Album Review: Wavves - Afraid of Heights
- Written by Carris Boast
Afraid of Heights is the newest album from beach-grunge, surf-pop, 90s rock-inspired Californian band Wavves. Led by singer Nathan Williams, this new album takes a darker approach to their original grunge style, and brings it into a whole new dimension, where themes of death and loneliness can be seen through ominous layers of guitars and drums where dirt and grit gather and Wavves' lyrical, repetitive, nature makes its home.
Afraid Of Heights opens with tangled, twinkling sounds that dissolve straight into the belly of strife, sickened by a doleful state of mind. The distressed guitars and chapped voice of ‘Sail to the Sun’ sink into muddy guitar riffs that share a small pocket of anarchy of what is to come over the rest of this album.
“Holding a gun to my head” is cried ever so cavalierly in track ‘Demon to Lean On’, which is layered against an upbeat tune and can only slightly hinder the shock of the statement made. ‘Demon to Lean On’ as well as ‘Lunge Forward’ take pleasure in feeling melancholy as it battles its way through the harsh honesty of whatever is coming out of Nathan's voice.
Tracks ‘Paranoid’ and ‘Beat Me Up’ sound like a zombified Beach Boys, dripped in blood and sweat, carrying battered skateboards and making a noise that can only be rejoiced in, as it fills up your smoke filled lungs and forces you to move from your seats and clatter around mindlessly.
Wavves carry a very woe-is-me attitude throughout this album which can clearly be seen in ‘Everything is My Fault’, where the moody digression hits a whole new high as the melody sways into discontent and emerges only to a depressing silence.
Each track sees death and religion in a bitter light. Wavves have progressed to a level that allows them to say and do whatever they like, and if they continue to make tracks as raw as ‘Gimme a Knife’, they could be unstoppable. Afraid of Heights sounds more polished than previous efforts but each track still prickles and pokes at that bruise which was made by the menacing sound of their previous album King of the Beach.
Afraid of Heights is out now and available from amazon