Do No Harm, Take No Shit is the mantra of punk inspired hard rockers A Vulture Wake. In 2018 their debut album, The Appropriate Level Of Outrage, painted the reality of that mantra with its heavy, aggressive guitars and powerful rhythms juxtaposed with the largely positive and empowering lyrics. The fact that the members had all served in a number of other bands around Colorado and further afield meant that when they arrived on the scene they had already refined their own unique sound. The easiest aspect of that character to grab hold of is the voice and its punk tinged delivery of front man Chad Price. Four years down the line from that initial offering, A Vulture Wake have given us two further EPs and a slew of singles. This month they brought out Lost Cause Of The Year, a previously unreleased track that is hopefully suggesting that there is a second album in the works.

Lost Cause Of The Year opens at a deceiving pace for the length of one riff before a short break brings the music back at a gentler rhythm. Price's characteristic voice is equal parts formidable and promising as it talks us through a disastrous, dire situation in which he chooses hope over despair.

'Race to the finish line as the world disappears
It’d be so stupid now to throw it all away
I choose instead to live.'

Brandon Landelius and Price use the guitars to differentiate the elements of the composition with foreground parts ranging from chugging muted chords to slow metallic strums left to ring out. The drums still carry that violent energy of some of their punkier works but manage to keep it under control to help deliver what is a far more accessible hard rock tune. The track is impactful, emotive and memorable. Think the musical version of the closing scene of a dystopian horror in which Chad Price has overcome the ultimate evil and now stands on a mound of bodies ready to restart civilisation. Lost Cause Of The Year will be playing loud as the credits roll.

Stay on top of all things A Vulture Wake at https://avulturewake.bandcamp.com/ or stream their music on all major platforms.