Album Review: Wax Head - 'GNAT'
Wax Head lead an Osees-infused revolution that makes remarkable usage of a drummer-fronted psych-punk quartet.
Wax Head are one of the liveliest, noise bands now in a genre that’s full of lively, noise-bands. They follow psych-heroes like Osees and there’s even touches of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Psychedelic Porn Crumpets here, that feels like garage rock and designed to test the endurance with several sharp, punchy tracks. Titular track GNAT is brash and abrasive, lively and full of what you kind of have come to expect from a Wax Head gig – “seize up, feel the sweat // drip down the back of your neck”, it’s all “part of the critter control” they claim – all part of the Wax Head experience. If you leave a Wax Head show and aren’t covered in sweat from the mosh pits that will surely come what would you be doing?
Their creative process is akin to bursts of inspiration and maximising unfinished ideas into raw tracks that explore whatever’s going through songwriter Lewis Fletcher’s head. That leads to – in short, a lot of songs about bugs and death that’s reflected in the second track, Bug Doctor – a song that embraces the infection of bugs and is catchy, very House Arrest in tone. The ability to shift from GNAT to Bug Doctor is smooth, raw and full of lively overture that bubbles under the surface. It’s lyrics that find inspiration from Fletcher’s time growing up in rural Somerset – and that is reflected on third track, Terminal Sinker, and it’s easy to see why that was chosen as a lead single for the band. It shifts gears full on into addressing the current state of UK punk – “your ambitions have just shrivelled up and died” captures those who are stuck in the past in the genre and refuse to move on, of which there are plenty in rural Somerset who spend all their time complaining with absolutely no effort to change the situation that they’re in at all. It’s not subtle “I’m a terminal sinker / inexplainable inexplainable” Fletcher cries, but it doesn’t need to be – it gets the point across in a way that acts as a wake up call.
If you weren’t awake after the first three tracks you will be now. Clatter Coats embraces the chaos full on, its lyrics feeling almost sinister; talking about how religious zealotry drives people to unthinkable acts of violence from the outside of society looking in “your holiness has driven you to the edge now/taking younglings and burning them in their beds now” taps into the praying on the weak and the sinister side of life and the outcasts of society being driven underground. Like the nature of the cult-like tunnel-dwelling creatures that inspire its lyrics it is unrelenting, and to see Wax Head live is to live in that unrelenting experience right the way down to the very core.
We’re well into the back half of the record by the time Rusty Cutter and Resin 214 roll around. They’re both bangers – and the most imaginative title on the record is Drawöh vs Lineus Longissimus as they once again return to the tunnel-like creatures of Clatter Coats – “I feel pity as you are foolish enough to think I fear you” is an arrogant cry of resistance, “your life underground is nothing compared to here” that continues the narrative of this fight between these two characters where victor realizes he has won; but is far too late, and he is standing on a town of ruins that he has failed to protect. This thematically akin to a story throwing in motion – the noise rock version of say, Carpenter Brut’s The Temple released earlier this year – and it’s incredibly compelling as each song peels away a different layer.
If you like loud music where the frontman is your drummer you’ve come to the right place, there are few more incendiary bands than Wax Head right now, their live shows quickly becoming the stuff of legend in the DIY scene. It’s good to know the intensity of their pits can translate across to that of their record – and you just know that the next Wax Head show I’ll be at, that must be purchased as a physical copy. I’ve never heard a bad word against Wax Head and it’s easy to see why based off the strength of this and how quickly they can win a doubter over.
Words by Miles Milton Jefferies
