With their first studio album since 2018, the excitement of new Wombats music joined by an enormous world tour has caused much anticipation in the indie scene as the music world moves towards normality.
Although the signature Wombats sound resonated throughout all the songs with strong drums, electric guitar and ambiguous metaphors echoing in the background- maybe the hype was a little too high.
There feels to be a new sound mixed in there moving more to more electric and EDM sounds throughout and a little further away from their edgy Liverpool origins but if you are looking for a song that could have been plucked from ‘Beautiful people will ruin your life’, ‘Poke the bear’ stands out.
But there is not much to compete with some of their previous hits. This is not to say there are not some good songs in there. The lead single ‘If you ever leave, I’m coming with you’, ‘Method to the madness’ and ‘Everything I love is going to die’ stand out as beautiful chaotic songs with choruses and bridges you can yell in your car just like their classics.
A lot of the songs fade into the background, blending together, which is a shame as this album had the potential to put them back on the map after their recent Tiktok high with Greek Tragedy pushing the track to turn gold in the US, 7 years after its initial release.
As someone who follows music trends on Tiktok and has seen how tiktok can create superstars, make forgotten songs over 10/20 years old trend and chart again it’s a little sad to see the potential impact this has had on upcoming music. With influxes of people’s obsession with coming of age films and being the main character complexes it feels as if The Wombats recent album leans into the fight to stay relevant in pop culture with more explicit songs and the theme of angst through many of the songs. Without their original scruffiness the heartfelt anger doesn’t quite hit the same.
Listening to several of their songs, short 15 second snippets of the music could easily be Tiktok trends in the future but this doesn’t seem deliberate with the band’s antisocial history.
It’s an album made for concerts and festivals with many of the songs translating better to a live audience than for a more personal listening experience. The flaw with an album like that is it loses its longevity as a piece of work but the initial momentum of upcoming gigs and festivals after a few years of nothing will serve them well.
The Wombats really needed something bigger than a sort of ‘made for live music’ album. Although some of their previous albums were seen as classic indie pop they had slightly dropped off the map in recent years bar their spike on Tiktok. This album, although resonating with lifelong fans, might struggle to pull in a new audience.
Featured image – Press
Film, Media and Journalism student who writes about things that catch her interest. Instagram @charlsutcliffe
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