We Are Knuckle Dragger... a band I never get tired of listening to... big riffs, huge grooves and an intense live show... clever songwriting without being pretentious... and with the great Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies) recording the band's debut album, "Tit For Tat", you know they're not a band that needs to hide behind an over-processed sound. Last year's follow up album, "The Drone", was produced by Ross Robinson (Korn, Slipknot, Deftones, Glassjaw) who helped bring an even bigger bone crunching intent to the recording and some sonic flourishes that really help pull you in to the sound. They've toured with Meshuggah, Animals As Leaders and Dillinger Escape Plan, played Reading & Leeds festival, and done sessions at the BBC. Why aren't they famous? I'm not sure that's something particularly high on their list of priorities, probably part of the reason their music remains, as it always has done, so convincing in it's delivery.



The image above has been used by WAKD for cover / header photos across their social media pages, on their Wiki page, in magazine articles including a whole page feature in Big Cheese mag, and it's still a part of my printed portfolio despite being a couple of years old now. It took 22 specifically taken photographs worked on over 48 layers in Photoshop to create this image. When printed to it's intended dimensions (nearly three and a half metres wide) the bass drum measures 22" which is the actual size. Here's a close crop showing some of the detail on the bassdrum head...



Seeing WAKD playing live comes highly recommended. The photos below, taken at The Old Blue Last earlier this year, show a little taste of the band's live energy. If you want a closer look they'll be at ArcTanGent this year, the UK festival dedicated to Math-rock, Post-rock and Noise-rock (in ArcTanGent's own words). For more info on all things WAKD visit their Bandcamp page.