| Wavves - Wavvves |
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| Written by Julia Reidy | |
 WavvesWavvves [Fat Possum] Get It At Amazon  Nathan Williams is certainly not the first artist to center his work around damaged guitar riffs, malaise or the woes of beach life, but he just may be the very best one this year. Wielding his anguish about “going nowhere” (“Beach Demon”) and being “so bored” (“So Bored”) like weapons, and with his penchant for pop punk hooks, Williams as the entirety of buzz band Wavves is making….you know…with his second LP, released in March via Fat Possum Records. It’s the follow-up to his self-titled debut (the one with one less V in the name than the current record), which has been on the shelves less than a year; it even features a couple of the same songs. To say, therefore, that the record (and the Wavves catalogue as a whole, really) can be a listened to as one solid thought is a bit of an understatement. It is one thought. Wavvves comprises 14 short, frenetic tracks (the longest clocks in at just under four minutes). They sport titles like “Goth Girls” and “Killr Punx, Scary Demons,” and read more like musical studies on the same subjects (boredom, beaches, weed) than individual compositions in their own rights. Many contain light percussion or no percussion at all; the real driving force within each song is Williams’ rhythm guitar playing (see “So Bored” for a shining example). He mixes this determined backbone with infectious vocal melodies (with choruses so all-encompassing you’d think they were stuck to you like wet sand), as well as healthy doses of distortion, feedback and whining electronica. Williams records all the parts for his albums alone, only joining up with a bandmate, a drummer, to perform live – it’s impressive because Williams not only pushes the envelope with his hook-heavy instrumental composition, but also with vocal counterpoint. The distorted harmonies on “California Goths,” for example, with all parts sung by him, of course, sound like a 12-piece Williams choir. And “Sun Opens My Eyes,” with its complicated tribal percussion and layered singing, smacks slightly of afro-pop, like a punked-out version of an Animal Collective song off Merriweather Post Pavilion. It always floors me when song structure so smart gets wrapped in such a low-fi blanket; it’s like musical camouflage, and certainly increases the pleasant surprise. Still, “To The Dregs” probably holds the spot of honor as the best track on the album. It’s a straight-up falsetto pop number cloaked in noisy kinetic energy and “I don’t care” lyrics (literally), but its brilliance lies in its density. At only 1 minute 56 seconds long, it probably contains about as much content as most songs produced by less determined bands. It must be quality over quantity with Williams. Although I’m not sure we’ve got to worry much about quantity either – considering the frequency of Wavves releases so far, we’ll probably be seeing album spines with 13 V’s on them before next year is out. |
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