Optimum Wound Profile (We Bite)
by Joshua Brown
As dark and worldly as the first Danzig album. In fact, Asphyxia seems to find themselves in very much the same desolate personal space that Glenn himself resided in a few years back. But cock-rockers these guys aren’t; actually they’re openly insecure. Their musical/visual creations can serve as a portal for their bottled-up emotions to be released. To open this doorway, all they needed to do was mix Hell Awaits-era Slayer with Nine Inch Nails and Neurosis, add potent doses of their own secret poison to the mix, and swallow it all in one huge gulp. As a chaser, sound bites from any ’50s, early ’60s anti-marijuana propaganda film would do the trick.
Just as I was beginning to say to myself, “Yeah, they’re good (but all you have to do is mix Nine Inch Nails and…),” I realized that they were really speaking to me from the heart. This is an album that, given decent promotion, could do some serious boundary crossing in the music world (the same way that DRI & COC brought the punk and metal communities together for a common musical cause). Aside from all this, the production of Asphyxia’s Optimum Wound Profile is phenomenal. If you don’t believe me, try playing it REALLY LOUD.