If you do a little digging beyond the world of AmRep noise rock royalty, you’ll find that one of the strongest scenes for this sonic abrasion exists just a quick swim across the Channel in France. With a scene that includes Watertank, Carne, Birds In Row and Pord, the Gauls have cornered a niche market, one of the nation’s strongest and most recent coming in the form of Waste.
Using Unsane, Hammerhead and Harvey Milk as the edge of the diving board, the trio take a higher, wider leap with consistently infectious vocal lines, thick and spacious melody-stacked chord progressions and a classic rock sensibility.
Whereas songs like As Happy As and Devotion Man may have once languished in a pit of directionless brutality – a common noise rock trap – the band’s desire to explore, reference and include riffs and parts that listeners can connect and relate with gives killer tracks like We See Fire and Slow Everywhere an accessibility rarely highlighted in a world where cantankerousness can often rule with a heavy hand.
