As they gear up for their first UK tour in November, Waves Crashing have dropped a cool new single to get you in the mood. ‘Stars’ is a master class in that on/off, loud/quiet soundscaping that has served alternative music so well over the decades. But, as we will see, more than that too.
As the song tumbles in majestically, as bass lines pulse and propel and drums cascade, as guitars weave massive showgazey textures and then proceed to run further riffs around them, there is a feeling of relentless momentum, of being carried along in the sonic swell whether you willingly go or not. And they pull this trick off several times, and it’s always effective because when you drop into the atmospheric lulls in the song’s lowest depths, the explosion as you race and roar back to those anthemic highs is even more impressive because of the distance you’ve navigated.
And proving that they are more than just a “turn everything up to eleven” to make an impact sort of band, although they are so good at doing that, the Echodoll remix is a brilliant slice of understatement, rather than riding those post-punk crescendos, instead moving through more alternative synth-pop realms and reminding us that the whole post-punk/shoegaze thing was never that far removed from the early days of New Romanticism and synthy alternative sounds.
Any song worth its salt stands up to reinterpretation, and the two very different versions of ‘Stars’ here, one writ large, dense and delicious, the other poised and retro-pop-friendly, just underline what a great song it is.
