WARGASM

What happens when you take a musically adroit wild London rocker and an Irish sonic insurgent with a platinum pixie cut (who moonlights as a high fashion model), toss in some synthesizers, crank up the distortion to infinity, and burn the rule book?

Well, Wargasm happens.

A collision of throat-slashing thrash guitars, apocalyptic dancefloor electronics, unnervingly catchy harmonies, and unapologetic sex appeal, the UK duo—Sam Matlock and Milkie Way—can turn an underground goth club upside down one night and bring a massive outdoor festival to its feet the next night. It’s why they’ve earned widespread acclaim from NME, Alternative Press, Kerrang!, Revolver, Upset, and more. It’s why they’ve tallied millions of streams without a proper album. It’s why they’ve quietly become one of the most thrilling acts on the planet. These two mavericks take no prisoners, give no fucks, and have heaps of fun in the process on their 2022 mixtape Explicit [slowplay/Republic Records] and forthcoming full-length debut.

The sound depends on both of them though…

“Sam is the ‘War’, and I’m the ‘Gasm’,” grins Milkie.

“That’s kind of it,” Sam concurs. “Milkie brings a fresh perspective and an air of confidence that sounds amazing when it’s recorded. I bring a lot of fear and insecurity, which means she says, ‘Yes’, and I say, ‘This isn’t good enough’.”

“That’s just your years of talent,” answers Milkie.

As the story goes, Sam cut his teeth in the London scene. A friend urged him to meet “Girl in the Pit” (i.e. Milkie’s concert photography nom de plume). After his band broke up, they chatted on Instagram until he sent her a handful of demos. Her reply was simple, “This is the shit, let’s make it better.” She jetted off to a modeling gig in Tokyo, but when she returned they cut a demented cover of N.E.R.D’s “Lapdance” in Sam’s bedroom studio. It doubled as a creative revelation. “It was a self-imposed exercise, but it felt really good,” Sam adds. “It became the blueprint for the tracks going forward.” The pair bonded over everyone from Slipknot, Linkin Park, Nine Inch Nails, The Prodigy, and The Crystal Method to Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Fergie, and Missy Elliott. They even woke up “a party of really hot models where everyone was fucking super high” with Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff” (emblematic of their shared love for the Jacksonville titans).

In the midst of the Pandemic, they incorporated synthesizers into their bloodthirsty brand of metallic mayhem. “Spit.” ripped a hole through streaming services with over 3.7 million Spotify streams. Buzz increased as they dropped “Rage All Over,” “Salma Hayek,” and “Scratchcard Feeling.” NME named them among “100 Acts to Watch in 2021,” and Alternative Press touted them on its “New Bands To Watch” cover in 2021. They took home “Best UK Breakthrough” at The Heavy Music Awards (and even caused a bit of trouble, of course). WWE tapped “God of War” as the NXT UK Theme. In addition to gigs with Limp Bizkit, Yungblud and Creeper, they left audiences stunned at Reading and Leeds Festival, Download Pilot Festival, and Bloodstock, to name a few. Along the way, they assembled what would become Explicit.

“We called it Explicit, because there’s a lot of swearing and talk about being sexy,” explains Sam.

Milkie adds, “We’re here to do horny rock music, because nobody else is.”

That brings us to the absolutely bonkers single “D.R.I.L.D.O” A nocturnal bassline thumps as Milkie sinks her vampiric flow into the drum machine groove before Sam counters with a scream. The guitar roars as Milkie claims, “I don’t want to think, I just want to…”

“Drink, fuck, fight, love,” Sam finishes her phrase before delivering a scorching guitar solo.

“It’s a good bridge between the two elements of Wargasm, which are super fun, sexy, and electronic and also fresh and metal,” Sam continues. “You can clearly hear the both of us. We want there to be two characters in the music. You should have a favorite.”

Elsewhere, breathy moans snap into a schizophrenic catharsis on the follow-up “Super Fiend.”

“I’m really stepping into my villain era,” exclaims Milkie. “I have no interest in being a nice and likeable person. I’m ready to be villainous, hence ‘Super Fiend’.”

In the end, these villains have their sights set on world domination.

“We needed a mixtape that made everyone say, ‘What the fuck?’,” Sam leaves off. “I want anyone who doubted us to be like, ‘I don’t know if I like it or not. I’m confused’. Milkie has been saying the debut album after Explicit will be as good as Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory—which is a fucking crazy thing to put into the world.”

“It’s called manifestation, baby,” she laughs.

Wargasm
noun
“A sordid collusion of Euphoria & Violence // Feel nothing // Feel everything”