L.A. indie band Wallows has been many things: underground performers, world tour sensations, and recently, a triple platinum artist racking up accolades and Spotify streams.
Yet, for the past two years, the band has been radio silent — their 2022 remastered single “WISH ME LUCK” was the last time fans heard new music from the Southland band.
But on Feb. 15, band members Dylan Minnette (vocals and guitar), Braeden Lemasters (bass and vocals), and Cole Preston (drums) broke the two-year suspense with the intense, melancholic single “Your Apartment.”
Sonically, “Your Apartment” perfectly complements the rest of Wallows’ discography. Fuzzy vocals from both Minnette and Lemasters remain reminiscent of their 2022 Tell Me That It’s Over album.
However, the instrumentals of “Your Apartment” move away from those ’80s-inspired synth beats and lean further into the “WISH ME LUCK” acoustics with similar drums and ringing guitar driving the track.
This new lack of heavy computerization meant the band had to utilize pared-down instrumentals in conversation with their lyrics. Galloping drums, cyclical guitar, and a bold piano drive an anxious tone behind the lyrics, which contrasts the gentler rhythms of previous projects.
Despite differences from their past music, “Your Apartment” continues the motif of romantic pursuit present in both Wallows albums. An insecure narrator describing an unstable relationship dates back to their first single, “Pleaser,” in 2017. While neurotic, melodic questions — “Should we get close? Should we put the lights down?” — appear in both tracks, “Your Apartment” marks a shift away from the previous adolescent allusions to adult rationale. The new track presents a mature stance on modern relationships with imagery of apartments, digital romance, and therapy-speak like “incentivization” and “internalization.”
“Your Apartment” demands replay — once, to get the full scope of things, then again to piece together the picture of romantic turmoil under hazy streetlights, complete with regret and confusion wound through an uncertain relationship in one’s independent early-twenties. Discordant vocal rhythm and dense lyrics feed the narrative, juxtaposing the clean-cut guitar with drums, piano, and chimes.
Wallows’ leap back into music with this story-driven single shows their craft is ever-refining. With hints toward 2024 stadium shows, Wallows is back to their familiar routine of indie-rock domination — a readily welcomed, exciting step toward the next thing they’ll become.
