Album review: Wavves – Hideaway

On Hideaway, Wavves deliver more of what we’ve come to expect from them over the course of their 13-year career – seductive tunes replete with surf guitars and buoyant melodies – though this time they’ve done so with the help of a sonic wizard in the engineer room.

A decade or so back, when Jane’s Addiction were in a creative funk and in need of acquaintance with their mojo, Dave Sitek, multi-instrumentalist with New York’s TV On The Radio, was brought in (though not as producer) to encourage the alt.rock legends to get weird, with excellent results (2011’s The Great Escape Artist). Dave’s influence is less drastic here, and more in-keeping with the style of the band at hand, but there are still some interestingly wonky moments (the chord-bending title-track among them).

Closing track Caviar, meanwhile, is the album’s most out there moment, with an intro that sounds like The Beach Boys backed by Bootsy Collins, before a horn section joins the party later on. It’s an interesting slither of what everyone could have achieved if they’d let their hair down a little more. Band and producer reportedly bonded over a love of Johnny Cash and honky tonk records, though, which makes perfect sense when you listen to The Blame, as it could ably soundtrack the heartiest of hoedowns.

Hideaway could perhaps have done with a few more leftfield moments, then, because while it’s breezy and over before you know it, that’s largely because the majority of it is in one sedate speed setting. It’s worth considering that this is Wavves’ seventh album, and the San Diego quartet have built their name and formidable reputation on this kind of thing, so tinkering with the formula may not be the best course of action. Capturing it so beautifully, however, has worked out just fine.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Best Coast, Weezer, The Menzingers

Hideaway is out now via Fat Possum.

READ THIS: The 10 best Weezer videos – ranked