ALBUM REVIEW: Teach Yourself To Swim – Wallflower

Despite three long years having passed since the release of WALLFLOWER’s debut EP Where It Fell Apart, it’s fair to say that the hype surrounding the London quintet has only continued to grow. Following successful tours alongside some of the very best and fastest-rising artists the British scene has to offer, debut full-length Teach Yourself to Swim sees the band take a plunge straight into the deep end. While they don’t completely sink without a trace, in their attempt to join the ranks of their successful peers there is often a sense of treading water as opposed to making any major waves.

The sound of this record is undoubtedly one that you’ll have all heard before – anthemic, stirring choruses resting on a bed of heart-on-sleeve lyrics, served with some chunky instrumentation courtesy of an admittedly proficient rhythm section. The choruses themselves evoke a who’s who of British alt-rock bands from the past 10 years; the hook-laden charm of YOU ME AT SIX (Eat Away at My Heart), the melodic sensibilities of STRAIGHT LINES (A Parody Of…) – even some of the rock n’ roll swagger (Dread) that briefly thrust HEAVEN’S BASEMENT into the limelight during the early part of the last decade – yet the dynamic structure (or lack of) throughout has a tendency to make everything feel a little… flat. Blood and Stone for example aims for soaring-yet-introspective, but instead feels prolonged and meandering; its near five-minute run time considerably outstaying its welcome.

There are, however, flashes of quality here. Hungry Eyes in particular throws a little more dynamic range into the melting pot and, for the most part, it works – the heavier, lumbering guitar lines serving to lift it above anything that’s come before. This results in one of the more memorable passages on the record, and while the competition isn’t particularly fierce, it does cement its place as one of the few tracks that sticks with you after the album draws to a close. Alas, when held up alongside their contemporaries in WALLFLOWER just sound a bit tired, and that’s far from ideal on a debut LP.

The second half of the record is at least a little bolder in its approach, with rougher edges allowed to co-exist with the polished choruses instead of being sanded down and stripped of any hint of vibrancy. The fact that the first portion of the album is so watered down is no slight on the production (which is near-flawless across the board); it feels like more of a stylistic decision that just doesn’t quite hit the mark. Anacrusis is a prime example of where a more rough-and-ready approach could have worked wonders, as the looming bass tones and passionate vocals conjure up images of latter-day THRICE without ever having the same level of emotional resonance.

Perhaps the biggest flaw of Teach Yourself to Swim is its length. At 12 tracks and almost 50 minutes, a number of the ideas on display feel like they’ve been stretched too far; finished canvases scaled-up to the point where the original work of art has been lost in a sea of blurry, half-baked additions. Cherry-picking the standout tracks (Hungry Eyes, Anacrusis, On & On and take, take, take.) would leave you with a solid EP’s worth of material, but incorporating everything into one long body of work has sadly proven detrimental to the overall quality. As literature and cinema have taught us, there are perks of being a wallflower, but unfortunately this record doesn’t appear to be one of them.

Rating: 5/10

Teach Yourself To Swim is out now via self-release.

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