Wrench In The Works

“Wrench in the works” is probably the loudest waltz I’ve written in my lifetime. It describes the frustration of being stuck. Are you ready for epic and heavy music?

If you asked me 10 years ago, I’d never write a song like this. I like listening to metal, but I have no idea of songwriting. I did not even expect to write something in 6/8 in a scale I never used. But sometimes, you just follow your heart and do things that feel right without knowing how you got there.

The lyrics just happened during the composition. No need to find the right words, they just came into my mind. Spontaneous thoughts on frustration, stagnation and psychological abuse. The narrator is kept small by a narcissist, stuck in a toxic relationship or something like that. He’s too weak to escape the situation. There’s a cognitive dissonance between lyrics and music saying “I can’t move on, I can barely move on” in a 6/8 beat that makes you want to move. Sounds like a badass alternative rock song? Sure it is!

Chad loved the song so much, that he played every instrument! His interpretation was even heavier, closer to metal, and I love what he did of my beat and that iconic riff in phrygian. We dropped the initial idea of soft clean vocals and tried out some heavy screams of frustration. It worked well and pushed the song closer to metal. Chad added a piano solo and I tried a choir, increasing the epicness of the breakdown.

Some final thoughts about the artwork. If you look at is from the distance and tilt your head, the typography looks like a wrench with a tilted head. It’s taking up the literal meaning of dropping a wrench in the works. This is why you see some ironware around and why the lyrics include the sentence “dismantle the machine”. However, the machine in this particular phrase is nothing else but the human psyche.

Though the lyrics and music of “Wrench in the works” are quite heavy, Chad and I had tons of fun during this collab. You can listen to our song on SoundCloud and YouTube. It also will be part of the upcoming album and extend my repertoire with another genre.