### Stigmata: The wounds that never heal

#### 12/10/09 || Smalley

So, these Stigmata guys were supposedly a big deal once upon a time up in New York State (if you believe that glob of text diarrhea that’s on their Myspace), but I never heard of ‘em, so all I care about here is the music. “The wounds that never heal” is actually two albums in one, a collection of the Stigmata albums “Hymns for an unknown god”, from 1994, and “Do unto others”, from ’98. It’s being released now because 2009 is (the now-defunct) Stigmata’s 20th anniversary, but if you didn’t care enough back then to check out these albums, I kinda doubt you’d want to now, not in this smooshed together form at any rate.

Whatever, at least the non-vocal parts of the music were better than any other label-sent thing I’ve heard in my time on GD’s staff; the riffs were actually pretty good, the drumming had a good sound and energy to it, the solos were decent, and the overall songwriting was passable. However, once again, the singer fucks things over for the rest of the band, as frontman Baba O’Riley (no, not really) has a strangled, extremely forced quality to his voice that makes him sound like that hard livin’ uncle of your’s who hasn’t spend a second alive since he turned 3 1/2 without a bottle of whiskey and a cigarette available on standby. That kind of voice can sound pretty cool when just being used to shoot the shit, but for singing metal? Uh uh, a million times over. Another problem, putting two albums together on one record was the wrong idea, since the songs were already getting tedious and same-y by track three, and there are 21 tracks in all here. Despite some Ministry-style dialogue samples here and there, plus a live track at its end, the sense of tedium was never really broken on “Hymns” (Baba still sounded the same live), and then “Do unto others” begins, with a bit more speed and hardcore tinge than the more thrash/groove approach of “Hymns”, but the songwriting is also a little worse and less memorable, so this collection remains grounded all the way.

It’s too bad, since there was actually some tastily heavy riffage here, and I really do mean good riffs, not just good as in “better than what I was afraid of getting”, but actual, good riffs! I might’ve enjoyed this band if they had had a better singer and some more diverse songwriting, but I guess I’ll never know now since they’re doing that reunite-but-just-play-live-and-not-record-anything-new thing. Well, I hope you guys make a lot of money off that an’ all.

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: I Scream
- Website: Stigmata Myspace
- Band
- Bob Riley: vocals
- Mike Maney: guitar
- Jason Bittner: drums
- Jason Sunkes: guitar
- Buddy Armstrong: bass

- Tracklist
- 01. Save Us
- 02. Nothing But Enemies
- 03. Murder Of Life
- 04. Ignorant And Wired
- 05. Clipper Of Wings
- 06. Hands Of God
- 07. Burning Human
- 08. Nothing But Enemies (live)
- 09. No Compromise
- 10. Violence With Violence
- 11. Can’t Bring Me Down
- 12. Drowning
- 13. No Regrets
- 14. At What Price?
- 15. Mad World
- 16. Haunted By Memories
- 17 Losing Dice
- 18 Follow Your Heart
- 19 Life 4 A Life
- 20. Thru These Days
- 21. Bonus live track I don’t know the name of and you shouldn’t really care about