I’ve had the pleasure of seeing London based four piece Wayter a couple of times now, and each time I’ve been completely blown away by their sound. The closest I’ve ever come to in terms of sound manipulation is when I managed to catch My Bloody Valentine a couple of years ago at ATP – Wayter manage to rein in the volume and create epic soundscapes of screaming distortion juxtaposed with smooth, tuneful verses that lull the audience into a blisful state until their next knee shattering explosion of noise. They are amazing live.

When I received a copy of their debut album, Feeding Time, I couldn’t wait to pop it in my stereo, turn it up full blast and let the fury of frontman Eddie‘s voice rip through me – and to be honest, at first I was a little disappointed. The pure unbridled energy I had witnessed on stage seemed to be have lost something in being recorded. Then I listened again. And again. By the third time, any doubts I had about the quality of this debut had completely dissolved.

The two singles, Cheese Sandwich and Twenty hark back to the early days of Jane’s Addiction (before Perry Farrell got a bit too old to pull it off) and Sonic Youth – the counterplay between the vocals and the guitar creates a wave of mellifluence that seeps out of your speakers and washes over your ears, before punching you full in the stomach with a chorus packed full of primal screams and banshee guitars. Tracks like “Guidleigh” add a touch of prog to the mix, playing with the listener’s expectations, toning down the production in places before exploding again into a wall of sound, while tracks like “Atlantic: Pacific” create a hybrid of grunge psychadelia that very much characterises the overall tone of the album.

While it’s tempting to go through the album track by track to give you a complete stylistic breakdown, I’m going to resist – this album is all about discovery, and expectation and to put it under the critical microscope is to ruin the experience. I already had a sound built up in my head of what I expected this album to be – and because of this, my first two listens left me feeling slightly disappointed. However, by the third listen I realised that the only way to truly experience the full impact of Feeding Time is to go in as blindly as possible.

You need only know three things before you buy the album:

• You need to play it as loudly as possible.
• You need to actually listen to it, as opposed to popping it on in the background.
• If you don’t like it the first time you listen to it, play it again and again and again.

You may end up loving it.

5/5

Wayter’s upcoming album, Feeding Time, will be available on May 30th.

You can download album track and single, Twenty , absolutely free from Wayter‘s official Facebook page.
Wayter – Twenty by abadgeoffriendship