Polaroids Of Androids

Record Reviews

Grunge is back and Nathan Williams is responsible. Better known as one-man-band Wavves, Williams is a DIY punk-out-of-hell hailing from the sunny skate parks of San Diego. What separates him from the thousand and one other one-man-bands is that he has recorded what some are calling (read: me) "the most important album of the past 150 years".

To put it bluntly, Williams' self-titled (to an extent, there's an extra "V") second full-length record, Wavvves, should have been made and released in 1992 BUT at that time the music industry was still living off the back of the suit-wearing coked-up 80s and didn't have time for undercooked masterpieces like this.

It's really no surprise that lo-fi music is becoming more and more popular in a time where it's becoming increasingly easier for people to create studio-like home recordings, but Wavvves is 110% better than most bedroom masterpieces dreamt up even by the most creative musical minds. It's cut off jean shorts, undercuts and roaming the suburbs for an empty pool with a single kit skateboard under the arm. It's early 90s. Flashbacks without the irony or tribute-like re-invention. It is, quite simply put: life.

The tracks on Wavvves warmly fizzle in-and-out of one another the way a crackly third generation cassette you taped off your older cousin does. Williams has created ballistic yet cheery soundscapes that possess the same washed-out quality as a shoebox full of sun-drenched polaroids taken of strangers having a blast at the best suburban backyard party. Ever.

Throughout the record, horrifyingly lo-fi electronic interludes break up the orgasmic blasts of grunge. These intervals mimic the sensation of being on the nastiest glue-trip in your parents basement at 3am while an 8-bit video game's title screen endlessly loops you to sleep. Slacker anthems like So Bored, No Hope Kids and Weed Demon if given the right amount grunge-breathing space could one day be up there with Smells Like Teen Spirit in the rebellious skate bowl of fame.

To put it short: Wavvves is as cool as stashing porno mags from your mum and actually being able to pull off the extreme virtual ollies Tony Hawk's Skateboarding 2 lead you to believe you could.