You take that experience, and you’re just so raw, and then every other time is different because you’ve just grown off that first time.” The World’s Best American Band (2017) “You kind of figure out what art direction you want to do and how you figure out sounds and stuff from there. “Nothing will ever compare to the feeling of working on the first full-length, and the excitement behind getting it out,” Hater said. Hater said the magic of Does It Again was the experience. It was also an album that added two new members: Nick’s twin brother Sam Wilkerson on bass and keyboardist Ryan Hater. White Reaper Does It Again feels like the second chapter to the first record, but it also showed the band wasn’t going to sink into redundancy and longevity was on the table. The first three songs - “Make Me Wanna Die,” “I Don’t Think She Cares” and “Pills” - take the building blocks that they laid down in the first album and supercharge them, while tracks like “Friday the 13th” get a little more experimental and weird. The hooks and melodies are bright and burn into your brain, while the album’s 12 songs explore more territory, especially on the back half. So how did White Reaper’s second record contribute to that slowly rolling change? The explosive garage punk is still there, but the songs are bigger, more vibrant and more developed. As I’ve written in a few past reviews and breakdowns, a White Reaper song is always going to sound like a White Reaper song. White Reaper’s sophomore release - and their first full-length album - showed the measured method of progression that the band would lean on for years to come: each new release takes a gradual step in a new direction, without sacrificing the core sound. “It was definitely like a scrapbook of everything we had up until that point, which I feel like a lot of first EPs are the same way,” he continued. Wilkerson said the EP was, “definitely the foundation of the whole band.” Recorded with two different local indie producers, and only two full-time band members - Esposito and drummer Nick Wilkerson - the project was a low-budget, patchwork affair, but that’s part of its lasting charm. From the addictive wave of fuzzy garage punk that defines the opening moments of “Cool” to the swirling synth in “Half Bad” to the ragged charm of “Conspirator,” there’s always a very subtle undercurrent of scrappy pop prowess that walks the line between aloof and inviting.īut, ultimately, the EP was an avenue to get music out as fast as possible, and maintain momentum, after they were signed to Polyvinyl Records. The EP’s six songs have the raw attack of a demo, but with so much more polish - maybe White Reaper’s greatest gift is the ability to constantly craft catchy, melodic flourishes. They take an idea and develop it into a quick, clever and ambiguous DIY ball of fury. The songs aren’t overly complicated, but they’re also not vapid, mundane or stagnant. White Reaper’s self-titled EP is the band at their most visceral - a no-frills, 16-minute rollercoaster ride full of youthful angst, stories about the painfully cool kids and fears about society’s never-ending quest to sink its teeth into the young and the creative. tour hits home at Headliners Music Hall on Saturday, March 25, we thought it would be a good time to revisit the band’s first five (post-demo) albums to track how their sound has branched in different directions.īelow are short breakdowns of the albums, each featuring insight from a different member of the band. “I think we’re just trying to keep it interesting for ourselves, and, at least the way I look at it, add new things to our live set that maybe we don’t have, and searching for things in that way sort of leads us to new-ish grounds,” Esposito said.īefore White Reaper’s current U.S. Singer-guitarist Tony Esposito told LEO that the changes from record to record stem from the band not wanting to get bored - or, even worse, have stale live shows. It seems like just yesterday when kids were climbing into the rafters at local venues during those bonkers early White Reaper shows, but now, five albums and a decade into their career, the five-piece band are hard-touring veterans with a fairly deep and definitely eclectic discography.įrom the breakneck garage punk of the early days to the thrash metal inspirations of their 2023 record, Asking For A Ride, Louisville’s White Reaper has incrementally shifted their sound to stay in front of redundancy.
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