Waxeater is full-bore Post Punk/Hardcore with brains, brawn and balls. The band launched its 2010 Sleeper album with a track called “Are Those Fucking Beers Ice Cold Yet?” and devoted its latest, 2013’s Baltimore Record, to songs themed entirely around the HBO series The Wire.
It’s not hard to connect Waxeater to the likes of Shellac, Jesus Lizard (they’re named after a JL song), The Melvins and early Black Sabbath, as the trio grinds gears with abrasive dissonance, but still manages to bristle with some semblance of Grunge-tinted melodicism and a wickedly sharp sense of humor. And as the musicians exhibit the concussive power of a monsoon leveling a grass-hut village in the service of songs that are perfectly obfuscating, it becomes infinitely clear that Waxeater is thinking man’s Punk with scorched-earth appeal. Read more about the band in this week’s Sound Advice.
Waxeater performs Saturday with Wolverton Brothers and Knife the Symphony at Northside Yacht Club. More info/tickets:
northsideyachtclub.com .
This article appears in Nov 25 – Dec 1, 2015.