It was Michael Mann’s 1995 crime thriller Heat that Waingro guitarist Brain Sepanzyk heralds as one of the few masterpieces in a mostly diluted decade of 90s cinema. He even named his Vancouver-based stoner metal trio after one of the film’s most menacing characters.

“I watched it relentlessly and fell in love with the character, but as a kid, I didn’t realize the gravity of his actions,” says Sepanzyk of the bank-robbing lowlife played by actor Kevin Gage.

Sepanzyk’s lust to examine society’s perverse desire to delve into the psyches of the most deviant minds was brought to screen in his 2017 award-winning short film, Compulsion. The violence — however gratuitous — remained a relic of eras past.

In Waingro, this level of ferocity also exists, as his love of childhood camp remains prevalent. With their aptly titled third album, III, the trio have created immediate buzz by caricaturing another staple of their adolescence in the form of an 80s style beer commercial dubbed, “Go for the ‘Gro.”

But don’t get it twisted; despite an insatiable thirst for all things past, the new album ain’t your uncle’s beer rock band.

“In Waingro the lyrics are not quite tongue in cheek, but I don’t think I could write from a place that’s super emotional. This isn’t the project for that.”