wavves

Ever get obsessed with an album? As in, you're into it so much that you listen to it compulsively, over and over again, until you're sick of it and it's out of your system, or you've at least gotten to the point where you're not so compulsive about it?

So, I heard about this band Wavves a while back. A San Diego surf/skate punk type of outfit, which is ordinarily not my kind of thing, but there were some other interesting details which made me decide to check them out. Literally. I borrowed their self-titled CD (actually their second release) from the public library here. And listened to it over and over again. Then bought a copy. And I still *cannot* stop listening to it, at random times when I know I should be listening to something else in order to expand the repertoire of musical artists I'm cognizant of.

Why? I don't know if I can explain, exactly. I'm not really a music critic, even if I put together Top 50 lists like one. It's not for the lyrics, which revolve around your typical California subjects like surfing, beaches, skateboarding, love, etc. It's not for the song titles: over half of the 14 songs have either "Goth" or "Demon" in the title (Goth Girls, Beach Goth, Weed Demon, etc). And I swear, most of the songs have some guy who sounds like someone's mentally-challenged cousin singing backing vocals in this doo wop-pseudo-Beach Boys type of manner. But ... overall it's this completely unabashed, take-it-or-leave-it, straight-ahead kind of driving punk pop, and it's just done brilliantly. The third song, "To the Dregs," is one of the catchiest songs you could ever hope to hear, and there's a couple other great ones later on. In between ... well, there's one song near the end that's just dissonant noise and wordless jabbering. But all the sudden, it segues into this Native American drum beat and lyrics about going to a chapel etc etc. And it works! It all works. You just have to listen to it, repeatedly.

Got no car
Got no money
I got nothin' nothin' nothin' not at all ...