Though Glace is Wages’ first full-length, the compositional maturity and arrangements found across its 11 tracks reflect the long, fruitful journey the Los Angeles-based band has taken to get here. At the band’s core are Nick Byron Campbell and James DeDakis, two instrumental polymaths who began their collaboration across the continent in a band called Arizona. Formed in Brooklyn before relocating to Asheville, NC, Arizona worked extensively with revered producer Danny Kadar (My Morning Jacket, Band of Horses, Avett Brothers), and toured with the likes of Band of Horses and The Slip (featuring The Barr Brothers). After the band’s dissolution, Campbell and DeDakis took their accumulated skills to California, eventually reinventing themselves as Wages with new co-conspirators Dustin Robles and Matt Rumley. As Wages, the group has co-scored Sun Don’t Shine – the SXSW award-winning directorial debut of buzzing indie filmmaker Amy Seimetz – recorded an EP (Shady Chamber), landed several high-profile television placements, and expanded their aesthetic by presenting sound art experiences at galleries and creative events around the country including New York’s Sheila C. Johnson Design Center; LA’s Machine Project and Annenberg Beach House; Montana’s HATCH Festival; and Oakland’s Zoo Labs.
The diverse sounds on Glace run the gamut from quirky, catchy jangle-pop to sprawling, simmering art-rock. Spritely singles like “Rattlesnake” and “We Reign” demonstrate the band’s ability to write succinct, clean hooks; “Gotta,” “All Gone,” and “Super Perfect Dreams” display Wages’ penchant for airy expansiveness; and the menacing “Cave” nods to the group’s experimental tendencies. But while the songs and tonal landscapes on Glace are wildly divergent, the band’s long shared history and cinematically-inclined vision combine to nicely hold everything together as a unified whole.
“[‘Gotta’ is] a beautiful and delicately arranged elevation of the now-banal ode to heavy emotion; by bringing it back to the quotidian and everyday, Wages subvert the anthem, which paradoxically makes ‘Gotta’ a more emotionally resonant song.” –FLOOD Magazine
“Churning, atmospheric indie-rock.” -Buzzbands
RIYL: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Beach Fossils, Deerhunter, Autolux, Grizzly Bear, Eels, Tame Impala, The Cure, Choir of Young Believers
Recommended Tracks: Track 1, “Rattlesnake,” Track 2, “Reverse,” Track 5, “We Reign,” Track 6, “Gotta,” Track 9, “Cave,” Track 11, “Super Perfect Dreams”
FCC Clean
Self-released
Going for adds 8/1 & 8/2
