Waingro - Waingro ...

The past few months a lot of albums have not only met my expectations, they’ve exceeded them.  Maybe it’s got something to do with the quality and amount of drugs i’ve been doing. One of these is a beaut of a record by Vancouver B.C.’s Waingro. An odd moniker some may scratch their rookie heads at, but to those of us on the cool side of the street, the name Waingro suits this crew of miscreants, which is Brian Sepanzyk guitar/vox, Nate Pennell on bass(that tone!!), and drummer Ben Nesdoly just fuckin’ fine.  The S/T Waingro kicks off with “Firebird” which is the perfect track to get them elbows flying and beers cracked, or vice versa. After the commanding “Bathed in Tongues”, tracks “Tailwind”, and “Force Fed” continue to throw out plenty of razor solid hooks a la the Cenobites in Hellraiser.

Fans of stalwarts The Bronx and Trap Them might hear a bit of influence at times throughout the record, which leaves me fairly chuffed. But this troop of doom is out to blaze their own trail. Sepanzyk keeps his wickedly energetic 120 grit roar in the right spots giving the three plenty of room to let the listener hear some fantastic chops. And chops there is. The secret weapon here is Benny who’s on fire with smart hook laden fills which kept me howling out loud at how amazing yet effortless his playing seems without coming across as cocky. But it’s not all about aggression and aluminum baseball bats to the face. These fellas know how to shift gears into a completely different state of mind. Interludes “Matador”, “St.Regis”, and “Arboria” to me showed a bit of a Queens of the Stone Age slant.

Or maybe it was due to me forgetting I had turned on 2 nitrous tanks in the house, but I swear they fit together somehow. I pointed this out to my cats and I’m pretty sure they’ve been making fun of me ever since. . The Crown ‘n’ Tits production job done by that wizard Jesse Gander (Haggatha, Rotting Hills, Percheron) at Rain City Recorders (Van, B.C.) keeps the gas floored on this album which is a fucking ride filled with pleasured screams, faster than a blackjack dealer fills, and a conquering bass akin to a swift black Dayton to the chest. A solid debut which I’m sure will grab a lot of fuckin’ people by the collar and demand repeated listens while living rooms get destroyed.



Words: Matt Berube

Waingro @ Bandcamp