EP REVIEW: Wage War - It Calls Me By Name

Release Date: Friday 17th April

Fearless Records

Hearing a band for the first time can be a wild experience — and Wage War’s newest EP, It Calls Me By Name, feels like getting dropped into the humid swamps of Florida, surrounded by alligators and other creatures ready to take a bite. It’s a solid release the Florida natives describe as “five tracks shaped by Florida, the swamp, and the relentless aggression of nature.”

The EP opens with ‘Song of the Swamp,‘ which released in late February, and the band declared it the tone setter for the EP. As promised, it drops you straight into the Florida swamplands and you’re greeted with the peaceful sounds of nature, a false calm before the storm. This peaceful opening is quickly thrown away as gut-wrenching vocals pull you under, putting you face to face with danger. It’s hostile and chaotic, setting up the gritty tone for the songs to follow.

The beat keeps on rolling on ‘4×4‘ which kicks in immediately with the nu-metal chaos. The song has a catchy chorus which I found myself repeating over and over again while I did my daily chores and scratched an itch I didn’t realize I had. It’s one of the highest energy tracks in the release and opens room for a great crowd work song that would go hard live.

We take a step back with the tempo and lean more into the melodic tone with ‘Blindfold.’ As a first-time listener of Wage War, the vocals of Cody Quistad were a pleasant surprise that was more than welcomed. I actually had to double check if my Spotify had popped up and started playing because it didn’t register it was the same band. The song has more of a somber tone to it, offering a still heavy song with less brutality, sandwiched perfectly in the middle of the tracks. The tension, however, still remains high and allows space for lingering emotion.

Time isn’t wasted as the gears shift back up a notch with ‘Karma,’ which has to be my favourite from the bunch. The song feels unpredictable on the first listen, building up and releasing in well-thought-out bursts. It has a fun rhythm to it and does a great job of blending the tones of all the songs in the release, especially through the clean vocal trade-offs between Cody Quistad and Briton Bond. There are so many layers and moving parts, and they really nailed executing it.

It’s all brought to a close with ‘Purify,‘ which really digs into the heaviness and atmospheric themes of the EP. You’re thrown into the danger zone as it doubles down on aggression — low bass, excruciating vocals, and the repeated warning to “Run for your life.” There’s a tension running under the whole track that keeps building, and with the right visuals it could make for a killer thriller-style music video. As it reaches it’s peak, we are brought back to the beginning, with the same peaceful swampland sounds you hear at the start of the track, allowing a loop to occur and really make this EP feel like its own ecosystem. It really plays into the swamp atmosphere, with what seems to be peaceful on the surface can have danger looming below and all it takes is one wrong move to be swallowed by it.

It Calls Me By Name left me wanting more. My main critique is that I wish the immersive nature and atmosphere sounds from the beginning and end were throughout all the tracks. It felt like a missed opportunity to do something really cool and make the ecosystem they have built feel more alive.

Overall, it’s a solid EP and a great gateway into the band. It’s carefully crafted, clearly intentional, and not afraid to lean into the aggressive tone it sets out to create. By the end, the five tracks leave you with that urge to go looking for what else is hiding beneath the surface

Rating: 8/10

Review by Alastair Butterworth

Listen to It Calls Me By Name here