Freak Wave "Don't Let Me Down" LP

A tsunami of head-nodding scuzzy rock, Freak Wave’s debut long-player, 'Don’t Let Me Down', blends myriad influences and decades of musicianship into one hell of a racket. Recorded in the familiar surrounds of the Reverence Hotel and mixed by their good friend Michael ‘Fitzy’ Fitzgerald (The Smith Street Band) ‘Don’t Let Me Down' follows on from the band’s 2013 ’Self Titled’ 12” / EP which saw Freak Wave score a swag of recent supports slots alongside the likes of Sebadoh, Lemuria and Cheap Girls.

From the opening swells and crunches of the fuzzed-out guitars on ‘The Sleepers Must Awaken’ to the stoner vibes of closer ‘Tremhello’, the entire record is a collage of coloured-in melodies. The noises of 90's influenced indie-rock and post-hardcore merge fluently throughout, in a way that only this experienced line-up of all-star punkers could achieve. If you isolate moments, Don’t Let Me Down can sound like Superchunk, Archers Of Loaf - even the likes of Guided By Voices. But whatever’s going on in any individual track, this is a sound that belongs to Freak Wave. Thematically, the record dances between armchair philosophy and dark personal anecdotes – the latter of which anchors these ethereal soundscapes to the real world as they unfold. There’s a beautiful melancholy here, and it lingers long after the record’s finished.

An unintentional antidote to over-stylised indie rock, these tracks roll around the mind like an ocean, leaving the listener deep in the sonic surf when it’s done. And, praise be to Freak Wave, the surf is good.