When
I was in what I like to think of as my college years (I went to a technical
school and studied web design, but never officially went to college as much as
I studied on the streets of life), I went to see this band play inside a dorm
and they were called Allison Ranger, one of my favorite bands at the time and
still to this day even. The show was to
be a three band bill, and the band that played directly before them was called
Morgan Storm. Before that though, the
first band… Yeah, I don’t remember their name—sorry. But they did a lot of this inaudible
screaming, where you felt like perhaps they were trying to say something but
you weren’t entirely sure what. That
is how “HX Pop” begins and I love it, if only because I hardly ever hear it
anymore (Geez, I had to reference a show that was probably late ‘90’s/early ‘00’s)
Through
the screaming there is this hardcore punk sense of rage. On a commercial sense, when you think of a
band like Rage Against the Machine, they had these brief moments in their songs
where the music would speed up really heavily and vocalist Zach De La Rocha
would just scream out of anger. Imagine
that fifteen or twenty second piece of a song turned into an entire song.
After
the first song on “HX Pop” though, Waheela takes a turn toward the indie
rock/math rock side of things, as they break it down a little bit slower with
some melodies and become instrumental. It reminds me somehow of mewithoutYou only in
the Old West. Though, just as I managed to put in my
notebook that it was slowing down and seemed less angry, as that vibe from the
second song carried over briefly into the third, the screaming began again and
took back the form of the first song, coming full circle.
Side
X, which is the flipside because these are labeled “H” and “X” as opposed to “A”
and “B” is really more of a combination of the sounds from the previous
side. The screaming which does remind
me in other ways of The Dedication comes back but there is also that
mewithoutYou musical quality backing it up, as it is not as fast paced but
still in a groove.
I’m
typically hesitant when listening to bands that can sound like mewithoutYou
because I either feel like they too directly sound like that band or their time
has simply passed, as I remember listening to mewithoutYou for the first time
way too long ago. Waheela makes it work
though, and being a heavy and screaming sense you might not think cassette is
the best way to hear this but they also have made that work for them as I
wouldn’t want to hear this any other way.
Simply perfect.
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