Review Summary: like a dreamier third eye blind with some code orange and hints of duster
Hey, music critics… I feel like we need to take a breather from time to time. It's okay to like music because it sounds good: it's okay not to force meaning onto every note or syllable. I'm not saying that Wishy's music isn't
meaningful or that they don't wear their influences on their longsleeves, but I don't think that Pitchfork name dropping just about every dreamy-ish band (including Turnstile?) is all that productive. Neither is NME referencing Wild Pink, Archers of Loaf and Tigers Jaw in the space of two sentences right after identifying a “Gen-X coded cool”. Spotify deems the band “zoomergaze”. Fun?
I don't know, I don't mean to say that drawing comparisons is a bad thing, especially when covering a genre as embedded in its period
s as drem, but I do believe that we can just sit back and appreciate
Triple Seven for what it is rather than what it reminds us of. It's a lovely amalgamation of gaze-isms, ranging from the punchy and heavy to the ponderous and ethereal - with the band constantly and convincingly switching between these two modes. “Love On The Outside” is a summer banger for the ages (gen x and gen z and gen alpha and and and); “Just Like Sunday” somehow dabbles in maximalism while retaining its intimate atmosphere; “Spit” embodies the album's dynamic ripper-capital-r. Nothing is particularly original as all the delightfully crunchy textures have been explored before, but Wishy plays and hooks with such conviction that it's hard not to be immersed in the experience.
Moreover, the way in which
Triple Seven navigates and marries its sounds feels rather refreshing. The record is cohesive while exploring a new sonic corner with every song: somehow, it makes perfect sense to feel summery-happy one moment and wintery-gloomy the next. There's no real dips on
Triple Seven as even the slightly less engaging moments (“Busted”) enhance the excellence of surrounding highlights and sound perfectly fine in their own right. Wishy are a good band, they make good music, and they should keep doing that. Super cool professional music critic out.
