Life Sux
Wavves’ 2011 *Life Sux* EP finds Nathan Williams exercising more creative freedom than before. “Bug” opens championing the seminal Dinosaur Jr. album of the same name, featuring erratic guitar fuzz and misanthropic lyrics. But from inside the cracks of his hero worship, Williams sprouts catchy melodies that resonate with his own tone. Conversely, his lyrics simmer under the driving guitar pop of “I Wanna Meet Dave Grohl.” Here he heavily blurs the lines between homage and mockery in much the same way that Stephen Malkmus sang about R.E.M. in Pavement’s “The Unseen Power of the Picket Fence.” Best Coast\'s Bethany Cosentino sings along with Williams on “Nodding Off,” which plays with near-perfect symbiosis. On one hand, it sounds like Best Coast just got tougher and endearingly rougher around the edges. On the other hand, it can be said that she gives Wavves a welcome, more overt poppiness.
Nathan Williams treats his Ghost Ramp label's inaugural release, an EP featuring guest spots from Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino and Fucked Up's Damian Abraham, like a 24-year old's first apartment: Maybe you'd only want to spend 15 minutes in this ramshackle mess, but hey, he's enjoying his freedom.
Looking back at Wavves' career, I can't help but feel a little sorry for Nathan Williams. There's a long list of reasons to hate Wavves beginning with Williams' well-documented petulance, which may have contributed to Wavves' revolving door of bandmates—which definitely contributed to a period of inconsistency and false-starts between 2009's Wavvves and 2010's King of the Beach . And that's to say nothing of that famous meltdown at Barcelona's Primavera Sound Festival in 2009, when then-drummer Ryan Ulsh (now of Virginia's excellent Super Vacations) dumped a well-...