AFTER retreating to the Outer Hebrides earlier this year to record a new EP with Faris Badwan of The Horrors, The Ninth Wave presented themselves at their most raw and emotionally exposed with the release of ‘Happy Days!’ last month. Re-emerging from that same place of intense self-reflection, the band have unleashed another track from those sessions up north – new single ‘I’m Only Going To Hurt You’.
While ‘Happy Days!’ was a dark, sullen and strikingly minimalist introduction to their new material, ‘I’m Only Going To Hurt You’ channels all of its intensity and foreboding into a loud barrage of noise – throbbing bass lines, twitchy, industrial-sounding beats and cascading synths skit around one another yet remain one and the same, driving towards the same shared purpose. Seemingly more accessible than its predecessor, the music still carries the weight of Park-Patterson’s incisive lyrics. Originally written by the frontman as part of a poem titled ‘My Severed Heart’, his words hit even harder when placed against the track’s harsh instrumentation, as if designed to represent the inner conflict that rages within.
The band told Paste Magazine that the song “is centred around an internal conflict faced after realising the difficulties of a relationship that seemed to be damaged even before it was allowed to flourish.” With the release of ‘I’m Only Going To Hurt You’ The Ninth Wave continue to take leaps and bounds into exhilarating new territories and we’re hugely excited to see what comes next.
