Shockingly, not our highest score today…
[Myspace]
[4.44]
Katherine St Asaph: Wait, so this is what Wavves sounds like? I expected the second coming, or barring that, something I could properly hate. This is just there.
[5]
Martin Skidmore: Aggressive noise overlaying proper pop tunes has produced some of the greatest rock ever — Velvets, Ramones, J&MC. Here we have what sounds like a ’60s surf number with added racket. Trouble is, the racket sounds clumsy rather than astonishing or shocking, as in the three bands above, the tune isn’t particularly good, and the singing’s a bit weedy and lifeless. I approve of the aesthetic, and can imagine liking some of their stuff, but this seems third rate.
[3]
Jonathan Bogart: Wondering what I thought about it, I asked myself if it would be better if it had a middle eight or even a third chord. (N.B. I have not actually counted chords.) And of course not; it would be substantially worse. Which doesn’t make it any sort of primitive work of genius or anything, just a cute little fuzzpop song that knows its limitations.
[7]
Pete Baran: Sounding quite dumb is an advantage when you do something vaguely clever, like name a song like this “Post Acid”. Whilst it strikes me there is not one ounce of originality in this, the Wavves album, and this track, is really quite fun if your ears already work for this kind of thing. Which mine do.
[8]
Alex Macpherson: Unremarkable indie rock that sounds like it was recorded by some bored brat in a basement sometime in the ’90s and only just exhumed. There’s nothing to recommend it at all; even if you like this aesthetic surely there must be hundreds of better examples out there? With a modicum of charm and charisma, at least? A further point deducted for the way Wavves has inexplicably monopolised the critical discourse; I resent him (and Sleigh Bells, too) for tearing minds and ears away from vastly more worthwhile artists, but it seems that, more than ever, people have come to conflate “this artist is interesting to discuss” with “this artist has indie hype”. I am so bored of everything to do with this.
[1]
Alfred Soto: No Age do this sort of strum und drang without letting your attention wander to the poor young woman who apparently doesn’t “understand” the sensitive lead singer’s pain, but this has its uses, most especially when during the chorus the lead singer’s vocals descend in a comically distorted manner like he was in an early eighties English synth-pop duo.
[6]
Chuck Eddy: Post-post-post JAMC blur-pop with whiney nerd vocals. These dorks have always made No Age sound interesting in comparison, which can’t be easy; never got why they were hyped in the first place. But there’s a cute enough structure and melody here that I can guess why hepsters might fall for it anyway; also figure the after-the-fact (and fight [and acid?]) lyric situation makes for some intriguing semblance of tenseness. “Tenseness” as in “past tense,” that is, not “feeling tense.”
[5]
Hazel Robinson: Oh fuck me this is terrible. It’s like one of the unwanted, amateurish bonus songs you have to play through on Rock Band to get to the Bang Camarro one; endless, crippling pedal drum and difficult-to-replicate-in-a-bad-way vocals and mindbendingly dull guitar parts to little discernible purpose. I guess it is attempting to be punk? A shame, as I was hoping it was attempting to be Fuck Buttons, from the name.
[2]
Doug Robertson: Yeah, because sounding like The Lilys worked out really well for The Lilys, didn’t it?
[3]