Band Wavves goodbye to summer sounds

With the wave of lo-fi, California-based bands that has appeared in the past few years, you’ve got to wonder if their proverbial summer is ever going to end. With Life Sux, Wavves ditches that summer in the best way possible. Wavves

Life Sux

Ghost Ramp Records

Grade: A-

Rocks Like: Best Coast, Jay Reatard, Trash Talk

With the wave of lo-fi, California-based bands that has appeared in the past few years, you’ve got to wonder if their proverbial summer is ever going to end. With Life Sux, Wavves ditches that summer in the best way possible.

Instead of another pop-punk record with a California theme, Nathan Williams and company have created an EP with a concentrated dose of sunshine that could easily be a set of anthems for any youth.

“Bug” leads off strong with a powerfully simple guitar riff that makes the track particularly articulate. “You’re always crashing parties / You’re always crashing someone’s car,” Williams sings in his signature snarl before taking his guitar — and the song — into the stratosphere with one of Wavves’ famous guitar breakdowns.

Wavves is joined by Toronto-based group Fucked Up on the song “Destroy,” and their shared background in punk makes the collaboration shine. Nihilism builds in the song’s musical screams and compelling lead guitar work. By the time the chorus of simply “destroy” comes in, there’s a feeling of rebellion emanating from the track.

There’s something prophetic about “I Wanna Meet Dave Grohl,” not because of the song’s rock star focus, but because of the way Wavves references the title track of their last album, “King of the Beach.”

“Never gonna stop me,” he repeats, and it’s hard to believe that anyone could. The music is more controlled, focusing less on the brazen style of punk and moving towards — perhaps deliberately — a style more akin to the controlled rock of the Foo Fighters.

While Best Coast usually shines, its singer Bethany Cosentino’s vocals on “Nodding Off” aren’t unleashed to their full effect. The high-speed ballad seems to lose the sentimentality that Cosentino’s voice can so powerfully convey. The effort is worthy, but the execution in this particular case loses what a female voice could uniquely add.

Ending with a pop-infused midtempo number named “Poor Lenore,” Life Sux is a tremendous record that has shown exactly what Nathan Williams and the rest of Wavves can create in California — or anywhere else.