Jun 15 2026, 9.34am / Features
Dear Joey and Brooke, What a wild ride! I just wanted to write to express …
Admit it; you’ve been waiting for this one since you got stuck into Hungry Ghost. Violent Soho’s WACO is here and it’s kicking ass and taking names. Listen below:
WACO is named for the small Texas city that was the site of the David Koresh Branch-Davidian siege/massacre/shootout with the FBI in 1993. Vocalist/guitarist Luke Boerdam says “Hungry Ghost dealt with the spiritual skeleton we’ve become from this spoon-fed reality. WACO is more about control and illusion: what the skeleton is being fed.”
They teased us with Viceroy and Like Soda but it’s all been leading up to this. In the intervening months, they’ve become so hot, Like Soda reached #15 in triple j’s Hottest 100 and unscrupulous types are scalping their tickets
Speaking in Hysteria #40 (our cover stars!) main man Luke Boerdam downplays the sudden rise to fame after a decade in pop’s wilderness. “I like to think people think our band isn’t a band that would think ‘oh shit, we’re successful now. We better write some light-hearted pop song which means absolutely nothing’.”
The band dug their heels in – WACO isn’t dedicated to industry fluffers, it’s for the fans. It worships the riff. Holy shit god damn, Violent Soho is the man.
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Violent Soho – WACO Review
by Tom Hersey
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Violent Soho have come through with the fucken goods.
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Following up the surprise hit album is tricky one—and it has as much to do with the band as it does their fans. Because now punters can’t champion the underground underdogs as a declaration of their cutting-edge tastes, and the band has to decide what they’re going to say to the most people they’ve ever had a chance to talk with.
It’s a big deal, and even after being comforted by banger singles Like Soda and Viceroy, I still feel some trepidation putting WACO on the stereo for the first time. But I did, because that’s what they pay me (quite poorly) to do. Now I can confidently tell my fellow nervous nellies not to worry, Violent Soho have come through with the fucken goods.
Like Hungry Ghost, and everything in the band’s catalogue really, you can listen to Waco and assign the various parts to the grunge monoliths that directly inspired them—Sentimental’s intro is classic pre-fuckstick Billy Corgan, Slow Wave’s background refrain “Always, I know” could well be from a Blink-182 song—but the pool of influences they’re drawing from is so diverse that the songs coming across as immediately familiar without being derivative. How the foursome have continued to walk this tightrope is key to WACO’s appeal, they sound like the soundtrack to the most memorable parties from your salad years, but they carry a freshness that will fit right in on the soundtrack at your next house party. Hell fuck yeah!
Standout tracks: Viceroy, How to Taste, Low
For Fans of: Hüsker Dü, drinking beers in the summertime, Dinosaur Jr.
