Music Review: Wand, 1000 Days

By Less Lee Moore

And the paintings are now dead
And they looked into your eyes
And the patterns that they set
They will live inside your mind.
—Wand, “Paintings Are Dead”

At some point over the last few months, Wand crept onto the list of my new favorite bands. I liked last year’s Ganglion Reef enough for it to barely miss my Top Ten of 2015 and this spring’s Golem is exponentially more appealing. When I was listening to those albums to prepare for the review of their newest release 1000 Days, I realized I had crossed a line from “interested music critic” to “bona fide fan” of Wand. Those sneaky devils.

At first, I felt that Wand was part of the new psychedelic movement, but I now think that’s a mistake. Part of this is the precise quality of their music; whether they are reveling in fuzz-laden or delicate acoustic guitar, Wand commits to it wholeheartedly. On the other hand, songs that begin sounding like one thing, frequently transform into something utterly different and even contradictory. It makes it difficult to pigeonhole the band into any one genre, but ultimately thrilling to hear.

Wand doesn’t sound anything like Beck, but like Beck, they like to dabble and not just in different styles. The lyrics don’t make a lot of sense on the page, but when combined with the music and viewed from the perspective of the songs themselves, they create an odd universe in which they make perfect sense. Those lyrics are also surprisingly ghastly for a band that has been lumped in with the new psych movement.

Song titles like “Grave Robber” and “Dungeon Dropper” seem more like selections from a horror punk band than one that creates the kind of far-reaching soundscapes that Wand does, although musically they often dip quite liberally into the well of genuinely disturbing sonics. Lines like “Sleeping on a cement bed / waking at night full of terror / daytime is haunting you / nighttime is nothing at all” from the album’s title track are creepy as hell, and even more so when contrasted with the catchy hooks of the song itself. The pastoral vibe of “Morning Rainbow” makes an eerie contrast to the song’s lyrics: “Lucifer, with your eyes of fire / come back to me … we will see this world together / in its terror.” Still, Wand aren’t doom metal or a Danzig wanna-be band, and despite their associations with Ty Segall, they don’t sound like him either, except on the most superficial level.

Despite any inabilities to define exactly what Wand does sound like, 1000 Days boasts some of the most gorgeous songs they’ve ever crafted. Both “Passage of the Dream” and “Broken Sun” are even more heartbreakingly beautiful than Golem‘s “Melted Rope.” Yet 1000 Days isn’t as viciously heavy as Golem. There’s nothing on here that approaches the epic intensity of “Planet Golem,” although “Lower Order” and “Sleepy Dog” both drip with marvelous muck. If anything, Wand have taken the gently spooky vibes found on Ganglion Reef and expanded them into pure pop concoctions, albeit with a dark, sludgy underbelly. The hooks in almost every song are ridiculous in their ability to worm themselves into your head for hours on end. Although his vocals have always been impeccable, Cory Hanson’s vocals on “Dungeon Dropper” are particularly exquisite, which make their synthesis with the wordplay and music that much more delicious.

While these are undoubtedly some of the best songs the band has yet released, 1000 Days doesn’t quite gel the way that Wand’s previous albums have. “Dovetail” is a fantastic, hypnotic instrumental track, but it ironically deflates the album just when it gets going. Individually the songs are great, but they don’t flow into each other the way they probably should, giving 1000 Days a vaguely cobbled-together feeling. However, with music this amazing, it’s difficult to be too sad about it. 1000 Days proves that Wand is transmogrifying their already extraordinary sound into something even more exceptional.

1000 Days was released by Drag City on September 25.

Tour Dates:
Wed 10/28/15 at The Echo in Los Angeles, CA
Thu 10/29/15 at Brick & Mortar Music Hall in San Francisco, CA
Sat 10/31/15 at Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, British Columbia
Sun 11/1/15 at Narwhal in Seattle, WA
Tues 11/3/15 at The Real Lounge in Missoula, MT
Thu 11/5/15 at The Entry in Minneapolis, MN
Fri 11/6/15 at Witching Hour Festival in Iowa City, IA
Sat 11/7/15 at Empty Bottle in Chicago, IL
Tues 11/10/15 at Adelaide Hall in Toronto, Ontario
Wed 11/11/15 at Bar Le “Ritz” P.D.B. in Montreal, Quebec
Thu 11/12/15 at Middle East (upstairs) in Cambridge, MA
Fri 11/13/15 at Mercury Lounge in New York, NY
Sat 11/14/15 at Rough Trade NYC in Brooklyn, NY
Sun 11/15/15 at Black Cat in Washington, DC
Mon 11/16/15 at Tiger Mountain in Asheville, NC
Wed 11/18/15 at 529 in Atlanta, GA
Thu 11/19/15 at Hi Tone in Memphis, TN
Fri 11/20/15 at Siberia in New Orleans, LA
Sat 11/21/15 at Red 7 in Austin, TX
Sun 11/22/15 at Lowbrow Palace in El Paso, TX
Tue 11/24/15 at Solar Culture in Tucson, AZ
Wed 11/25/15 at Soda Bar in San Diego, CA