Wild Nothing – Hold

My favorite release of his since Nocturne, and by a pretty decent margin. Cool crop of Youtube videos released in conjunction with it as well— I found the in-studio song breakdowns especially interesting

Each arrival of a Wild Nothing album brings a warm feeling to my ears. And to my stereo. Indigo, their last album, was such a great album. You could say Wild Nothing tried their hand at a little more dancey version of their sublime dream pop indie rock business here at times. At least by presenting those upbeat ones as the singles for the album by doing videos to them. Expanding the stretches of their current discography, whatever they do you can expect some smiles as you listen to a band who just enjoys a great musical aura. They just know what works. Songs are concise and catchy as always. Sounds are in a constant crescendo, uplifting, meaningful and memorable. The album sounds great. An almost 3D depth to the mastering makes this album a treat for playing loud. It really brings out the most in your speakers. 'Headlights On' is certainly a stand out and a powerful way to start the album. The struggles of today's relationships are usually the topic in Wild Nothing songs. Whimsicle, tongue in cheek and always clever. And always catchy. 'Basement El Dorado' follows that song well in a similar sound. For me, there is 2 styles that my favorite Wild Nothing tracks fit into. Their more melodic downtempo pieces like 'The Bodybuilder', 'Presedio' and the amazing 'Prima', are perfect examples of. Then you have the quintesential Wild Nothing sound like 'Dial Tone' and 'Suburban Solutions' show. Each full length album seems to have a great balance of tried and true and just expanding a bit into other realms to show the growth of the band while balancing what they know works. And that gives each album a familiarity and a nice new extension of their discography. "Pulling Down The Moon (Before You)" is an exciting direction that I hope is explored on future albums. This album is not quite as good as Gemini for me but close. Certainly not better then Nocturne or Indigo which to me, are their standouts. I am just happy to hear new Wild Nothing material. 5 years is much too long to wait for an album from these guys.
Overall Score: 81/100

My first copy clicked at the color separation. Captured track sent me a new one and it plays beautifully. Very slight warp.

Anybody else find the last track on side one just unlistenable? It's almost as if the runout groove had been partially pressed into that track.