Vexed – Negative Energy

Vexed caught the attention of the heavy music world in 2021 with their crushing debut Culling Culture, signalling them as a band to watch. Lets make one thing very clear right now, that was just a warning shot, a mere taste of things to come. Negative Energy, their second full length is about to kick your teeth in, pick them up off the floor and feed them back to you.

Make no mistake about it, this is an uncomfortable festering wound of an album. No matter what you do it doesn’t want to heal, reopening itself time and again. This is probably one of the darkest & heaviest call outs of abuse & trauma in a metal album since the first Korn record.

Vexed are coming for throats on this album with Megan Targett leading the charge. PTSD is a disorientating and evocative opening, a warped loop plays with clips of people talking about the horrors of PTSD and recovery. It gets the album off to an unsettling start.

Anti-Fetish takes aim at misogyny and the commodification of women in the music scene. It bounces along on a buzzsaw riff as Targett roars to life with throat shredding intensity. We Don’t talk about it is probably the most affecting song on the album. Lyrically raw and to the point, it will make your blood boil and your skin crawl, as its tale of childhood abuse unfolds. Its emotional gut punch is as brutal as the music that accompanies it.

Panic Attack feels like exactly that. A pulse raising beatdown that will make your heart pound in your chest, as it keeps raining down blows on you. Lay Down your Flowers dives into emotional abuse and the never ending battle against a narcissistic and how it finally feels to be free of them, it features a brilliant vocal trade off with Alpha Wolf vocalist Lochie Keogh for good measure.

There’s No Place Like Home uses its Wizard of Oz influence to tremendously creepy effect, using the refrain of “There’s no place like home” to reframe its intent into something utterly nightmarish. Its a track that will stay with you for all the right and wrong reasons.

Extremist is a pure blast of bile filled rage that feels like something is taking a sledgehammer to your head over and over again. Its a frantic, furious banger that has no time for subtlety.

Trauma Euphoria is the catchiest and most accessible track on that album. That doesn’t make it any less violent. It still has razor wire riffs, more bounce than jelly on a trampoline and an utterly gorgeous melodic vocal hook that you’ll have no help in hell of getting out of your head. It’s a legitimate bright spot in an otherwise bleak album.

It’s not the end is the albums longest and most engrossing song. A near six minute labyrinthe opus about the loss of a loved one and the associated grief that comes with it. It’s unflinching and vulnerable, as well as being a beautiful and emotionally layered tribute to loss. It’s a real standout moment that showcases yet another thing that makes Vexed so special.

DMT gives you a moment to collect yourself. It’s a short trip hop like instrumental moment that gives you a breather before one last moment of rage. Nepotism is very clear in its intent. It’s a hulking spite filled call out of its titular subject and the idea of inherited privilege versus earned accomplishments. It sees the album go out kicking and screaming ending the album with a bang.

Negative Energy sees Vexed emerge as a fully formed prospect. This is an album that is full of raw unbridled emotion that takes a mirror to some extremely uncomfortable, upsetting subjects and presents them in a stark and honest way. It not only showcases the horrors of the events themselves but also the lasting affects on the humans behind them.

Vexed are the real deal. It takes an incredibly brave and bold band that write an album like this, and to lay themselves this bare for the world to see. Negative Energy is the sound of a band becoming even darker and more confrontational and in doing so, they have created one of the year’s best albums, while allowing themselves to become even more relatable in the process. This album will not be for everyone and there are definitely things on here that will make people uncomfortable. With that in mind, this is one of the most important and essential albums to have come out in a long time. Pay close attention as Vexed are coming for everyone and from this point on, all bets are off.

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