A CHEEKY, UNOFFICIAL UNNECESSARY REVIEW OF A 14-YEAR-OLD ALBUM

a cheeky, unofficial, & unnecessary review of a 14-year-old album

kat lo faro

Formed in 2003, the noughties indie rockpop band e Wombats perfectly captures the teen angst and universal insecurities we experience as we grow up. e musical marsupials consist of Matthew “Murph’’ Murphy (guitar, vocals), Dan Haggis (percussion), and Tord Øverland Knudsen (of whose name I was planning to include a phonetic spelling, but a er watching several Norwegian lesson videos on YouTube I decided I’d embarrass myself less by simply admitting I’m still unclear as to that damned Ø’s pronunciation) on bass guitar. Feelings of depression, anxiety, and heartache are combined with major keys and relentlessly lively drums.

Combining usually-upbeat melodies and assertive drum beats with lyrics reminiscent of the reasons behind the angry tears we cried on our twin mattresses in the ninth grade, their “euphoric tales of romantic misadventures,” - in the words of the almighty Spotify - capture the best and worst parts of adolescence.

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Murph’s heavy Liverpool accent violates professional, neutralized syllable pronunciation standards, creating a sense of genuineness (genuinity? I don’t know if either of those are words, but y’all get the point. I’m not an English major). Loud bass lines, simple guitar, and the unmistakably Wombatian asthma attack-inducing drums are what you can expect from the band’s early work. e Wombats’ whole discography, when followed chronologically, takes the listener through those god-awful years between the ages of ten and, well, whenever those cherry Kool-Aid-stained upper lip feelings of immaturity are supposed to end (or at least evolve into nely aged Merlot-stained upper lip feelings of insecurity). And a er listening through their latest album, 2018’s Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, it seems as e Wombats may well be in their late 30s feeling matured yet similar uncertainties. And here I thought I’d blossom into a socially adept woman by the time I was 25. Guess I better rethink that. But I digress…

A er releasing an exclusive preview EP in Japan, their rst album was released in the US and UK in

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2007. Entitled e Wombats Proudly Present A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, the album perfectly encapsulates the awkwardness of our young years, as well as the nostalgia for the laughable innocence they carried. I related to their music in middle school, and I relate to it in college. I’d be curious to see if anyone else feels the same way, or if I’m simply emotionally stunted. We’ll just wait and see on that one.

Love, Loss, & Desperation, the aural version of a wide-ruled notebook scribbled with your crushes’ name and that weird S thing we all somehow knew how to draw, verbalizes those feelings of insecurity, restlessness, hopeless romanticism, and general inability to understand (let alone talk to) girls. e track “School Uniforms” is an ebullient, semi-slappingbass-heavy lament about trying to impress a crush, but feeling woefully inadequate. Murph bemoans the ill- tting school uniforms, his lack of a Walkman, and his terrible middle-part haircut, blaming these on not being able to get the girl. What’s worse, the girl gets a boyfriend who smokes Marlboro Reds and has a beard. How can he compete with that? (How can he?) e Wombats’ exploration of self-consciousness

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in relationships doesn’t end at schoolyard crushes, though. “Lost in the Post” presents the insecurities surrounding the deep and emotional part of relationships. “I should have known you didn’t have the time, my dear / To let this twenty-something bring you down with his list of fears” it opens, lling the listener’s mind with ashbacks of every intense conversation with every partner they’ve ever had.

Or maybe that’s just me again. Regardless, the vulnerability of opening up to a partner is the most stressful part of a relationship. And yet we all have to do it at some point. None of us want to tell someone we love about our childhood trauma, our daddy issues, or our fear of being alone. What if they don’t understand? What if they think we’re broken? What if they leave? e Wombats soothe these deep emotions with a cheerful keyboard ri , a sharp rhythm guitar, and perpetually loud, simple snare drum and crash cymbal percussion.

“Moving to New York” summarizes the feeling of needing to get out from wherever you are, of your house, of your hometown, of being trapped within a confusing adolescence, wanting nothing more than

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to be 10 years older where things make sense (even though I think every person on this campus can agree that things make in nitely less sense 10 years later). e chorus - “So I’m moving to New York / ‘Cause I’ve got problems with my sleep” and second verse - “I put one foot forward and ended up 30 yards back / Am I losing touch or am I just completely o the track?” embody the struggle of not tting in and looking for a quick x. And then realizing the quick x doesn’t exist. Take me, for example: A er sucking allaround from grades 6 through 12, I thought moving to England would x all my problems. Unfortunately, yet predictably, I’m still sucking. Maybe New York will be di erent? I can only hope. Lord knows I’m not going to do any introspection to solve my problems. Do I look like some kind of hippie?

Well, as a self-identi ed hopeless romantic - cute dudes hit my line - infatuation with an unreachable and likely inappropriate person is not unknown to me. It appears Murph is the same. Tracks like “Patricia the Stripper” and “Dr. Suzanne Mattox PHD” illustrate the yearning for love and sex with a learned, older woman. Dressing up in a suit hoping Patricia will notice him, Murph sings about how “alcohol

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mixed with an empty feeling inside” leads him to fall in what he calls love, or what an outsider might see instead as infatuation or lust. His “coked-up, Botox girl” is too hard to reach, and he watches her go home with other men at the end of the night. His vocalization towards the end of the track is akin to moaning about in pain and frustration. Similar is Dr. Suzanne (but pronounced Susan, which has bothered me since I discovered the song). Murph excitedly tells us she’s his GP (or primary care provider for all you Yankees) and that she even has a PhD. Lines such as “I think she likes me / Well, she’s always smiling” portray the naïveté we had (or maybe still have) when looking for signs that we have a chance at love. But unfortunately Murph’s relationship with Dr. Suzanne stays strictly professional. RIP. ough these tunes seem to end only in blue balls, feelings of inadequacy, or a deeply discouraging, depressing failure to capture her heart, there is some strange form of hope within Love, Loss, & Desperation. “Let’s Dance to Joy Division” is inarguably the best song on the album and possibly of their whole discography, and if you disagree, I’ll happily meet you in the alley behind the Denny’s on Hillside. One of

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my absolute favorite tunes, it epitomizes our foolish decisions to ignore our deepest emotional turmoils in favor of, well, doing anything else. As any emo/goth/ other genre of depressed middle schooler knows, Joy Division is notorious for their rather bleak subject matter. ey’re not exactly dancing material. But that’s where the beauty is. It’s a lesson in nding some good in a whole cesspool of Bad.™ Dan Haggis’ breathless 120 BPM snare and high-hat rhythm accompanies a catchy matching guitar and bass ri . “Let’s dance to joy division / And celebrate the irony / Everything is going wrong / But we’re so happy / Let’s dance to joy division / And raise our glass to the ceiling / ‘Cause this could all go so wrong / But we’re so happy,” is rather obvious in its meaning - which is simply, fuck it. Nothing is going my way, but I’m going to dance about it. I’m going to celebrate what I know I’ve got whilst I’ve still got it.

Of course the theme of childhood is not lost on this track, either; the children of Llangattock Primary School (I’m not even going to try with that one) are featured vocalists during the bridge, con rming those ever-present feelings of immaturity, and assisting in the album coming full circle. e irony of

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“Let’s Dance to Joy Division” is what ties Love, Loss, and Desperation all together. e broken hearts, the un attering uniforms, the failed romances and sexual rendezvous with women out of your league, and the self-consciousness and undue embarrassment from merely existing as a youth. ey all lead up to a lesson that I think most of us are still learning today: Bad things in life don’t make a bad life. We can still move to New York (and some of us did!). We can still dance to Joy Division. We can still maintain that naïve outlook, allowing ourselves some semblance of innocence in having hope for everything around us. A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation shows us that we can feel pain and still enjoy life.

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