examine or section of rubble to sift through in the aftermath of devastation. The record’s emotional resolution is hard-won, and the impact it leaves behind is profound and deeply resonant, haunting in the way it lingers long after its final notes ring out.
9/10
Vivid Depiction of Collapse is set to release this Friday May 16th via Smartpunk Records and Many Hats Distribution. You can find merch and pre-orders for the record here.