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Since We’ll Go Machete gladly proclaim “early 90’s dischord” and “touch and go” as influences, it seems redundant to repeatedly call out those seminal labels when discussing the local quartet’s self titled debut EP. Clocking at about twenty-two minutes spread over six tracks, We’ll Go Machete is a classic example of how a band can pay homage to its influences while still sounding fresh enough to warrant repeated playbacks.
There’s not much to particularly dissect across the six songs on the EP. We’ll Go Machete have a great formula, yet never sound formulaic. Vocalist Paul Warner screams with just the right amount of (teenage) angst that makes him sound like a cross between Ian MacKaye and The Offspring’s Dexter Holland. Warner and John Christoffel trade off with jagged screeching guitar solos and chunky rhythm parts on top of the solid backbone provided by bassist Chris May and drummer Matt Cook. The gist of We’ll Go Machete (the EP and, one would assume, the band as well) is that no-frills post-hardcore rock does not need unnecessary embellishment.
Take EP opener “Red Maddens the Bull”: It screams like a heat seeking missile; thirty seconds of a riff cribbed from early Bad Religion and At The Drive In records and then Warner emphatically barking “Shut its words/ Shut its word/ Take it over.” A little bridge and then back to the grind; this isn’t music for sitting still. “Number 12” and “Archibald” are both swaggering frantic anthems that are equal parts fist pumps and swerving, careening, stumbles out of a bar brawl. See the pattern? We’ll Go Machete has got it down to a science. It’s like the band has seen its share of dark bars, loud bands, and bleary hungover mornings. Their debut somehow wraps them up neatly – all that’s missing is a bow.
And just when it appears that their science of pounding really is perfected, We’ll Go Machete wraps their debut EP with “All At Sea”. Slower, darker, moodier, the final track is as close to a jam that the band ever engages in. Eschewing, for a few brief moments, the relentless driving of the previous five songs, “All At Sea” allows the rhythm section to stretch out a bit, the guitarists to swap cutting squeals, and the listener to take a small breath or two. We’ll Go Machete never strays too far from the angular riffage of their forefathers and, at a time when guitars are finally replacing shitty 80s synthesizers and ironically lame bleeps, this is a very welcomed throwback.
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