Wavves - King Of The Beach

Nathan Williams’ infamous meltdown at last year’s Primavera Festival - infamous, that is, if you follow the inner workings of the online music community - marked a watershed moment for this little world in which we operate. Arriving in Europe for the first time as the toast of the blogosphere, The Wavves frontman fell to pieces. He took too many drugs, fought with his drummer and essentially - as 22-year-olds faced with sudden success are apt to do - buckled under the pressure. What should have begun and ended as a miserable set - admittedly quite a fuck-up when you’re at Europe’s premiere indie music festival - suddenly became headline news thanks to a savage put-down from Pitchfork editor Ryan Schreiber. It was the first real occasion the influential site had so blatantly threatened to break someone they believed they had made. The unpleasant wielding of power led to some debate, but Williams? Well, he simply said sorry, went home and started work on a third album he’d take just over a year to deliver.

He could have hand-delivered a promo copy to Chicago with two fingers waving in the air too, because King Of The Beach is a mostly successful response to Pitchfork’s self-appointed kingmakers. Indeed ‘King Of The Beach’, ‘Super Soaker’ and ‘Idiot’ - a blistering opening trio of songs - take care of the naysayers nice and early. Still as scrappy and noisy as before, Williams nevertheless adds a bit more muscle this time around, namely by recruiting the services of the late Jay Reatard’s backing band. While these additions refine things ever so slightly, Williams remains as to-the-point as ever, defiantly singing “I’m not supposed to be a kid but I’m an idiot/ I’d say I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t mean shit” on standout “fuck you” track ‘Idiot’. When the album continues to stay close to the charmingly messy style of its predecessors - the confusingly titled Wavves and Wavvves - it’s a total winner, as ‘Post Acid’, ‘Take On The World’ and ‘Linus Spacehead’ go on to prove. However, when it veers into slightly less familiar territory, things start to unravel a little.

‘When Will You Come’ and ‘Baseball Cards’ are the main culprits, killing momentum stone dead four and seven tracks in respectively; attempting to instil a woozy, Wall Of Sound-like quality to proceedings, they end up just being a big turn-off. And although the initially slow-paced ‘Green Eyes’ shows just how affecting Williams’ vocals can be, ‘Mickey Mouse’ proves what a good No Age impression he can do, and ‘Baby Say Goodbye’ demonstrates his handy knack for closing on a high, the album never completely recovers from these two dud moments. Which is a shame, because King Of The Beach is not only excellent elsewhere but also offers ample evidence of progression. Above all, though, it proves Pitchfork couldn’t break Wavves because they didn’t make him in the first place. Plenty of Williams’ songs are well able to speak for themselves.