The Waft is a one-man-masquerading-as-a-band indie rock project out of Kent, England. The one man is actually an impatient 20-something multi-instrumentalist who came off the dance scene with no contacts in live music whatsoever. Not bad credentials for somebody who is promising to release a new track on the 21st of each month. Whether he’ll make that deadline all by himself, each month, I’m not sure. The fact that he has kicked off the series with a crackerjack single, entitled “Indeed”, is a bloody sure fact already!
While his peers continue to belt out pop-punk and alternative fluff, The Waft has evolved into somewhat of an oddity. There is tons of emotion, energizing rock guitar, indie sensibilities, and subtle but masterful songwriting at play here.The Waft will hook you as soon as you hear “Indeed”.
This track will hit you in the gut and instantly hook me. His sound is completely his own and sounds unique to this band. He sings in a way that can be angry, alluring, and awe inspiring all at once. The vocals sound both extremely visceral and alluring while still containing biting force and personal introspection.
A beautiful breed of melody and gut-busting dissonance, you’d be hard pressed to find many fans of indie rock who won’t have some love for this recording. That’s partly because this record is great, sure that’s one boring reason, but it’s also because this record is one of a handful that can help shape the notion of what Brit indie rock can potentially still mean in 2017.
Not that there isn’t plenty of underground music in Britain — hardcore punk, high-art, avant-garde, quirky rock, DIY, weirdo electronic scenes. But the notion that all those social discontents might be in the same boat – a new Alternative Nation just beginning to converge—hasn’t yet been fully articulated. The Waft senses that convergence in the making.
What’s really alarming is the energy of it all. This single’s default setting is the place most rock bands try to work up to around the third chorus—with guitar players veering off into neck-strangling improvisations, singers dropping off the melody and into impassioned shouts. “Indeed”starts there and just stays there.
The guitars might spend a few bars wandering off and into sideways tangles, choking out the end of the verses, and then come back together and spend a few bars pinning down the riff again. That means The Waft keeps returning to the same refrain, each time grunting it more insistently and powerfully than the last. Brilliant! How long can he keep this up? Let’s check come the next 21st!
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