John Vs. “King Of The Beach” by Wavves

Listening to the new Wavves leaves me feeling like I’ve failed. Like, there was more I could’ve done to stop this. The brother is from San Diego, and he’s representing both poorly and really well. Wavves Guy is a self-centered amateur who likes to grandstand in odd ways, like the girl in her bra and jeans during a pool party. The attitude he has is really really San Diego.

The first thing to understand about King of the Beach is that if the thing you liked about Wavves (if anything) was the lo-fi-ness, well fuck you friend. Even though that sound made Surf Rock In The Oughts work due to how washed out and harsh it sounded in the face of the world, Wavves Guy got the band Jay Reatard left behind to invalidate everything his old sound implied. If there was ever a time that blurry, painful surf rock could have worked, it was 2010. But no. The “clean” album, instead.

FIRST TANGENT OF THE NEW BLOG: I can’t help but feel that all of this surf rock and “chillwave” and whatever bullshit about how cool the ocean is coming at a shitty time. The gulf coast is right there, and you’re making an album about how awesome it is to have fun seaside? Come now.

There’s a few traces of the fuzzy peak festival he left behind on this new album in his vocals, but that doesn’t really cut it when four tracks in some 60s pop drums start up as he whines about whatever When You Will Come is about. I’m sorry that I’m not feeling him growing as an artist, because where he’s growing is in a place where he doesn’t excel: songwriting.

I was entranced by the first two albums because it seemed that what he was hitting on was almost accidental. Some vein of a rare mineral stripmined, and it could be that it emptied out. It’s what made his approach to pop structure interesting, and it’s the thing that gave him a voice, and it’s a shitty thing to run out of in that case. Clean Deliberate Wavves. I’m struggling to think of something less appealing.

Maybe some people are just satisfied that he’s finished being caustic.

WINNER: JOHN

WHY: Everything he liked about Wavves is in a trash can somewhere, and he wasn’t done seeing how deep those ideas went.