Download: Wavves “So Bored”

(from Wavvves out now on Fat Possum)

Let’s all just admit it. We cut our teeth on the cutting edge, but now the cutting edge just doesn’t cut it no more. Too many of L.A.’s brutal feedback boys and girls have made good in the last few years. And reviewers and scene-leeches like myself have started reining in the hyperbolic praise we once lavished on any passing post-post-punk who might let us party in the van after the show. Overblown effects pedals and promises of Steinlager no longer suffice: we want to see a new light shining in those sleep-deprived eyes that didn’t display its first glimmer for Deerhoof and No Age.

So some reviewers seem to be approaching Nathan Williams’ band Wavves with caution because of his similarities to more successful noise bands, when what this dude really needs is a high-five and some nurturing love to help him move into the more original style he hints at—and sometimes really nails—with Wavvves. Some songs on here are repeats of what we’ve seen before—even repeats of each other. But the album still really rocks and shines, and could shine more if Williams could be encouraged to dive head first into his own headspace.

That’s not to say that Wavves’ sameness has hurt him any. Some other publications are going apeshit on him/them, calling him “the Times New Viking” of quasi one-man bands. Well, he’s not—in fact, this spring sees one-man-band releases by both Corridor and Bobb Bruno that outshine Wavvves, even in the ambient noise department. But on Wavvves, we see a streak of dry heat, humor and fragility like nothing we’ve seen before in modern noise. If the Smell is CBGB’s, then Wavves is no mere Mink Deville—he’s Mumps or higher, with a unique insight that deserves respect and time to grow.

Or maybe the Dictators would be a better comparison. This is beefy music, humorous at times, full of both rock and jock. The bent effects pedals, keys, and drums sometimes thock you on the bones like the best of Mae Shi. But at the same time, there’s a sunniness here, a surfiness, or at least a beachiness.

Now, a lot of noise fans, including Williams himself, have pointed to Wavvves’ high harmonies as being Brian Wilson-esque. But that’s so vaguely obvious, like comparing Osama Bin Laden to the Iron Sheik. Sure, words like “Sun” and “Surf” and “Beach” and “Summer” show up in nearly every song. But this record is far more a child of Beach Blvd than the Beach Boys, and there’s Descendants and PiL and Dead Kennedys and Nick Cave and Redd Kross and Billy Corgan and even James hiding there in the lead guitar licks and melodic bass lines. And Williams intentionally forces some bummer into his summer—the monotonous, fried aggression on songs like “Summer Goth” actually make me imagine what Duane Peters might have felt like in the summer of 1982, skating to US Bombs practice after doing shitty crank all night.

And of course everything’s so overblown and overcranked that if our national debt could talk, it would look over at Wavvves and say “Damn, you’re in the RED!” And that makes it fun to listen to, especially when dialed to the tweeter-snapping max. But Wavvves’ greatest success is in the melodies—some simple, some transcendent—that bring it/him to a level far above your friend’s party band.

And those harmonies! Here we see the same high-pitched oohs and aahs accompanying the music that Kim Deal did so well over Black Francis’s melodies in the Pixies. Soft songs like “Weed Demon” definitely find their way to Mariana on a wave of mutilation. And crunchers like “To the Dregs” pull you across the shoals with angelic siren songs—the mythological Odysseus kind, not the police truck kind, though Wavvves has plenty of that, too. Those harmonies are perhaps one of the reasons this album succeeds at something many noise bands don’t—sounding as good as or better on recordings than they do live.

There is one legitimate comparison one can make between Nathan Williams and Brian Wilson, though, and that’s that both save their most creative and introspective talents for their instrumentals. But whereas Brian Wilson’s instrumentals lacked the sonorous ring of his family’s vocal stylings, on Wavvves, the lack of harmonies in the instrumentals really allows Williams to get closer to pioneers of noise and electro in a way that all bands would do well to study. “Rainbow Everywhere,” one of the best intro songs I’ve heard in a while, captures the diode-diddling splendor of Morton Subotnick and somehow sprinkles it with teenage wanderlust. And “Goth Girls” is a wondrous, cavernous, bubbly duel between electronic synth noises and anthemic, dirgy distortion—something like Steve Reich fucking Raymond Scott in the mouth, but gently, because they’re in love.

Are you confused on whether or not I actually recommend the album? Good, because Wavvves confused the hell out of me, too. I still think Wavves has lots of room to grow, and I would love to see him do more pure noise, use some sampling, and perhaps find a way to add his clear love for hip-hop into the mix in a way still palatable for feedback fans. But Wavvves is a must-have album for your springtime collection, and may be the bridge to even better bummers come summer.

—Dan Collins

Wavvves is out now on Fat Possum.