Wear Your Wounds and Uniform played Cambridge – 5/18

Jacob Bannon’s Wear Your Wounds and New York noisemakers Uniform teamed up for a spring tour that hit Cambridge last month with locals Labor Hex. 

For some years, Jacob Bannon has been best known as shrieker-in-chief for revered Massachusetts metalcore crew Converge – on top of his work as a visual artist and label head. Less at the forefront of his career has been his (relatively) quieter and more contemplative solo work, currently manifesting as Wear Your Wounds. As the band – which currently counts former Hatebreed guitarist Sean Martin and Cave In’s Adam McGrath among its members – gears up to release its third LP in July, Bannon and company rolled into town on a co-headlining bill with Uniform for a heavy Saturday matinee.

Wounds skews toward a post-metal sound that gives Bannon room to stretch out as a vocalist (and strap on an instrument), in contrast to his frantic presence with his main gig, but his intensity as a frontman was undiminished in a heavy, emotional set that previewed some promising new songs from next month’s Rust on the Gates of Heaven.

In the second headlining slot, NYC’s onetime duo Uniform – bolstered to a three-piece nowadays – delivered their signature blitz of industrial noise-punk with spit-flecked fury that left everything on the stage. There’s never anything less than an all-in performance from these guys.

Meanwhile, the heavy post-hardcore of openers Labor Hex was a well-matched introduction to the evening.

See photos from all three bands below.