Brutal metallic hardcore juggernauts Walking Wounded emerge from Cleveland’s
notoriously gritty and aggressive underground music scene with a fresh take on the Rust Belt city’s storied heritage.
Cleveland has a long history of producing ferocious groups that hybridize metal and
punk’s most extreme genealogies, such as Integrity, Ringworm, and Apartment 213.
Walking Wounded continues that tradition without parroting the sounds of their
forebears.
“The goal of our music is to blend death metal riffs and mosh parts,” plainly states guitarist and primary songwriter Steve Perrino, who began Walking Wounded as a solo
project during the enforced solitude of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I needed a creative outlet for this heavy music I've wanted to do forever.”
Perrino is a longtime veteran of Cleveland’s punk and alternative scene and an established local producer.
However, Perrino came of age in what he calls metallic
hardcore’s golden age circa 2004-2008, and the pandemic gave him the opportunity to revisit those formative sounds.
“It had been a long time since I had played heavy music,and that's primarily what I listen to.”
Perrino began writing and recording Walking Wounded songs alone in his studio before recruiting vocalist Noah Hardesty.
In the spring of 2022, the pair released their debutsingle, “Birth,” a blistering slice of emotional powerviolence.
That formative song showcases Perrino’s songwriting skill and Hardesty’s uncompromising voice but only
hints at Walking Wounded’s determined excursion into darker and more deathly sounds.
Hardesty and Perrino enlisted drummer Pete Hanbury and bassist Tim Rutan to realize their mix of contemporary punk energy and slamming death metal tonality as a full band
while releasing a series of singles and tapes. Along the way, the band earned a reputation as a remarkably heavy live act among Cleveland's tight-knit hardcore scene.
Their embryonic development culminated in 2024 with their debut, "Bestial Condemnation".
The six-song release, produced by Perrino,will be physically available for the first time via Relapse Records, including with the band's preceding discography as bonus tracks.