Wax Ecstatic by Sponge

Wax Ecstatic, Sponge's second album, landed on Columbia on July 2, 1996, and the Detroit band used it to swap the sound of their previous album, Rotting Piñata, for a swaggering, vintage hard-rock strut. Vinnie Dombroski and the Cross brothers had come up together in the hard rock band Loudhouse, and it shows. Dombroski sings like a carnival barker with a hangover, Mike Cross on guitar and Tim Cross on bass lay down riffs with real shoulders, and Charlie Grover, making his first album with the band, gives the drums a heavier, looser swing.

The title track, subtitled "To Sell Angelina", is a lurid, glammy stomp, and "Have You Seen Mary" was the record's other hit single. It was followed by New Pop Sunday.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.