EP Review: The Ninth Wave - 'Happy Days'
Gothic post-punk and electronic-pop group The Ninth Wave shares Happy Days!. From danceable and downbeat instant anthems, to messed up romance, this is The Ninth Wave more daring, raw, and refined than ever before.
Released via Distiller Records, produced by Faris Badwan of The Horrors and recorded at the (suitably titled) Black Bay Studio in Scotland, Happy Days! is a far cry from the sound of their debut album Infancy, providing a sound more rich, raw and revealing than ever before.
The themes present throughout the EP are much more notably immediate than the band’s previous releases. With the preceding Infancy, the songs were rife with metaphors, poetic depictions and imagery.
The intoxicating and hypnotic allure of the band is still present, however; just listen to ‘Abattoir’ or ‘There Is Nothing I Hate More Than Smalltalk’ on the new EP, and you’ll be transported back to the magic that drew you to the band in the first place. This time, though, they have favoured a more direct straight-forward approach to songwriting, which is also reflected in the directness of the track’s titles (such as ‘I’m Only Going To Hurt You’).
This is also present in the way their vocalisations have changed and developed; the voices are pushed closer to the fore, and their Scottish accents more pronounced. Haydn, singer and guitarist in the band, said that this is because they have grown a lot more into singing in their own accents. “I’m not saying we didn’t mean anything we’ve sung before but, I think we’re being truer to ourselves this way,”, he reflects, “It’s not even a deliberate thing – I didn’t even realise I was doing it until I listened back to the demos.”
The Ninth Wave masterfully creates a new dimension of sound that smashes through any genre-related preconceptions. With Kyalo and Calum now joining Haydn and Millie, The Ninth Wave just keeps getting better and better.
Words by Kelly Scanlon