Leading the charge, or if you heart puns, at the crest of a new wave of bands coming outta the US, Wavves is quickly becoming omnipresent in the music blogosphere. Alongside No Age, Vivian Girls, Blackblack, Arch M, Natural Numbers and Ducktails, it seems the sound of ’09 is a return to the DIY, lo-fi ethic of garage rock but also drawing widely from sources such as surf-rock, Phil Spector, Neu!, The Stooges, drone-rock and grunge. Instead of being inhibited by limited budgets and rudimentary recording equipment, these bands make it intrinsic and vital to there art.
The rehabilitation of grunge in popular music is somewhat overdue and it’s almost inevitable that after the resurgence of interest in post-punk (Bloc Party, Futureheads, The Rapture etc.) that musicians would skip the hair metal pomp of the mid 80’s and head straight to grunge. That’s not to say that Wavves etc is merely regurgitating the tropes of that scene, but rather invoke the feel of grunge while by-passing some of the more lumpen visceral elements, instead incorporating harmonies that are like The Beach Boys, particularly on “Weed Demons” and “So Bored”.
To see what I mean head down to
Sam
