With all of these bands that I love releasing albums practically back to back recently, the fact that Wallows dropped their third full length album, Model, last week with basically no promotion came as quite a surprise to me. A pleasant one, but still. Even though I follow them on social media, I must not be in the know enough for eavesdropping advertising or just straight up fan posts to fall through the cracks and into my feeds.
Just like the rest of Wallows’ music, I liked this album a lot. It had a lot of strong tracks throughout and the rest were pleasant enough to listen to. With that being said, while listening to this album, even though I liked it a good deal and have seen these guys perform live a couple of times, I just had a hard time picturing that any of these songs were going to sound good live. They were totally good the two times I’ve seen them, but this batch of songs came off a little bit softer in pitch to what they’ve released in the past and I just don’t think Dylan or Breaden have the ability to perform them in tune live. I hope I’m proven wrong, but this is what my gut is telling me.
A lot of the songs off of this record really reminded me of some older Bad Suns’ work and that was really neat! And that also means I really liked songs like “Calling After Me” and “You (Show Me Where My Dreams Went).” Both had a be-bopping quality to them, where the latter also had some really slick guitar riffs. They manage to create a similar quality of sound in songs like “Bad Dream” and “I Wouldn’t Mind,” though the former had me thinking of The Beach Boys instantly. Dylan’s vocals are always such a pleasant surprise to me, and the song also featured some really cool drum distortions.
Actually, a lot of the album featured some neat distortions in one way or another. “Canada” was full of quirky intro sounds that lent themselves to a bit of an 80s vibe, where “Your Apartment” tried out some interesting vocal filters. I liked that the vocal filters added some variety to Dylan’s typical monotone and mostly one-note delivery. He did go a bit soft and high, almost making his voice sound small on “A Warning.” This song also featured both him and Braeden singing, and I love when that happens. It’s more rare than you’d think! “Going Under” and “Don’t You Think It’s Strange” also stood out to me, but for much more generic reasons – they were fun to listen to!
All in all, this was a strong third effort from the band and I think they’ve more than proven their staying power. To me, anyway. Even though it seems like they just got done touring a bunch over the last few years, I hope they do make it out on the road again near me. Who knows, maybe I’ll catch them at a future festival, too!