Photo by Ebru Yildiz
Efficiency by New Zealand's Wax Chattels from their upcoming sophomore album "Clot", dropping September 25th (via Captured Tracks/Flying Nun) is a caustic heavy post punk affair. The three piece deliver guitar-less heaviness pushed by fuzzy discordant synth stabs, totally free-wheeling feral drumming and heavy bass lines (and chords) with punchy tones. Bands that put more emphasis on the bass punch because they are either 3 piece or 2 piece (like Death From Above) always seem to have the best bass tones opting for super low bottoms but tinged with a mid range gut punch (or both through octave multiplexing) and I sense that strategy here and love the sound. The fuzzed up keyboard is wild in that there is something about the strident almost Italian cop car meets Italian Horror movie sound that shocks your system like difribulator paddles. I remember seeing Royal Bangs years ago who mined a very similar sound (synth wise) on some of their songs but they were much, much more tame aesthetically than Wax Chattels.
The vocal push here, stoically passionate, dark, steely eyed, clinched fist, female / male from Amanda Cheng (bass, vox) and Peter Ruddell (keys, vox) (while Tom Leggett gets downright explosive on drums) feels extremely artful, yet dystopian and dark, pushing buttons about what is wrong socially, politically (at least in my mind). Efficiency, in many ways, feels like a soundtrack to a Clockwork Orange or an axe murder scene in a horror movie or maybe the evening news, I'm afraid.
Of the song Rudell shares:
- "’Efficiency’ is about the frustration felt when you force yourself to bite your tongue, instead of escalating uncomfortable conversations into confrontations. It's about biding your time, finding the right time and place to express your concerns — and with this song, it's about coming to the bleak realization that, more often than not, nothing will ever change.
-Robb Donker Curtius
New Zealand’s Wax Chattels share their second single “Efficiency” off their cathartic sophomore album, Clot, out September 25 via Captured Tracks/Flying Nun. The explosive arc of “Efficiency” acts as a sonic metaphor that depicts knowing when to bide your time and when to push, with the trio treading the line between the explicit and intuitive. This track follows their first single “No Ties,” a melodic single about the experience of being a first generation immigrant that BrooklynVegan called “ferocious.”
Peter Ruddell on "Efficiency” - "’Efficiency’ is about the frustration felt when you force yourself to bite your tongue, instead of escalating uncomfortable conversations into confrontations. It's about biding your time, finding the right time and place to express your concerns — and with this song, it's about coming to the bleak realisation that, more often than not, nothing will ever change
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