WTCHS

Hailing from just down the highway in Hamilton, WTCHS are a seething little prog-hardcore combo with significant chops and an air of genuine menace about them. I’m not sure that the Gladstone ballroom was the idea environment in which to see them, but WTCHS were downright hair-raising during their NXNE set on Thursday night, all merciless, mathematical precision and in-the-red intensity. Good thing theirs was a 2 a.m. set because I’m not sure I could have taken any more music after that savage beating. - Toronto Star

Well, it was Wtchs, so perhaps we should have expected weirdness. Or Wrdnss, as fits. But at 9:30 showtime, the little vaultlike CFC bar up on St. Hubert was empty. Or not quite, although staff outnumbered the audience, 8-1. And there were no Wtchs – no band – anywhere. And a stopped clock over the bar. Wrdnss.

When the Hamilton quartet finally arrived, and a decent and revealingly shod and coiffed walkup rolled in, they unleashed the sound explaining the name. To the left, guitarist Jag boomed out super-echoed vocals while guitarist Matt Junkin on the right barked response. Behind them, Tori Tizzard drove splashy, propulsive time, but it was the middle – Dave Mater’s post-goth bass – that glued this impressive wall of angular guitar into its throbbing whole.

Locked into that groove, they powered through 25 minutes of some of the heaviest music at Pop Montréal, remorselessly heavy and loud. Rock-critic-loud. For that alone, they deserved a kind of praise, but the fullness of the sound, the attack of songs Top Prize and Tiger Got to Hunt, and that 25-minute conciseness, with nary a word spoken, made this a band worth re-booking come Hallowe’en. - Montreal Gazette

WTCHS are purists, but they’re also realists. “digital is easier, so digital works” they tell us in an email, while insisting that “it’s a basement recording made for vinyl, and meant to be listened to on vinyl.” But there’s no shade of compromise to be found on “Mr. Hands” If anything, the new single represents growth. After a few minutes of the full-tilt post-punk bedlam that scoured their Wet Weapons EP, the track gradually distends with a Queens of The Stone Age Mojave mysticism, leading to something approaching vocal harmony as the vocals turn from incendiary to sympathetic. - Chart Attack

Strange sounds upon strangewinds emerge from a newly born Steeltown oasis. The strangled snare of gnarled guitars harken upon the nethersteps of Haligonia, but it’s the hooded nihilism of WTCHS’ droning vocals that yield unlimited satisfaction. Hope comes in a multitude of flavour. Hand-stamped package complete with 6-minute tape-only drone-out. Grip sicc widdit. - Weird Canada

You know how Danzig started skinny, then got buff, and later bloated? These songs sound like the transformation of Danzig’s body, but accelerated, like a pale Hulk in a fishnet shirt, but not too fast, like the whole process would take ten minutes or so. There’s a core of melodic punk here buried beneath sixty pounds of muscley, brooding hypnotic blackness and catchy hooks. Maybe if the Cure had been from DC and on Dischord this is how it would have gone. Do yourself a favor and download this from the Buzz Bandcamp, then when you’re still online look up the two clips of them playing at The Retirement Home in Hamilton. The band appear as dark specters bathed in green, haunting a basement party, trying to find the secret bootleggers tunnel rumored to be hidden behind the walls, using nothing but their low-end to blow it out.

One more thing: should I say Stoner Goth? I won’t.
- Hippie Cult