Wax Head: GNAT
(Sour Grapes)
LP | DL
Out 1st April, 2026
Debut album by Manchester garage-noise rockers Wax Head makes a claim for best garage album of the year, best debut, hell…best album!
Hyperbole is only hype when it is bullshit. Wax Head have a debut album that smokes most other bands’ output. Drawing heavily on the Osees’ Death By Audio gut-ripping fuzz-rock, the Manchester band have made an instant and indelible impact with their debut album, GNAT. There is no way around it and no escape. It stings, through the skin and straight into the bloodstream.
Blasting from the traps, the title track is an insane riot of mashed riffs, dense and battering as it speeds up into an intense climax. Like Primus fed through a wood chipper and scattered bloody across the tape, they just do not let up as they fly straight into early single Bug Doctor. The demented noise-rock is a manic two-and-a-half-minute siren-blaring blast of insanity. Wired and fired up. The vocals sit back in the mix, fighting to the fore, penned back by the sonics that shatter the eardrums. When it kicks into the battering assault in what I guess might be a, well, chorus, it is an untamed beast of a song.
Their John Dwyer-influenced blend of psych-garage-punk-krautrock comes across in spades on the following song, Terminal Sinker. An Osees-inspired title if ever there was one. It hammers home that this visceral Manc quartet have their sights set well beyond the cotton factories. In a world full of Tropical Fuck Storms and Frankie And The Witch Fingers, they more than stand their ground. They scorch it. Every song that comes continues the aural assault, each vying for superiority over the last.
Clatter Coats brings a solid groove to things. Tempo high, a touch of breathing space in the chaos, it is infectious in its draw. As it closes, the band let themselves a moment to relax. Just a moment, mind. Do not get comfortable as really there is no place to hide. Takeover sees them back in that weird and wired territory, the bass pushing through to drive the song as the guitars scream, synths wail, drums pound and singer/drummer Lewis Fletcher channels something menacingly demonic in his shouts and yelps. And then the hit really hits.
Rusty Cutter. This is the one. From somewhere in the darkest thoughts of where even Jon Spencer dare not go, this is something else altogether as it riots along on a strained and stained garage-blues riff. Think Mikel Cronin, Meatbodies, Ty Segall thrown around the waltzer and spat dizzily out into the fairground night air. A total blast.
Two-thirds of the album down and the band show no signs of letting up. Resin214 fires up the throttle again, the fuzz-loaded bass and synths of Evan Chase and Archie Jones providing the perfect canvas again for Harry Bunker’s wild rides up and down the fretboard. As a unit, they barrage forward, all driving the songs through a hellbent road trip, one that leads to the oblivion-dripping insanity of Drawöh vs Lineus Longissimus. If you ever felt you were missing a death-charged blast in ode to the bootworm, Wax Head have you covered. It is a synthesis of the album’s focus as a whole. As Fletcher says on the album:
“I just found it really interesting, the idea of parasitic bugs overtaking people and killing them from the inside. I’ve always been drawn to the gross and the violent in my writing. I just struggle to talk about the sunnier side of life. I’ve tried so many times but it just doesn’t come naturally.”
While they are producing such backs-to-the-wall sonic attacks, who cares whether they are smiling or shaking as the world burns? Signing off with Clamp, one final blast that brings the whole album full circle, they are gone. We are left, battered, bruised, and craving for more.
We told you back in 2023 that these guys were ones to watch. Are you watching yet?
GNAT is available from Sour Grapes Records via Bandcamp.
Wax Head Tour Dates
Tue 07 Apr, Amiens, France – Peniche Celestine
Wed 08 Apr, Angers, France – Joker’s Pub
Thu 09 Apr, Lyon, France – Trokson
Fri 10 Apr, Clermont-Ferrand, France
Sat 11 Apr, Paris, France – La Télévision
Mon 13 Apr, Brussels, Belgium – Le Chaff
Tue 14 Apr, Cologne, Germany – Sonic Ballroom
Thu 16 Apr, Fürth, Germany – Kunstkeller o27
Fri 17 Apr, Leipzig, Germany – Nbl
Mon 20 Apr, Hamburg, Germany – Barkasse Ms Hedi
Tue 21 Apr, Dortmund, Germany – Subrosa
Wed 22 Apr, Antwerp, Belgium – Antwerp Music City (AMC)
Fri 24 Apr, Manchester, UK – Soup
Thu 07 May, Wrexham, UK – Focus
Fri 22 May, The Hague, Netherlands – Sniester 2026
Sat 23 May, The Hague, Netherlands – Sniester
Sat 23 May, Cardiff, UK – Orange Light Festival
23-24 May, Southampton, UK – Wanderlust Festival
Sun 24 May, Snowshoe, WV, US – Wanderlust Festival Snowshoe
Thu 28 May, London, UK – George Tavern
Sat 30 May, Bristol, UK – The Croft
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Words by Nathan Whittle. Find his Louder Than War archive here.
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