WAAX keep it real with forthcoming new single, 'I Am'

2019 is going to be the year of WAAX. [📸 Yazz Jansen].

WAAX have always excelled at their raw and loud melodic punk rock shtick, one that comes complete with subtle post-punk flourishes. This is also undeniably true of their newest 2019 singles, last month's killer 'FU' and last week's fresh-faced cut, 'I Am'.

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On the latter tune, the Queensland band's distorted chords and buzz-sawing guitars all abound, yet it's the peeled back and vulnerably honest vocal confessions from their energetic singer, Maz De Vita, that make the track land so damned hard. It's the WAAX that you know and love, but with even more heart and soul than ever before. And it ain't lacking in the riffs either.

'I Am' is about an old relationship in which the other person smothers you with relentless pressure, eventually becoming twisted out of your usual self and the person you are. It's about forgetting that we're all human and how we're all capable of making mistakes, as the song itself so bluntly states over acoustic notes: "I’m only human, Why can’t you understand? You put the pressure on, And now I’m falling...".

For all of Maz's eccentric vocal turns and dramatic inflections, the music never suffers from it and her lyrics never once feel forced or over-done. It all just feels and sounds so engaging, so forthcoming; a factor of WAAX's recent material that the band seem to have severely amplified lately. Which might make whatever comes next to be a gripping emotional explosion of boisterous punk rock and heavy feels. Sign me up for it!

Suss out 'I Am' below and expect the news of a debut LP to drop any day now.