Feel all those feelings / But don’t make that call
I am a notoriously messy person. I moved into my apartment in March of this year and there’s yet to be a day when the floor isn’t covered—littered—with clothes. But I adore the messiness, it works in it’s own orchestrated layering, all the props of my life laid out in positions that no one else will ever see them in. This is the best scene I can offer to relate how listening to Wet’s initial EP feels. Not to be all “love is hard, love is a messy room” but love is certainly not the no-strings-attached luxury hotel suite that most pop songs paint it to be and this band manages to capture that. Although the EP was put out by Neon Gold Records about a month ago, I caught two of their live performances this past month and I couldn’t let this mesmerizing mini-album fade into the ether without gushing over the Brooklyn band’s first release.
There’s recognizable elements, but they’re rearranged and chopped up in a way that has inspired a number of mashup phrase descriptors from the group’s proponents. There’s the skittering drums of an electronic act like Purity Ring, but realized with a human touch courtesy of drummer Joe Valle. There’s the same dreamy, otherworldly vocals, provided by frontwoman Kelly Zutrau, who, despite her pearly voice channels a distinct grunge-glam aura aesthetically that’s almost as pleasing as the music. Zutrau’s vocals are often layered in the that special electronic-breathy way—that feels like Imogen Heap officially invented, but have been used much better by others since her—and the harmonies that Wet constructs feel equal parts lacquered and child-like. This might be the ultimate appeal of the band, they’re a fully-realized musical act of 2013 that have yet to become snapped up into the endless cyclings and machinations that this year seems to have brought on to the fullest degree. All of their touchstones feel current but they themselves feel new, not like something rehashed or constructed to please. There’s an honesty to their music—a lot of which stems from the wide-eyed, poignant lyrics—that is missing in nearly every other act I’ve listened to this year.
The sticky, molasses draw of Wet’s debut EP is that these songs are about love as it actually occurs in real time. The characters in these tracks see past (unlike the myopia of most pop) and present pictures of relationships that are full of both frustration and fascination–that feel limitlessly flawed and also endlessly present. Take “Don’t Wanna Be Your Girl” for instance. It’s a truthful take on gut-wrenching loss and eye-sparkling adoration, even while the title and most of the lyrics suggest a clean break, there’s still lines like “I just want to see your face at home” that directly conflict with “I just want to see you up and out / out of the door.” By presenting these two dichotomous lines the song sums up the doublemindedness that break-ups breed with uncanny precision. “No Lie” walks through the dreariness of watching the object of your affection lose interest in you. It’s the flipside to “Don’t Wanna Be Your Girl,” examining the wound of being left with only an immense sense of loss and empty promises. But this song doubles in power by assuming the role of the rejected and actually delving into not just the loss, but the feeling of being left, of having love and not being able to keep it. Converging that kind of intensity with the slow-drift R&B that Wet has perfected makes for a song that is able to mimic its lyrical content in the actual song. Which is the point of the entire genre of R&B, at all, ever, right?
Without a doubt though, “You’re The Best” is the best song on the four track EP. It’s the most upbeat and at least masquerades as a happy love song and it has the best vocal effects on huge swaths of harmonies. It was initially styled as “U Da Best” which felt more like Wet’s personality (look at their website to see a lady made of keyboard strokes scroll/dance behind their Soundcloud player to see more) but I can understand wanting to use proper grammar and spelling (I guess). The reason this song is the actual, actual best though is once again the fact that it’s based in reality. Even though it’s a super sweet song about being super in love and thinking that your emotions and the power of love can combat the rest of the bad stuff, it still acknowledges the rest of the bad stuff. Like being in someone’s arms and loving them but not being 100% sure if they’re the end all be all of all relationships you’ve ever been in and sometimes feeling lonely still even though there’s a great, reliable and handsome person who loves you. Or the part about “when we’re sleeping / our friends they creep in / and all the rest” that skillfully sums up just how much friendships and relationships with people outside your couple-y love bubble can sometimes just fuck up the dynamics of your love situation. It’s a head-over-heels love song that also discusses specific problems and hiccups that occur even amidst all the heart-eye-emoji feelings, and eventually decides “baby you’re the best / we’ll figure out the rest.” Or wait, does it? I love hearing it that way but then sometimes the line “I think we better quit while we’re ahead” feels so ominous and makes me rethink my whole interpretation of the track. That’s because it’s good and good things are the best at being slippery, undefinable and amorphous.
I’ll end this review by talking about the first song on the EP which is simply called “Dreams.” Ostensibly, this song is about dreams, but it’s more about how much more possible your dreams seem when someone else believes in them as much as you. It’s a song dedicated to wanting to hear about someone else’s dreams and trying to help make them come true. Even with subject matter this heart-warming, the wavering, rainbow guitar lines on this song—provided by the trio’s third member Martin Sulkow—distract me from the actual lyrics almost every time. It feels the most psychedelic and noodly of any of their recorded songs, but then again, at their live show at Mercury Lounge they played a new song that seemed to be inching into more of a drone-space that had me really excited. If this band is pop, it’s pop in the sense that the songs feel universally appealing and they’re easy to listen to, but the musical complexity of them makes me recoil at the simplistic genre terminology of “pop.” This is what 2013 sounds like, this is what being in love and struggling through loss and selfishness and rejection sounds like. It’s what feeling lonely and happy and jealous sounds like. It’s the human experience filtered through a mesh of synthesizers and beats and incredible lyrics. And, if we’re lucky, this is what 2014 will sound like too.
Listen to “Don’t Wanna Be Your Girl”, here via Bandcamp:
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