Waco World

Digital

A glimpse into the future where seemingly disparate influences like Hank Williams, Mick and Keith, Jimmy Cliff, and Morphine share rounds.

Full Description

Dateline 1999: With Nashville cranking out a clanking assembly line of belly-button-baring android bimbos and hat-wearing cyborg hick hunks, and with alt.country and "y'allternative" flinging a stink on Western Wear like the rise and fall of "grunge" tainted the flannel shirt, it was high time for a new living, breathing, shitting, bleeding animal.

Enter Waco World. Renew!! Renew!!

Waco World kicks out over a dozen piss and pint glass-fueled anthems that show a whole new set of aces up their fringed sleeves, and features the crusading work of converts Rick "Cookin" Sherry (Devil in a Woodpile) on washboard, Kelly Hogan on vocals, and the Poi Dog Pondering horn section.

Stretching out in the studio as never before, the Waco Brothers deliver Waco World as a glimpse into the future where seemingly disparate influences like Hank Williams, Mick and Keith, Jimmy Cliff, and Morphine share rounds. The menacing, but somehow uplifting and exciting "Pigsville" is a fucking radio hit in a better alternate universe. "Fire Down Below" and "The Hand That Throws the Bottle Down" defy categorization, a little soul, a little reggae, a little post-punk blues, with the Wacos inescapable twisted take on roots, and "Corrupted" crackles with their equally inescapable rock energy. ""Red Brick Wall" is the crowd fave that, every time they perform it in Texas, the roar is hair-raising.

The spirits are here--you just have to open a bottle and open your mind.

(Sidenote: The whole "Waco World" premise came to being at a Lower East Side NYC pizza joint after many cocktails during the CMJ music conference. Bloodshot Rob noted how much bass player Alan looked like Yul Brynner. The rest is history...)

The spirits are there--you just have to open a bottle and open your mind.

CHOICE CUTS:
Pigsville
Fire Down Below
Red Brick Wall
Northwoods

Short Description

Pogues-y, piss 'n' vinegar hard country rock that remains great fun whether the subject at hand is broken hearts or broken bars. [The result is] just short of an hour's worth of boozy tunes just beggin' for a joint to blow the roof off of.

— The Stranger
The Wacos deliver their dark, driving country-rock with all the delicacy of butchers on a bender.

— Chicago Tribune
Waco World is lean and mean, like a boxer who's spent weeks in training for the big fight. It's primed, ready and it smells blood ... You can't aim for timelessness, but if the ingredients are right, you might achieve it. And on Waco World the Waco Brothers have hit it spot on.

— The Rocket
Their music is ten times more real than any cosmetically enhanced face on the country charts. If bands like the Waco Brothers ultimately wind up saving the heart and soul of country music for the 21st century, don't say I didn't tell you so.

— Pittsburgh Gazette