Wallows: “Your New Favorite Song”
I had long given up Wallows. Nothing Happens, their 2019 debut album, had some appealing singles (I do find it ironic that a band with so many forgettable songs has a good one called “Are You Bored Yet?” featuring Clairo), but their subsequent work grew too pale for my liking. Interestingly enough, “Your New Favorite Song” lands itself as perhaps the best song from the band. The reason for it might be simple: It does not sound like nothing they have put out before. The track, a B-side to the band’s latest single “A Warning,” is a slow-tempo ballad that glides between dream pop sensibilities and bedroom folk, with reverb-heavy guitars akin to The War on Drugs at their most introspective.
Dylan Minnette's vocals, typically buried under indie rock affectations, find new resonance in this stripped-down setting. Then the song’s bridge pivots unexpectedly into paranoia territory, with watery synths, soft drums, and trumpets washing over a repeated mantra: “Though I heard a voice/It was but a noisе gone without a trace/Will I hear it again?” It’s a moment of vulnerability that the band’s previous work often gestured at but never fully achieved. While Wallows built their reputation on infectious, sure, but formulaic indie rock, “Your New Favorite Song” suggests what might happen if they stopped chasing radio-friendly hooks and started exploring the spaces between them.
The debut studio album by the UK-based singer is a candid assemblage of self-confidence and insecurity, both at once.