This post officially kicks off Guten Morgan 2010, and while Wetdog aren’t the best band I’ve ever heard in my life, they make for a pretty solid start to the decade. Basically, they’re a cheeky trio of Brits with a rumbling low end and a strident set of pipes up top. I imagine them dancing around their rooms at a younger age to Talulah Gosh and the Slits before getting drunk on Laser at some sidestreet punk-rock flat off the Cowley road. ‘Ello, Guvner!
Though it’s true that Mark Ronson loves them, despite their atrocious name, maybe I went too far with the cockney joke. If I wasn’t trying to provide you with an entertaining music column, I’d probably simply have said that the band reminds me of a Slumberland-era Sic Alps as covered by Love of Diagrams.
Like Sic Alps, Wetdog have a new release out on a major U.S. indie (Captured Tracks) that slightly tames their earlier, more distinctive sound. Also like Sic Alps, they seem to be playing a sort of angular, shitgaze motown these days, with traces in there of riot grrl and Mika Miko. As awesome as this sounds, I’m ambivalent towards them for the same reasons that I go back and forth on Love of Diagrams, an apparently-not-defunct band that I like(d) more for its attitude, aggressive coldness, and live show than for its memorable individual songs. I’m all for music built on a solid, rumbling drive and a no-wave aesthetic, but it’s a little jarring in a band with as many pop tendencies as Wetdog.
I’ve attached a bunch of mp3s below (actually m4a’s, which I suppose means something slightly different) so that you can form your own opinion. Happy 2010!
- Napolean’s PlanNapolean’s Plan
- Steal a CarSteal a Car
- Nancy RileyNancy Riley
- Stumpy TorsoStumpy Torso
- Long Long Time to GoLong Long Time to Go
- Lower LegLower Leg
p.s. No quibbling about the release date of Frauhaus! I know it came out in November in the UK and see some mentions that it came out earlier here as well, but Itunes and Emusic claim it was released last week digitally, so the hell with you all.