There are nostalgia acts, and then there's the WPP. For many in western Canada, they were a pivotal band that felt like a best kept secret, playing a ridiculous blend of Fugazi-style post-punk, throat-shredding screamo and off-kilter rock'n'roll (a style they themselves describe as "speed funk"). They were one of the first bands I ever saw live (after the Counting Crows and MxPx), showing me that so much could happen if you jammed with your friends, spun inside jokes into songs and hit the road on endless tours.
In 2004, the WPP released their seminal, underrated gem He Has the Technology before the core lineup fell apart and the band eventually disintegrated. A decade later, they've decided to pick up exactly where they left off.
Unlike the other reunited acts touring around the globe, there's really no money to be made from the WPP tour, nor is there a documentary in the works or even a secret album. Instead, it's four friends organically picking up on some unfinished business and blasting out their impeccable, complex anthems one last time.
And that's exactly what they did. The band offered up more of their chaotic, noisy, explosive jams that, despite a ten-year absence, never faltered in tempo.
The WPP are a band that came from the post-emo, limp-wristed, white-belted, Spock-haircutted post-hardcore movement of the early 2000s, but unlike so many of their peers, their songs haven't aged a bit. That's because the WPP wrote pop songs, then buried them under layers of yelling, hammer-on guitar riffs and explosive drum fills. The scene that they were associated with is long gone, but in 2015, the WPP have proven that they're a truly timeless Vancouver act.
In 2004, the WPP released their seminal, underrated gem He Has the Technology before the core lineup fell apart and the band eventually disintegrated. A decade later, they've decided to pick up exactly where they left off.
Unlike the other reunited acts touring around the globe, there's really no money to be made from the WPP tour, nor is there a documentary in the works or even a secret album. Instead, it's four friends organically picking up on some unfinished business and blasting out their impeccable, complex anthems one last time.
And that's exactly what they did. The band offered up more of their chaotic, noisy, explosive jams that, despite a ten-year absence, never faltered in tempo.
The WPP are a band that came from the post-emo, limp-wristed, white-belted, Spock-haircutted post-hardcore movement of the early 2000s, but unlike so many of their peers, their songs haven't aged a bit. That's because the WPP wrote pop songs, then buried them under layers of yelling, hammer-on guitar riffs and explosive drum fills. The scene that they were associated with is long gone, but in 2015, the WPP have proven that they're a truly timeless Vancouver act.
