Wavves - King Of The Beach

Wavves “King Of The Beach” is the third LP from the California based band. Wavves are yet another example of the growing fashion for noisepop bands to burst into the music scene and tickle my fancy button extremely well. These are the second noisepop band I’ve reviewed already (the first being Sleigh Bells, of course).

Forward the opinion!



First of all, the opening track, King of the Beach, is an extremely catchy and immense tune that I think should be rocking the 2010 soundtrack. The way it starts with an intense pounding towards your mind and then streams out this fantastic guitar scream that can easily become a breakthrough song for Wavves. Why they did not choose this song to be their lead single (ultimately choosing Post Acid for that spot) is simply boggling to my brain.

What I also liked about this album is how it starts off paving it’s pounding, fast tempo, in-your-face rock and roll immediately. This is something that I think is lacking with many of 2010’s albums, I like being forced into enjoying the sound rather than having to listen to limited sounds and analsying it and then coming up with a name for it. However, this fast tempo, pumped up sound does begin to decrease and is sometimes diminished in some songs as the album progresses towards its end.

I think that this adrenaline rush could’ve been saved should the track listing had changed slightly in one specific area, that is When Will You Come? followed by the single Post Acid. I think that these two songs should’ve swapped positions because Post Acid, while being slower than the first three tracks of the album, is still a high tempo song that would’ve fitted in more with the openers rather than When Will You Come? It would’ve kept that sense of anger and therefore would’ve made the album more fun and fantastic.

Another part of this album that I like is the vast use of variety used. The use of female vocals on When Will You Come? and the prominance of the bass on Linus Spacehead (everybody loves a bit of bass) it makes every song on the album quite important as each song has their own personality, which is good because it means they’re not just a clone of one track, just with varied powerchords.

However, I think one song in particular is a little too varied on this album, that song is…oddly enough, Convertible Balloon. It does not sound like any other song on King of the Beach, infact it doesn’t even sound like a regular Wavves song, it’s a lot more pop-rock themed than it’s collegues, it does lead me to say that it is probably the weakest song on King Of The Beach, sounding too much like something we’d find by Justin Bieber on helium or something.

Finally, ending on a good point, the sound that Wavves have directed towards is SO MUCH BETTER than their sound on their previous two LPs, I had first heard about them with their 2009 release, Wavvves, and the sound on that is completely different compared to King Of The Beach, nowadays, the sound is a lot cleaner and a lot more medically safe on the ears too.

Overall, I feel that if Wavves carry on making records using this new and improved sound, then they will be a band for the future, I think King Of The Beach is a record that really needs to be heard by everyone, just don’t put too much thought into listening to it, you should’ve gotten that impression by the cat smoking weed on the album cover.

I give Wavves - King Of The Beach a solid 8/10, bordering on a 9. This album is such an improvement from 2009’s “Wavvves” in terms of sound and production, this is definately an album essential for everybody to buy.