"Let the sun burn my eyes/Let it burn my back," yells out Wavves' singer Nathan Williams on the opening track "King of the Beach". These San Diego noise-punk boys couldn't make it more obvious that their third LP, King of the Beach, is a pure summer album packed with noisy surfin' punk rock.
Wavves still explore their tenacity at noisy, fast-paced punk oriented music, they switch it up from the very, very lo-fi to a more cleaner sound. That still doesn't mean that Wavves has lost it's hard rocking luster that their first two albums, they just have cleaned up all the extreme lo-fi noises and started recording in a studio. In other big changes in Wavves' musical sound they feature a complete rhythm section with the ex-members of the late punk rocker Jay Reatard touring band.
Wavves' singer Nathan Williams really just sounds like he's having fun on every track. His writing isn't complex or deep in any matter, but the lyrics seem to reflect the confusing, depressing and memorable moments of his own personal life. The confusing; "Green Eyes" ("Greens eyes, I'd run away with you/My, my own friends hate my guts"), the depressing; "Take On the World" ("I hate myself myself man, but who's to blame?/I guess I'm just see-through window panes"), and the memorable; "Post Acid" ("Understand, won't you understand in my time of need to understand/That I'm just having fun").
The reminsents of dirty raw lo-fi punk rock is very reminiscient in between the notes of the California surfing riffs in "Idiot". King of the Beach is a lot like a miniature revival of early 1980s heavily raw skate punk that was dominated by Big Boys and NOFX, but Wavves have a more chill lo-fi hint within the music with influences from Pavement and other '90s lo-fi giants. Wavves takes a lot of influence a lot of fun and enjoyable music from the past.
Besides just the lo-fi surf-punk that Wavves are very adept at creating they feature messy hints of shoegazing ("Green Eyes"), fuzzy spacey explosions ("Baby Say Goodbye") and bizarre out of place drum machines ("Mickey Mouse"). The valiant efforts of trying to mix up the bag on the second half of the album is a hit and miss. "Green Eyes" hits dead on the target with melodic hooks that really reaches out and grab out at you, while "Convertible Balloon" plays with very kiddy electronic drum machines that are uninteresting and repetitive.
The hard hitting punk of the first half of the album truly showcases the more fluid Wavves. Even though the music isn't described in anyway with "fluid". It sounds like Wavves are having more fun making their more punk oriented music as opposed to the more experimental themes of the second half."Idiot" and "Take On the World" are classic cases of self-loathing lyrics that was so popular in the skate punk music universe.
What a better time for Wavves to release an album. It's dead in the summer and "King of the Beach" is bound to play on a couple of beach stereos out on the Pacific coast. Though the lyrics aren't deep or meaningful, King of the Beach is a fun and summer soaked listen that couldn't be more timely.
Overall: 8.1/10.0
Track Listing:
1. King of the Beach - 8.5
2. Super Soaker - 9.0
3. Idiot - 8.5
4. When Will You Come? - 8.5
5. Post Acid - 8.5
6. Take On the World - 9.0
7. Baseball Cards - 7.5
8. Convertible Balloon - 6.5
9. Green Eyes - 9.5
10. Mickey Mouse - 6.5
11. Linus Spacehead - 8.0
12. Baby Say Goodbey - 7.0
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