The Black Map #232: Strangle Wire from Belfast!

The twelfth largest city in the United Kingdom just so happens to be the place that Psychological Death Groove Metal act Strangle Wire call home and with a population on 345,418 in 2021 they have a decent sized home town crowd to disturb. The band are comprised of a quartet of seasoned musicians for whom idle hands are the devil’s workshop and have previously displayed their otherworldly talents in Lesshelp, Fragments, Enshrine and Condemned to name but four of somewhere approaching fifteen projects they have been associated with aiding and abetting. Together they started down the left hand path in 2017, releasing their debut EP “The Dark Triad” a year later. Specialising in lyrical concepts attempt to capture the darker parts of the human condition and with a bloodlust to make their mark on the scene, the record opened the floodgates to both high profile shows and festival appearances including Decimation Fest in Madrid, Las Vegas Deathfest (which also included a 14 date US run with Haemorrhage) and of course Bloodstock Open Air.

But just when they thought they had it all figured out, another wave of terror came crashing down. Plague and pestilence swept the land and the four horsemen of the apocalypse were forced underground to await their fate. When the dust settled they arose like a pheonix from the ashes with “Shaped By Human Frailty“, a debut album which finds them playing to their strengths with pummelling rhythmic percussion battery from John Curlett and bassist Greg Diffin set to sinister edged riffs from Ross Duffy providing a backdrop for vocalist Pete Clarke to spit fire, armed to the teeth with twisted lyrics galore. Whether they’ll be allowed out of the Psych Ward in the Asylum to play shows seems unlikely based on this evidence but you never know…