Wavves - King of the Beach (2010)

[Ed. Note: I was going to hold off on putting this up until I had enough album reviews for a whole album review post, but in light of my dear friends Pitchfork giving it their "coveted" Best New Music today and an 8.4 rating, I'm putting it up now.]

Wavves - King of the Beach (2010)



Every single time a new Wavves record comes out, I try it. I'm not sure why, I just keep feeling like I'm missing something. I inevitably listen and then I hate everything about what I'm hearing. King of the Beach is a vastly different album from previous Wavves works and shows a lot of musical growth on the part of frontman Nathan Williams. The intrinsic problem of course is that the band still isn't good. The essential difference between this album and the last Wavves album is that apparently at some point Williams got really into Animal Collective. His adaption of that influence into his already bad music doesn't make it much better. It's just different, not better. Occasionally he stumbles upon a good pop hook such as in the absolute highlight of his career to date, "Take On the Word," but generally it's just what the title would lead you to expect. It is the shitty soundtrack to your summer surfing experience. But if you don't surf or smoke weed or live on the beach or wear board shorts or say "brah" or you are not Matthew McConaughey, it's just bad punk flirting with pretentious spaced out intellectualism. (D)