The Ever Growing Wound EP is an approximate showcase of what producer (and you name it whiz-kid) King Yosef has been working on since his collab with Youth Code back in 2021. It may or may not be representative of what to expect on his next release, however, he claims it is exemplary of where he is at now, and since where he is at now is pretty interesting, I think it warrants a quick once-over.
Yosef was presented to me as part of a new bread of "deathtrap" back in 2018. If you can't gather what "deathtrap" is from the name, it is trap with death vocals. I remember there being a bit of banter about this new style and how it was going to shake things up before the pandemic, but I don't hear people talking that way and more and it seems like the moment has passed. In any case, Yosef has moved on and probably for the better.
Where ever Yosef goes, he seems to get a seal of approval. When he was part of the Soundcloud scene he joined Members Only, and when he transitioned to more industrial material, he ended up making friends with Youth Code and releasing an album with them. The guy is just an authenticity magnet.
While he is still leaning heavily into industrial music on his new EP, the project seems more defined by its devil-may-cry drive into '00s groove and nu metal. As a bit of an aside, I'm playing 2016's Doom at the moment and Yosef's album is strongly reminiscent of that soundtrack; from the aggressive guitar melodies to the punchy, shrapnel-spreading percussion, the EP does an amazing job of getting you pumped up for whatever- moshing, pumping iron, eviscerating demons, grocery shopping, whatever you need to do, it will help set the mood.
Doom's soundtrack was ahead of its time in that it anticipated the revival of a lot of the sounds that would reemerge in hardcore and metal only a few years later, and The Ever Growing Wound keeps this devastating wrecking ball rolling by intertwining White Zombie electro-horror and Pitchshifter-esque low-life electronica with a scrappy new model of industrial compulsion that feels top of the line, even if it's blueprints had been buried in the landfill of history with the rest of the Twisted Metal 4 soundtrack since at least 2001.
In complete transparency, I probably wouldn't been just as pleased had he taken Sister Machine Gun's formula and tweaked it a quarter-inch, but Yosef is trying to go his own way on this EP. It's a laudable effort and one that has exceeded my expectations.
