Wand return with their latest studio album since their 2019 work Laughing Matter. Over the past five years, they toured extensively in support of that album, cultivated a live record, and band leader Cory Hanson (vocals, guitar) released the phenomenal Western Cum (2023). Wand have been restored to their original form as a quartet (they were a quintet on the previous two albums), with Hanson, Evan Backer (bass), Evan Burrows (drums), and Robbie Cody (guitar). The result is less ambitious but finds them charting unexplored aspects of their sound, mainly due to their new recording process.
Wand cut pieces of over 50 hours of live improvisations to rework each of the eight tracks on Vertigo. The label also shared that band members took on different roles while recording, creating “an intuitive, strangely ego-less approach that spun them into uncharted territory”. What resulted is a record that provides moments that are as challenging as they are sublime. It also leaves ample room to ratchet up the intensity of live performances. However, Vertigo is ultimately a modest output based upon the original material, not to mention what listeners have come to expect from Wand with each successive effort.
With a runtime of just under 40 minutes and an expansive approach to their songcraft, Wand have begun to focus more on mood in their songwriting. They are still psychedelic in sound, but they no longer deliver tracks with many alternative reference points or comparisons to contemporaries like Mikal Cronin and Ty Segall. Wand found inspiration in fellow Californians Stone Temple Pilots as much as Radiohead on Plum (2017), but they soon blew up that approach with the grandiose Laughing Matter. They went from relatively simple to complex in the span of a few years. Hanson still has an outlet for his guitar-playing chops, but that is no longer a focal point for the band.
Lead single “Smile” saunters along with distorted guitar and delicate notes sprinkled on top, creating a wall of sound. It features their signature guitar work that feels like it could erupt at any moment but stays relatively intact with forlorn lyrics like, “Sweet little baby / Dream a place where you don’t have to lie.” It slowly fades out with little pretense after an over six-minute runtime. Wand devote considerable space to let their sound linger when it fits the mood, like a two-plus-minute outro on “High Time”.
The rub with this newfound approach is for all the beauty that is captured—or anxiety produced, for that matter—it seems to be lacking as a result of what was likely left on the cutting room floor. If the sheer volume of material on Laughing Matter was a tremendous undertaking, this work will leave listeners wanting more; however, it will not be in a satisfactory manner hitting play after the record ends. It will be more along the lines of having to believe there were quality pieces left out (like the standalone single “Help Desk”, released just a handful of months before the album).
For instance, “Hangman” and “Curtain Call” kick off Vertigo, and each track contains reverb and repetition. “Hangman” features shoegaze elements but accentuates the genre’s eerie and discordant elements over its shimmering sounds. It is a disorienting listen, with instruments moving in and out at irregular patterns. “Hangman” segues seamlessly into “Curtain Call”, the latter half of which contains strings that were arranged by Backer (as they were throughout the album). Hanson’s high tenor voice billows above the darker tones in each song. Taken as a whole, the tracks work as a suite, but they also account for the first quarter of the album.
For all that can be frustrating for fans expecting more, there is much to like across Vertigo. The orchestration is beautiful and adds new ways for the band to achieve catharsis, like in “JJ”, which describes a person who wasted precious time stuck in their head. Although Wand no longer openly imitate Radiohead, this track provides a moment when they have achieved that same level of sophistication. The horns and woodwinds are an excellent addition as well, as the texture ranges from the inharmonious (“Mistletoe”) to the hypnotic (“Lifeboat”), with reference points to a band like the Dylan Group. There are standout tracks as well, none more so than “High Time”, which fights through the distortion and builds until its climax, filled with swirling vocal arrangements and strings.
Wand have developed considerably over the past decade and shown greater sophistication with each release. Vertigo started from an organic, egalitarian place, and it takes a certain amount of risk for the band to assume this level of ownership in their work. Paradoxically, they took great pains to pare down the album into something palatable and, at times, placid. The publicity for Vertigo speaks to the band finding “a new gravitational center”. In that manner, Vertigo reflects a group of musicians opting not to flex their collective muscles in favor of locating their core as they shift into this new phase of development.