Sounding unlike any other band of today, Something Is Waiting exudes all the swagger of the latter-day hair metal saints and up-and-coming groove-metal goons who filled Riki Rachtman's cue cards in the earliest days of the '90s, yet seethes with enough vitriol to delight the nihilistic noise rock hordes who gathered to witness its set at this year's Caterwaul Festival. Six years deep, inspired as much by the early works of Ross Robinson as by the most caustic cuts from the AmRep catalog, the band is in a league of its own, the undisputed king of its own genre: "nu roll."
"When Something Is Waiting formed in 2016, the band consisted of five dudes whose stacked resumés included stints in several Chicago heavy favorites, and on their first few releases they focused on big, mean, chaos-bringing noise rock a la Unsane. Over the past few years, though, they’ve charted a new direction, trading in nihilistic bludgeoning for Sunset Strip swagger forged with a sonic sledgehammer of 90s metal. The band’s brand-new full length, 'Absolutely,' feels like a bizarre hybrid of White Zombie and Guns N’ Roses, pairing high-gloss metallic guitar with [vocalist Eddie] Gobbo’s shrill, confrontational shrieks... A record so unexpected and weird that I can’t help but love every second of it."
–Chicago Reader
"Slimmed down to a three-piece configuration, Something Is Waiting has refined their sarcastic, glam-infused noise rock (termed by the band as ‘nu roll,’ which certainly fits) into a larger-than-life vehicle of sardonic riff delivery."
–Invisible Oranges
"Flying off the rails like Metalocalypse's Dr. Rockzo on a bender, Something Is Waiting seem steeped in '80s rocker sleaze and swagger... That's where the anachronism ends though – the trio clearly have a knack for groove and pristine production that this millennium provides. Guitars crunch loudly, bass is bouncy, drums rollick and punch hard, and the vocals' serrated timbre tops the track off like a bandana across the forehead."
–Lambgoat
"A band that are clearly doing their own thing and not following anyone else's playbook... There's a punchiness about it, there's a quirk about it, there's an energy about it, that makes it infectious to listen to... And you will headbang all the way through."
–Metal Epidemic
"Swagger, groove, and ripping solos... This is a band that truly marches/moshes to its own beat."
–New Noise
"Harsh 'n' heavy... Rooted in groove metal with some '80s sleaze elements and a lot of attitude."
–Scene Point Blank
"A singer whose voice can strip paint. A band so heavy Satan couldn't lift it."
–Tinnitist
"Let's just dive right into this one. This is Something Is Waiting. It needs to get played today."
–Total Rock
