Wand: Vertigo

Over the past decade, Wand have been the exponents of a multi-faceted psych-rock hybrid that is simply their own.

Constants in the new music orbit, the Los Angeles collective quickly broke away from the garage rock-inspired clamour mastered by the likes of Ty Segall and the Osees, instead navigating down more adventurous roads. It’s resulted in some of the most underrated guitar-based music out there over the past decade.

Led by Corey Hanson, through a career that has spawned six albums, the vocalist/ guitarist has spearheaded the band’s paradoxical qualities. So too through his solo work (just look at the title of last year’s Western Cum), Hanson has always been a writer fitting square pegs in round holes, making the impossible, indeed, possible.

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It continues on Wand’s latest release, Vertigo. More intricate and less bombastic than the band’s expansive 2019 offering, Laughing Matter, in many ways Vertigo is an album that falls outside the paradigm of the modern age, simply because it takes more time to sink into the bones. Again, it’s Wand playing by nobody’s rules but their own.

Now operating as a four-piece with Hanson, drummer Evan Burrows and guitarist Robbie Cody joined by bassist Evan Backer, Wand begin their cosmic wanderings with the slow burning majesty of Hangman. With gorgeous melodies and wispy falsetto, Hanson’s performance throughout Vertigo is up there with his best.

While the comparisons to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke have always stirred in the background, Hanson’s songwriting is far more cryptic and there’s no better example than Hangman – a mangled dream stuck back together where themes of keeping diaries in trees, new tattoos and time flying without plans unravels into something of intrigue. There’s room for more conventional aspects, too, as Hanson sings, “Somebody has to win, and somebody has to lose / That’s the way it works / Nobody gets to choose”, shapeshifting through the miasma with one of the best songs released this year.

With Backer’s bass lines and Cody’s tangled guitars, Mistletoe unravels like a technicoloured odyssey. “I’ve been trying to come down,” sings Hanson, almost stuck in the mind of the song’s protagonist. However, where he remains is just fine, and there’s no better example than the stringed lullaby of JJ. “Walking to the city where you hunt yourself / I don’t have a reason to scream out for help,” sings Hanson who is at his heartfelt best.

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Leaning into the locale of their native California, Smile is part sea breeze sway, part cigarette lighters in the air in what is Vertigo’s most conventional moment. But for every Smile, Wand deliver songs like Lifeboat and album highlight, High Time. Protracted psych-pop with floaty atmospheres and intricate interplay that has just the right amount of noodling. There’s the idea and there’s the execution, and Wand empathically achieve both.

Once again, Hanson steals the show with closing cut, Seaweed Head. Spidery sonics as his heart-melting melodies soothe the protagonist’s woes (“Find it really hard to see the rain / Got your brain upside down in the month May”). Not a world away from the themes that dominate Smile, Hanson’s inward concerns are explored with sonics that pull you out of your mind.

While it may take time for these songs to catch a spark, what Vertigo does is showcase all the best bits of the Wand oeuvre. Both sonically and thematically, Wand cover all bases, not losing anything despite going from a five-piece to four. They sound as wholesome as they ever have, and are one of the few acts out there today who keep getting better with age.

Vertigo is out now via Drag City. Purchase from Bandcamp.