After a less than pleasant experience releasing their previous album, 2015's
V
, through
Warner Bros.
,
Wavves
mainman
Nathan Williams
decided to move the band over to his own
Ghost Ramp
label for 2017's
You're Welcome
and change some things about the recording process. On
, the band had all jammed together in the studio, resulting in their most live-sounding and brightly fun album. This time,
Williams
began working on his own in the studio, starting the songs off before bringing the rest of the band in one by one to record their parts. With the help of producer
Dennis Herring
(who had worked with
on
King of the Beach
), he built the songs from samples and weird sounds, giving each one a tangible hook, before adding each bandmember's (still
Alex Gates
Stephen Pope
, and
Brian Hill
) contribution. The end result is a deviation from the usual
sound, definitely more of a wonky bedroom pop meets knucklehead alt-rock feel than just a bunch of guys blasting through a batch of songs. As good as
was, it's fascinating to hear this new approach play out. After beginning with a couple of rockers with naggingly sharp slide guitar hooks, the album veers off in one oddball direction after another. It's still super-catchy and fun, like
at their best usually are, but it's warped in a very interesting way. The care
and
Herring
put into the sound of each song, the use of odd samples and sounds, the dynamic tension they make sure each song has -- it all adds up to something a little more impressive than a bunch of songs all played at maximum volume. Sure, there are a couple of knockout rockers, like "Dreams of Grandeur" and "Exercise," but even these have weird little production tricks and glitches that make them really stick. The songs that fully give themselves over to the samples are really fun. "Come to the Valley" is a loping pop song with what sounds like a sample of a vocal choir from the '50s; "I Love You" kicks off with a snippet of an old doo wop song, then segues into a reverb-drenched ballad that sounds like the most honest expression of emotion they've ever put on wax. A couple other highlights are the glittery, '80s-damaged "Million Enemies," where it sounds like
whipped out some of the sounds he used when producing
Timbuk 3
, and the
-penned "Animal," which sounds weird in context just by being straightforward indie rock.
could have kept cranking out fun and frothy albums like
with little effort; it's good that he decided to stretch his creative muscles a little on
. It's even better that he came up with a smart and compulsively listenable update on the
sound that kept all their rambunctious energy, but also added some fun tricks and treats. ~ Tim Sendra