At first listen, chaos, disorder, and just everything rowdy shoots to mind, and I suspect I’m not too far off the general mark with the drummer-fronted Wax Head.
With an eye on Wax Head for a while now, their renowned adrenaline-charged shows have sparked the tip on everyone’s local tongue, and after watching them implode most recently at Manchester Psych Fest, the buzz is still there.
The raw and unfiltered impression I’d had of them echoes through new single ‘Rusty Cutter’ like a punch. Doom-laden vocals alongside grinding guitars shoot the explosive track through the doors of garage psych and into the midst of erratic unpredictability. They have an unsettling, untamed nature, and after learning that the single’s cover art is a photo of a fan from a London show with his head shoved in a kick drum (see below), I feel the need to emphasise UNTAMED!
Speaking on the Track the band add “’Rusty Cutter’ pays homage to our love for garage-rock. Despite us all having various influences, it is the respect for the genre that ultimately ties Wax Head together. We wanted to blend noisy, angular, and experimental sounds into the more straightforward structures we are inspired by, but the track’s brain-tickling noise and treble-driven guitars keep it distinctively Wax Head.”
Photo by Alberto Santinon
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