You expect some level of awkwardness from a man whose first album is titled Wavves with two Vs, and its follow-up Wavvves with three Vs (and only a right messer would name his band with two Vs anyway- see last years vvonderful Lovvers for further proof), so don’t blame Nathan Williams for getting a bit gauche with you. Part of that lo-fi-for-the-sake-of-lo-fi trend America is transmitting across the Atlantic at the moment, Wavves (the band, not the album) is a project with its roots in 60s garage rock and beach pop, early 80s goth and 90s slacker rock. Wavves (the album, not the band) flits from joyous amphetamine hits to your central nervous system to narcoleptic shuffles Bauhaus would hang up their eyeliner for.
It is the songs which appropriate Beach Boys and Phil Spector’s girl group pop hits that contain the best reasons to return to Wavves more so than say, Women or Times New Viking – neither of these feedback merchants have songs as irresistable as California Goth or Wavves (the song, not the band or the album) in their arsenal. It is the less enjoyable, though admittedly braver tracks that put texture and melody before a straightforward percussive rush, which make William’s project less pleasingly direct than Jay Reatard.
Much time will be spent debating whether or not the wavves of fuzz Wavves music is washed in is savant, and what the obscuring of such sweet pop music is meant to reflect about the artist, and what he MEANS by it all. All of which, it must be said, is giving Nathan Williams too much credit – the guy is fucking around, and the only reason we care is because it sounds painfully cool. Wavves make your blood circulation speed up, your limbs jerk, your heart do things it shouldn’t do before you’re sixty. Don’t expect their first emission to cause apoplexy, but tingles up your left arm will warn you of something more spasmodically catastrophic to come.
See also: Jay Reatard- Blood Visions [In The Red], Dublin Duck Dispensary- Luanqibazao [Rack and Ruin], The Germs- MIA (The Complete Anthology) [Rhino]
