Bad Waitress’ ‘In The Hollow’ packs 10 tracks of punk noise

By Tom Whitfield

Bad Waitress’ new album ‘In The Hollow’ contains 10 tracks and is out through Stomp Records. The Toronto punk quartet comprises Kali-Ann Butala, Katelyn Molgard, Moon and Nicole Cain.

They recorded the album with engineer Josh Korody at Wychwood Sound in Toronto and produced it themselves. The announcement gives no release date beyond “out now,” no songwriting credits and no video director. It does not explain how the four members divided production or writing. Those omissions limit any firm account of the record’s authorship.

The review hears a darker, stranger and more adventurous version of the band’s established sound. It hears echoes of L7’s confrontation, Wire’s angular attitude and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ art-punk unpredictability, filtered through Bad Waitress’ unruly character. Crooked relationships and existential questions sit inside that noise.

The comparison suggests range rather than a wholesale change of style. Nothing in the announcement suggests a retreat from punk.

The material grew out of years of personal change, isolation and reflection, the review says. Its themes include identity, complicated relationships and the unsettling discovery that a former self has become a stranger. Memories of the Northwest Territories and Pacific Northwest also inspired the album’s imagery. The review locates vast forests and mysterious landscapes inside the band’s noisy musical world.

What do the quieter passages change?

They alter the record’s balance without changing its basic terms. The review rejects the idea of a quiet acoustic detour. Instead, “45” offers an affectionate portrait of a flawed character surrounded by cigarettes, alcohol and the hope of becoming someone better. The review treats tenderness breaking through the band’s attitude and distortion as one of its most intriguing moments.

The accompanying video offers another route into the group’s unpredictable world. The announcement names no director and gives no plot summary. Without a fuller production account, the visual treatment remains unexplained.

On the songs it names, the review makes the differences concrete:

• The review says “I Only Like You When I’m Drunk” delivers exactly the romantic complications its title promises.
• It describes “Lovin’ Kind” as exploring “the uncomfortable collision between attraction and self-preservation.” The review treats both songs as messy accounts of messy decisions.
• “Galleria Shopping Centre” turns an ordinary shopping trip into a hilariously disorienting consumerist fever dream built from shoes, coffee, dollar stores and questionable decision-making.
• “The Hunt” heads somewhere considerably darker.
• On the title track, cellist Michael Peter Olson adds haunting instrumentation to the band’s punk aggression.
• Olson returns on the closing track, “Low.” The review hears the album’s theatrical energy give way to vulnerability, a fitting end to a record interested in gallows humour and uncomfortable self-discovery.

Bad Waitress have earned their reputation through confrontational performances. They have shared stages with Jack White, Subhumans, Viagra Boys and Amyl and the Sniffers. Their earlier releases, ‘Party Bangers: Volume 1’ and ‘No Taste,’ established a ferocious musical identity that the review says continues to evolve here.

‘In The Hollow’ gives the quartet room to test space, melody, atmosphere and storytelling while keeping their punk instincts intact. The review’s final judgment is that the result is strange, unexpectedly compassionate and full of creative personality. No other reviews or audience responses appear in the announcement, so the case for evolution rests on the descriptions of the songs.

For existing listeners, the practical change is concrete: the 10 tracks test wider textures without surrendering punk’s attack, while the thin production account leaves them to judge the claim by the songs themselves.