Wand – Plum [Deluxe Edition] (2017)  


Review:
Los Angelino psychedelicists Wand released their first three records in just 13 months, but have taken almost double that time to produce album number four. However, what initially appears to be an uncharacteristic delay reveals itself as a satisfying emergence of patience and maturity, and an enjoyable move toward rather classic songwriting and album construction. Accordingly, where the band’s last album, ‘1,000 Days’, bounded straight into barrelling riffage and only let up half an hour later, ‘Plum’ opens with a neatly palate-cleansing drone, and also inserts both a mid-way interlude and a gently contemplative miniature before allowing the final pair of tracks, which take up more than a third of the LP, to spiral into the sunset. This sort of architecture not only makes ‘Plum’ pleasingly digestible, but also renders the intervening three sections more substantial, allowing the band’s improved songwriting to stand out: in particular, the counterpoint of the Beatlesy title track becomes a gorgeous surprise, there are welcome energy boosts found in the intensity of both ‘Bee Karma’ and ‘White Cat’, and the sighing melancholia of ‘The Trap’ and ‘Driving’ is as wistful as it is warm. It all makes for an achievement that feels worth the wait: it may have had a long gestation by their standards, but in ‘Plum’ Wand have made their first true great. — by Sam Walton at loudandquiet




Track List:

CD 1:
01 - Setting
02 - Plum
03 - Bee Karma
04 - Charles de Gaulle
05 - High Rise
06 - White Cat
07 - The Trap
08 - Ginger
09 - Blue Cloud
10 - Driving

CD 2:
01 - Untitled
02 - Blue Cloud (Live)
03 - Untitled
04 - Untitled
05 - Untitled


Media Report:
Genre: indie-rock
Country: Los Angeles, California, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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