The last thing you’d expect from a band with a name like Waves of Fury on a song called ‘Death of a Vampire’ is a blast of brash horns and a tune that sounds like a jazzed-up Commitments style rendition of ‘Louie Louie’ sung by a guy with a rather weak-sounding voice. But then, the last thing you expect after that is for it to erupt into a howling garage racket with the horns still parping merrily.
Yet this is essentially Waves of Fury’s sound. ‘Businessman’s Guide to Witchcraft’ is a pumped-up guitar racket that features some soulful brass that sounds like it’s been lifted straight off a James Brown record. It’s hard to know whether to shake a tailfeather or mosh like a lunatic – or to attempt both at the same time.
‘Pretender Soul’ marks a change of tempo, a gentle ballad that’s still soaked in reverb. But mostly, they’re about contrasting verses and choruses, and songs that explode – or implode – in the opposite direction from the one you’d anticipate.
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It does get a little tiresome and irritating by the end, especially with the over-long closer ‘Viodrene’ which seems like a rather lazy rehash or all of the other tracks while going all-out for the ‘anthemic’. It seems strange that such an unconventional style of songwriting could ever become formulaic, but somehow they manage it, and to wear it out over the course of a single album, still, as formulas go, it’s pretty unconventional and makes for a sound that’s undeniably unique – and ‘I Don’t Know What to Make of Your Fucked Up Friends’ is a great song title (and kinda sums up my feelings about ‘Thirst’, i.e. I don’t know what to make of your fucked up music).
Waves of Fury Online
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