Wavves - You’re Welcome

Pitchfork 60

Nathan Williams began making music in his early twenties. It was deft and reckless, all noise-pop, no seriousness. Wavves was an outlet for the San Diego guitarist to get melodies out of his head and let California punks let loose in the crowd. Several garage-pop veterans have figured out how to uphold youthfulness when leaving their 20s: hone your style into one that can’t be mimicked. On You’re Welcome, Williams is unwilling to part with his hooks or sharpen them, letting Wavves neither coin its sound nor push it forward. A title like You’re Welcome makes it clear Wavves believe that’s good enough to warrant fanfare. So the record sits there, limp, like a rain-soaked, half-torn blunt: satisfactory when there are no other options in sight, but an item of questionable pride to the one who unveils it.

As expected, Wavves sound best when revisiting their early tricks. “Hollowed Out” and “No Shade” follow their format to a T: descending backing vocals, drums like a metronome, and a chorus that doubles the volume of the verses bookending it. “Exercise” recaptures the spirit of King of the Beach where Williams goes from self-portrayed laggard to energy-strung hitmaker. These may be a missed opportunity to grow from rote learning, but Williams has never failed in writing catchy hooks. It just doesn’t justify settling for menial pop-punk everywhere else.

Had Wavves leaned into glossy production head-first, You’re Welcome could be a fulfilling listen, an LP of welcome change. These songs have the structure of tangled Sour Belts, full of brash noise and sugary choruses that the band half-heartedly cleans with studio tricks. Voice filters feel carefully contained. Guitar scratches sound safe. Even the spastic synth outro in “Dreams of Grandeur” presents itself in a tidy bow. Production that starts strong softens the punches it tries to land. By no means is it offensively bad—Wavves momentarily solve the problem with “No Shade,” a bite-sized number that polishes off fuzz pedals with flashy appeal—but it tends to undermine the energy of their past.

You’re Welcome fails to pick a side because Williams didn’t see the point, likely part of why he ditched Warner Bros. They traded racing summertime songs for cheapened guitar melodies, like the stringy plastic of “Daisy” and “You’re Welcome,” and snotty jokes like “Come to the Valley” playing for two minutes too long or “I Love You” existing at all. Darting through a tracklist works when capturing material that explodes at its core, something garage-pop tends to do naturally. Sauntering through a tracklist works when the material is lyric-heavy. You’re Welcome feels stale, dried of both new inspiration or improvisational allure. It’s why “Million Enemies” sounds like a cover of “My Sharona” on Oxycontin instead of an intentionally obnoxious hit. Williams wants attention and big responses, but the energy that granted him both early on is starting to slow. Now, he has become an artist who overlooks the very revisions that could have sanded down You’re Welcome’s faults.

Bands of a certain track record reap the comfortability of tenure, but their longevity is only impressive if they do something with their time. Effortless garage pop is what made Wavves a king of the beach years ago, and since then, they've moved in and out of lo-fi bedroom records to a roided-out major label sound to something that’s locked into a mode like early Devo left out in the sun for too long. But once a band gets older, failing to partner that initial indolence with innovation turns effortless songwriting into bitter apathy. It becomes a frontman front-flipping off a balcony onto fans half his age who just wanted music to skate to.