Wake in Fright

As it stands, Wake In Fright is a misanthropic social/personal/political blank cheque as bleak in outlook as it is righteously harrowing in sound. It’s 2017, and life’s a chasm. Uniform are staring right in.

Uniform’s American nightmare is relatable and honest, revealing the dangers of dependency, the want of escape, and the problematic effects one can experience while trying to end that bond. One can’t say that there’s hope within the contents of Wake in Fright, (one might even say it’s a tad overwrought), but it’s a story worth telling nonetheless.

A constantly-evolving monster of a record. [21 Jan 2017, p.52]

There are flashes of influences--Ministry's late '80s, early '90s run is a clear antecedent--but the pair never succumb to mimicry or idolatry. This is Berdan's pain, writ large and loud for all to hear.

With Fright, both have found new sides to themselves: Greenberg tapped into his inner metal kid, but Berdan has taken the self-apocalyptic energy of his past and turned it into a weapon for redemption and moving forward, much like Negative Approach did in the ’80s.

Thematically, vocalist Michael Berdan mines the issues, burdens and neuroses for lyrical content that spans an overdriven line between unsettling experience and triumphant discharge. [No. 139, p.61]

The album digs for transcendence by jackhammering away at the ills and addictions that afflict individuals and hold us back collectively. Uniform’s journey to zen through anger leads to draining music for the morning after.

This attempt to marry together two equally confrontational (in their own distinct ways) musical forms reaps real rewards, and undoubtedly makes Wake in Fright a more consistently provocative record than the duo’s debut.