poppedmusic

Always Tomorrow

Released October 26th 2014

Words: Sean Regan

Set the guitars to fuzz with Wild Smiles’ debut album Always Tomorrow, as the Winchester trio give us a mash up of grunge, garage and West coast pop. The band have decided to avoid the Brit sound and headed to the US for their main influences; Vocals from the West coast surf sound, guitars that wouldn’t be out of place in the 70’s New York punk scene and a few grungier chord progressions. It’s not a seamless blend and the album can sound a little disjointed, but at least there’s a bit of variety on offer.

Fool for You sets the tone of the album with some straight up punk rock and vocals heavy on the reverb, pretty catchy stuff. Things suddenly get turned on their head with Never Wanted This and it’s altogether more grungy song writing. This track sticks out from the rest of the songs on the album, so good on them for throwing a curve ball in so early on in the record.

You’d swear you were listening to the Ramones or an early Clash with Always Tomorrow and Hold On if it weren’t for the beach boys style vocals. Everyone’s the Same draws heavily from the Jesus and Mary Chain; you could have fun by throwing this on at hipster parties and watching their looks of confusion when they realise it isn’t Just Like Honey.

Best 4 Years gives us a simple ballad with haunting backing vocals and a guitar break that disintegrates into a very satisfying mess of delay and fuzz. At over 4 minutes it clocks in as the longest song on the album, but didn’t feel it and gives us a nice respite before the punk songs kick back in.

The Gun seems to have lifted its verse melody from Oasis’ Up in the sky, so maybe a few UK bands have snuck into their record collections, but the sounds still dead on USA all the way. By this stage the monosyllabic rhyming is getting a bit tiresome, this continues with the punk Figure it Out and then more East Coast punk with Girlfriend. Same thing again with See You Again before I’m gone finishes the album with one last slice of grunge.

Listening to the album all the way through feels like you’re being guitared to death a bit, so good thing it clocks in at a sensible thirty minutes to stop you going nuts. Song writing and lyrics are straightforward throughout, taking a back seat to the sound and vibe of the record, which is very much the approach of their predecessors.
Bands like The Vaccines and Japandroids have made headway with comparable sounds in the past few years, but it’s a crowded field with hordes of bands armed with Death by Audio guitar pedals all set to 11. Slightly more interesting compositions and a bit more time to gel the grungier influences into the sound should help them rise above this, but in the meantime there’s enough on here for us to spring clean our playlists with.

Watch the video for Fool For You here: