The Wailin’ Smithers are an indie rock boy band from Bloomington, Indiana, who make fuzzy indie rock with surfy/slacker undertones. Think plenty of hooks and sunny good-time vibes, part Beach Boys, part Jake Rollins, part Free Energy (or, as the band describe themselves, “as if Teenage Fanclub went to the beach and learned surf rock”). The album is the band’s debut and the result of four years of hard work, good times and chaotic shows in other people’s houses and basements. Perhaps this is why the album sounds so triumphant: it is the culmination of something, the product of a period rich with happy and hazy memories.
The album is packed with smash hits from an alternate dimension, an easygoing universe in which everybody gets along just fine and the highest form of being is hanging out with your best buds. ‘Over and Over’ is all surfy lo-fi rock, while ‘Drive Me Crazy’ is a catchy pop song, complete with some killer electric guitar work. ‘Feels Good To Never Sleep’ captures the band’s ethos very nicely, a leisurely ode to enjoying yourself, complete with a roll-down-the-windows vibe perfect for the approaching summer.
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Pretty much every song on the album falls into this feel-good rock-out category. Take for instance ‘Malevolo’, which teams rumbling lo-fi with wailing electric guitars and carefree “oohs”, or ‘Morals and Values’ which alternates between half-paced, lounging verses with a thumping chorus. ‘Hale-Pop’ is one of my favourites, sounding like a stroll along the beachfront at the height of summer with a warm foamy six-pack and your best amigos. ‘Vietnam Donkey Kong’ is all punchy pop rock, before ‘The Skin I Live In’ offers some freaky darkness to proceedings, “You hurt yourself again, you cut your pretty skin, and now I’ll have to start it over”. Penultimate track ‘My Thrill’ is slower and slinkier than most, snaking around in a summertime saunter, before the final track, ‘Ocean Song’, really puts the surf into surf rock, with background ambient noise of crashing waves and a too-cool-for-school fusion of lo-fi rock instrumentation and pop melodies.
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What I like most about this album isn’t one tangible thing, but the overall feeling that it exudes. This isn’t a group of guys trying to get noticed by some slimy record exec, or get plastered all over commercial radio and make a million dollars (although I guess that would be kind of cool). It’s just some friends having a lot of fun making the kind of music they want to hear. And the best thing of all is that you can tell that they’re having a blast. Who cares about making $$$s when you can have a pretty great time regardless?
You can get The Wailin’ Smithers on CD or as a download from The Wailin’ Smithers’ bandcamp page.