Wavves

To say that Wavves’ latest work—an album with the inspired name “Wavvves”—is strangely dissonant would not be a criticism. To assert that some of its tracks are just noise, utterly indescribable as anything else, would be a statement of fact. To tell the artist that the vocals on “Wavvves” are drowned out by charged chaos, or that a strong buzz of feedback stifles his melodies, would be to acknowledge his accomplishments rather than to deplore his defects. Coming from indie rocker Nathan Williams, whose music is variously categorized as crust pop, noise punk or even “shitgaze”—a descriptive variant of “shoegaze”—it is not surprising that his second album is every bit as defiantly clamorous as the first. While similarly marked by drilling drumbeats and tense clashes of chords, “Wavvves” takes more risks with electric frequencies and unusual noises. Some of these risks pay off, producing an engaging and original sound, but many backfire in alienating and even annoying ways.

For a newcomer to the industry—Williams released Wavves’ eponymous first LP in September 2008—his experimentation is brave to say the least, but the new tricks he pulls in “Wavvves” are actually quite limited in scope. The tracks vary little in mood and instrumentation, and when Williams experiments it is mostly with electronic beats, blares and buzzes—with the exception, perhaps, of some inspired sitar twangs early in “Killr Punx, Scary Demons.”

Take, for example, the representative first track of “Wavvves,” entitled “Rainbow Everywhere.” A voiceless introduction to the album, the piece jumps between electric frequencies underneath heavy static and hovers around just a couple of simple chords. The track ends up sounding awfully reminiscent of an elongated modem dial-up tone. Similarly, the incessant static buzz of “More Fur,” with no tune or beat of which to speak, comes off as a four-minute sample of a bored child playing with a badly-wired microphone.

This is not to say that boredom cannot act as a source of inspiration, however. In fact, it is in his dead-on depictions of idle frustration that Williams makes more thoughtful musical choices. “So Bored” uses some well-placed high whines and a catchy beat to call to mind a culturally starved American teenage boy fighting off total lethargy with his guitar. Along the same lines, the peppy persistence of “No Hope Kids” actually endows the song with humor as the lyrics develop from lighthearted denial of material needs—“got no car, got no money”—to more serious worries—“got no friends, got no family.”

Such songs contribute to the general feeling that “Wavvves” does not always reach its potential. Williams’ redundancy in “Summer Goth,” for instance, in which he repeats the unoriginal phrase “I can’t wait to get home and wrap my arms ’round you” sounds especially uninteresting when compared with the strongest song on the LP, “Jetplane (Staying on a).” Beginning with a heavy beat but soft vocals in a content apathy, the piece develops a melody that tenses up with the introduction of electronic flares and static creeping into the background. The distortion of one key repeated phrase in the song and the eventual clumsy breakdown of the tune into silence lend it an incredible power of allegory for decay, like a sunny day degenerating into a damp and cloudy afternoon. Much of the rest of the album, however, is plagued with incomprehensible lyrics and tiring reverberations of electric blares.

In an attempt to reshape the genre of noise pop, then, “Wavvves” has removed the essential infectious melodies and beats. In the best of the genre, music emerges from the noise and occasional harmonies clarify overwhelming dissonances. Carefree chaos and defiant strength become nonsensical, not mysterious or intriguing, when nothing stands in contrast. Similar no-fi bands like No Age and Abe Vigoda express in their work an implicit understanding that powerful beats and electronic tones work best in the support of catchy tunes. “Wavvves” only demonstrates Williams’ failure to realize his impressive artistic potential.