WTCHS

Making Box Theatre, Guelph ON, July 16

Photo: Tom Beedham

BY Tom BeedhamPublished Jul 18, 2015

9
Most of the crowd at the Making Box Theatre had filtered out by the time WTCHS hit the stage, but a dedicated contingent of 20 or so people stuck around to put their earplugs to work with Hamilton's loudest — and they weren't disappointed.
 
Even though lead singer Jag's vocals cut out partway through the band's opener and the issue left the group without a microphone for the majority of their set, that didn't stop WTCHS from stabbing out eardrums for 40 minutes. As thickly distorted as the band's wall of noise guitars, Jag's vocals tend to end up pretty lost in the mix anyway, so he just shouted them out unamplified instead.
 
Half an hour through their set, the issue was resolved just in time for their finale, a 10-minute exercise in tension-building that culminated in a tempest of feedback and a vicious drum coda that sent a hi-hat crashing to the ground. WTCHS were all sound and fury, satisfying your hearing's darkest desires.
 

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