New Bedford, the coastal Massachusetts city about an hour from Boston, is a place that demands resilience in order to excel. Wire Lines are a band built by members being resilient. These musicians—vocalist Kevin Grant; guitarist Jeremy Medeiros, also of Daltonic and Slow Death; bassist Ryan Parker, also of Holy Hands and Supermachiner; and drummer Ted Ilsley—have written a record that examines conflict and the idea that human existence may be finite in duration.
EntitledTerminal, the EP was self-released on July 6.
“The song ‘Born To Fight,’ for instance, I wanted that to be a hidden meaning,” Grant says. “It could sound on the surface—and I wanted it to sound on the surface—like it’s a call to arms, but it’s not really a call to arms. It’s an indictment—we are born to fight, unfortunately. Unfortunately, we are born to have conflict and be aggressive. As much as one or two people or a small group of people can reject that and try to change that, unfortunately, there’s something about people, in general, [that is] just drawn in to that negativity. I don’t see a happy ending for it. I think that Terminal—in fact, the very name of it—is sort of alluding to that, ‘terminal’ meaning an ending. A lot of the songs on this EP are [about] this frustration. I don’t think there’s a way out for any of these situations.”
Wire Lines are a lean machine. There’s no fat in the music. There’s a ton of thought and skill, an economy of notes that makes each chord as important as each word in its meaning. “Ryan is a man of personal discipline on every level,” Grant elaborates, discussing the average length of their songs. “He has a rule in his head. He would be able to explain it—I think three minutes is his absolute breaking point. Two minutes and 30 seconds is, like, his ideal.”
Because it’s a well-thought-out record, Terminal has a raw ferocity at times, like on “Shining Blade” or “Seven Birds,” and a powerful restraint at other times, like on “Stay Angry.” Grant explains the foundation, noting, “Usually, drummers are either super technical or they hit really hard. Ted somehow has a hand in both of those worlds. He’s just really dialed in and very precise, a busy drummer who never sounds too busy. He really holds all that stuff together and gives it a stability, where a lesser drummer would have us veering off a lot. It would sound like a train wreck. Ted is a big plasyer who gives us a framework to push it into the red a little bit.”
The talent of the musicians is apparent, and the skills of Medeiros and Parker particularly are on display on this recording. There seems to be a new truth in hardcore punk that it grew up. The abilities of musicians grew, too. Wire Lines aren’t afraid to showcase songwriting and push a bedrock genre forward.
“We wrote our first songs within a couple of months, [and] we went in the studio and recorded it,” Grant says. “By the time we recorded those songs, we almost had a new batch of songs ready. We all felt like they were superior songs, so we wanted to get right back in it and record those right away.”
Terminal is a tight, hard-driving record that plays quickly with a runtime clocking just over 13 minutes and 11 seconds. It’s good, hardcore punk rock that feels like it flows from the fingers, the hearts, and the minds of Grant and company. There’s a lot of nuance to soak in from a small package.
“All of us, right now, have to make a concerted effort to stop bringing new stuff to the table,” Grant says. “Knock on wood, [but] it could stop at any time. I feel like we could keep going into the studio for two months and bang out new stuff. We’re having such a good time writing. The songs that they’re bringing in, some of it’s challenging to write to, [but] it’s a real joy to write to. It’s a great feeling.”
Grant tends to stay away from topical themes in his writing. “I don’t like to clobber people over the head with messages, with overt statements, [and] I don’t like things that are too topical or too timely,” he says. “If anything, sometimes I can get a little too symbolic. I feel like, with this band, I found a way to be very ‘of the times.’ I’m not losing myself in newspaper headlines while I’m doing it. I’m proud of that. I’m really proud of this band across the board. I feel like I’m in a good place with the lyrics.”
He continues, “I think a theme of this recording is, I don’t necessarily feel that humanity has got much time left. I feel like people, unfortunately, are intrinsically not bright enough to survive or nice enough to each other to have working societies. That informs a lot of these lyrics. There’s a lot of frustration.”
Terminal by Wire Lines is a quick blast that keeps a listener returning to examine its depth. It’s smart, and it’s critical of humanity. Its music and words are carefully crafted. It’s a brick in the structure of modern hardcore, music made by a resilient group of people who jive. In the end, humanity’s afflictions may be terminal, but this record will hold up.
“I try to write with the idea that a person anywhere could read the words and find relevance to themselves,” Grant concludes. “A person 50 years ago or 50 years from now could read my songs and have something there.”
