Wavy Trees – Nobody Cares
If rock n’ roll doesn’t clean up its act, the only place you’re likely to still hear guitars playing over loud drums and impassioned singing is in the final act of glossy Hollywood movies. See, as big as pop hits are across the world, nothing says character emancipation quite like a rock tune floating over an energy filled-montage of that said character overcoming adversity.
Unless someone gets up to writing some genuine hits, or figures out that wearing your Monday sweater while filming your music video isn’t exactly going to draw in the crowds, rock might simply become a flavour, in the same way that a movie uses a jazz solo to act classy.
One band on which are hopes is Wavy Trees whose newest single, Nobody Cares, seems plucked right out of an imaginary comedy being written in the collective imagination of the band members. They’ve got the right hooks, the right clothes, some humour, and even an electric guitar that shoots out purple smoke. Perhaps there is hope still.
Futon Blonde – Lacerate
Better writing through chemistry! That’s what the psychedelic 60s promised artists. Many innocent, naive souls were swayed by this. However, looking in retrospect, the trajectory is a clear one. While early Beatles and Pink Floyd-influenced psychedelia were often fascinating, it lead into arena rock, then jam-band rock, and then psychedelic rock rehearsals with barely audible lyrics. Chemistry failed us.
Then, in the early 1990s, just as modern-day Slade incarnation, Oasis, was taking lad rock back to the top, an anxious, yet a focused variety of rock appeared. The sound that the likes of Radiohead, Supergrass, and Mansun made was also mired in chemicals. Just not the fun ones.
It’s left a mark. This can be observed on Futon Blonde’s Lacerate, an intelligent, offbeat single that seems to capture the sound of city streets as they get ready to burst open. The art memes turned the music video are also a nice, artsy touch. Lads may have had their fun, but the kids that made it to college are enjoying themselves in their way as well.
