Waves of Fury – Thirst

Five-piece South Londoners Waves of Fury have come up with a debut that sounds like they are jamming over their favourite music with their favourite make-shift guitars. Signed to the same label as the Black Keys, Thirst is an unclean, rough, crudely sounding but classy garage rock album. Contradictory much? Maybe a little. Combining distorted guitars and vocals with jazz trumpeting and horns, the record is incredibly upbeat, bluesy and brash. 

With their odd choice of song titles, (I Don’t Know What to Make of Your Fucked Up Friends, Businessman’s Guide to Witchcraft and Viodrene) every track sounds brilliant and energetic. Thirst’s first track, Death of a Vampire, begins with a vague background, echoing piano recording, then blasts into excitable, vintage, Crocodiles-esque guitar strumming and blaring horns which only give the start of the record a whole lot of attitude. Lead singer, Carter Sharp, has a voice that screams anarchy to the listener. But only anarchy if the Sex Pistols were to go New Orleans. 

It’s hard to define this special quintet. They really are something new, which is always refreshing. The horns may remind you a little of Amy Winehouse and the vocals a little of Kings of Leon’s early stuff: the incoherent screeching, overcome every now and again with a truly cool lozenge-craving voice. 

Killer Inside Me has a fabulous little jazzy intermission towards the end, with hand claps, an R‘n’B figurate that will bring back memories of Bill Withers, a simple bass line, then a return to the maniacal screaming – “Wow! The killer inside of me. I couldn’t even think straight!” 

The six-minute closing track, like the first, starts with an ancient-sounding piano recording, some light bass, tranquil drumming and then makes a transition to the unexpected: punk vocals over both trashy guitar riffs and joyous, soulful magic. The whole album is both nostalgic yet impressively new and proves that Waves of Fury have got a thirst for all the elements over the ages that make rock music what it is today. And they are presenting it to you in this ten-track delight. 

Matt Di Salvo 

Thirst is released on 29^th October 2012. For further information or to order the album visit the band’s website here.