Review Summary: pop pop massive crunch
Scottish outfit the Ninth Wave are going out with a bang. While 2019's
Infancy attempted to maintain a cracking frosty exterior,
Heavy like a headache ups the pop aspect of their sound, and goes for broke like a pack of escaped dogs running from a lab with their tongues wagging. This energy was always there mind you, but now it's big, crunchy, glorious, and in the forefront.
The Ninth Wave are all about hearts on corsages on sleeves. The base (in the past) might have been new wave and post punk a la the Cure, the Human League and Depeche Mode, but this time they're drawing on inspirations like emo, glam, noise pop and maybe even the ebullience of early era Arcade Fire indie to create a bit of a technicolor jump-on-the-cafeteria-table spectacle. Generally, the songs in which vocalist Millie Kidd takes the lead seem to operate more in gothic-lite territory, such as percussive 'These Depopulate Hours', which is built on ominous drums and cascading piano lines. Kidd aches amid bursts of controlled distortion, until the song peters out in a ghostly piano outro, her voice pushed to the back of the room like a spectre of wistful regret. This gives way to vocalist Haydn Park-Patterson on 'The Morning Room', which employs pounding anthemic drums, trumpets and copper plate synth patches to build to a huge climax. This soaring elephant-balancing-on-a-ball finale highlights that while the album topics range from self-esteem issues to the death of a friend, there's actually an edge of optimism which was less present in their small back catalogue.
One of most outright pop tracks 'Everything will be fine' is an absolute banger, big bassy dynamics selling the track's unlikely match up scenario, and the world being upended by requited unrequited love. It's huge, it's fun, it's too much, but it works. If I'm being honest, my initial reaction to this record was a bit of an upturned nose, but the good-natured massiveness of it won me over. Kidd returns with the moody glam piano slow burner of 'What makes you a man', and it bursts open on the chorus like a burlesque dancer tossing a bowler hat with a brick in it.
'Piece and pound coins' is a sobering introduction to the second half, a tight clenched fist of piano line driving the song over a spare beat. Big washing machine synths surge in the song and drop out, with tiny mechanical sounds peppered in the conclusion of this meditation on loss. The album slows down from here on, allowing for more emotional space, and culminates in the beautiful, fragile ballad 'Song for leaving'.
One of the great grounding factors of the album is undisguised accents and the (relatively) low level of affectation which often plagues material that takes some cues from emo. There's quite a lot of stylistic terrain covered in the album and one can lose sight of how skillfully it's blended while still delivering all the bombast and energy. It's a shame that a band that has delivered two great, distinct records is calling time. I'm loving the highs and lows, the youthful passion, the craft, and the feeling that I'm standing in a descending rain of metallic confetti slips after emerging from a seedy bar.
