Windsor, Ontario is located about five steps away from Detroit and like Niagara Falls I guarantee it's nicer than on the American side. We've seen the documentaries about Motor City on Netflix, there should be a separate category for the abandoned, impossibly big city. It was at a police auction there that bassist Jake Dimmick purchased a PA system and contacted a high school friend, singer Robert Earl Stewart to put together a few tracks that turned into Waker Glass. Terry Lusk on drums and John Pilat on guitar joined Waker and met on the shores of Lake Eerie to record the tracks on this single heavily influenced by 16 Horsepower and Tom Waits.
"Neighbourhood Party" starts with a waltzy electric fingerpicking. This whole track has a sort of see saw rolling wave rhythm and Robert's vocal is low and guttural. Not doing an impression of Mr. Waits, well... who would even attempt that, but he's got that same character study lyrically painting this picture of a summer party outside. His throat is shredded, especially when he starts in on the final chorus. Adults are misbehaving and who can remember what happened last year anyway? Everyone is getting belligerent and the rest of the band is painting a bit of an eerie Cramps kind of country vibe. You could see this in a nightmare before christmas story about random freak monsters who have nothing better to do than get wasted outside the nearest trailer.
"Widow's Walk" on the B-Side slows down in a different way and Robert has a smoother delivery, even breaking out the huge melody when they get down to the meat of this chorus. This gets a little epic when it comes down to lonely piano and Robert keeping that energy going now that it's been coaxed out. Even guitar work from John has some metal crunch and heart. This one climbs higher and higher up the side of this hillside. They make short work of digging in and finding footholds inch by inch. They fight for the emotion they get out of this.
On swirly orange vinyl from Mersea Recordings and their bandcamp page.
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