ALBUM REVIEW: Love Language – Windwaker
When a scientist in the 90s told the world about the five love languages, they sent tremors running through relationships. Whilst your love language is likely different to your loved one, there’s no reason why you can’t work out. Just like swiping right on a dating site, WINDWAKER throw together genres like they’re bags of pick and mix on their debut full-length Love Language.
Like a couple clearing out the closet of skeletons, WINDWAKER throw everything at the wall in the hope that something sticks. In any of Love Language’s 12 songs, you’ll find yourself immersed in a war between nu-metal sampling, post-hardcore beatdowns, and synth-pop sensibilities. Sometimes it’s stitched together perfectly; opener Beautiful deals with it delicately, like a tie-dye t-shirt, letting its anthemic pop-punk choruses bleed into swirling synths, stadium-rock guitars, and hip-hop screams. Other times, it’s like their getting dressed in the dark, with Dopamine Freestyle attempting to relive rap-rock’s glory days with a nu-metal crunch that makes no sense.
If WINDWAKER could cut the fat, Love Language could be a dazzling debut album. Lucy lets sunshine coast riffs reel off into overdrive, like SLEEPING WITH SIRENS and OF MICE & MEN in a super collider, whilst Glow owes as much to the new-wave dark-pop of After Hours-era THE WEEKND as it does the early-10s post-hardcore pummel of PIERCE THE VEIL. And in Superstitious Fantasy, they hold an absolute anthem; luscious lappings of RnB soak up the chorus, whilst the verses channel late-90s SLIPKNOT so you’re singing, screaming, moshing, bouncing and dancing simultaneously.
But what goes up must come down, and when it does on Love Language, it goes down like a lead balloon. The title track tries leaning into dream-pop, but doesn’t fit in with the album’s furnishings, whilst Trenches tries forcing post-hardcore, electronicore and pop together without trying to make sense of them first, so it sounds like interference in your eardrums. And closing duo Hide & Seek and The Rain are painstakingly formulaic, like paint by number clones of earlier tracks.
Vocalist and lyricist Will King is undoubtedly their unique selling point. His ability to blend vocal styles at a moments’ notice is a cut above his peers, and lends Love Language a much-needed depth in delivery. And whilst his bandmates – guitarist Jesse Croft, bassist Indey Salvestro, and drummer Chris Lalic – blitz their songs with every sound under the sun, King enriches them with thought-provoking lyrics on everything from adolescence and nostalgia to identity and belonging by way of altered consciousness and death.
There’s a tendency for bands of WINDWAKER’s ilk to slip into simplicity with their lyrics. But Love Language separates itself from the crowd, often divulging into layers of poetic prose. As a loose concept album that invites you to be the main character, every line is open to interpretation. More often than not, you’ll find yourself racking your brain around each line, asking more questions of yourself than receiving answers. Beautiful is a brilliant example of this, as King muses: “I’m feeling chemical blitz as my skin slowly splits / Influx of health, soak up that minute of trust or be left in the dust / Pull it together become one of us.”
Listening to Love Language is, for the most part, frustrating. It’s jam-packed with potential, but falls into all the predictable traps post-hardcore bands get caught up in. If they can tighten up their ship and find the love language that suits them best next time round, WINDWAKER can easily become leaders of the scene.
Rating: 6/10
Love Language is set for release on May 6th via Fearless Records.
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