Sam Flax - Age Waves

You know how Marmite is kind of disgusting but all your mates like it and you don’t know why? ‘Age Waves’ is a bit like that. Within 30 seconds of opening track ‘Fire Doesn’t Burn Itself’ you’re covered in filthy reverb and the vocals are just kicking in, and they’re nothing to write home about.

But everyone else is going to like it, so it’s worth seeing why. It’s sprawling psych-rock originally released on a cassette; of course it’s going to be liked. And, in its defence, it’s good at what it’s doing. Sam Flax, whoever he is, has created what he wanted to create; from the strange ‘80s gangsta-synth of ‘Child Of Glass’ (a song that wouldn’t feel out of place in the GTA: Vice City soundtrack) to the reverb-soaked-yet-kind-of-acoustic ‘Backwards Fire’, this is a very personal, self-indulgent creation. And it’s technically good. As in, all the parts are there. Well, except maybe for album closer ‘Homesick For Osaka’, in which all of the sounds are missing.

It’s experimental at its most extreme; at no point will ‘Age Waves’ be listened to on a commute to work, or kept on when a track pops up on shuffle. It’s just not that kind of album. Neither is it the kind of album you can categorise. It borrows from so many decades, throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. ‘Further West’, despite what you might think, is not a country track (well, it’s what I thought it might be). It has weird shouts and a harmonised chorus that admittedly is quite nice, with boy-girl vocals, but the whole song is just another example of a thing that makes you think, ‘What the fuck?’ See also: the instrumental bleeps and bloops of ‘Dark Water’.

With so many different indulgences, there’s going to be at least one song you like, which is good. And it’s not the kind of music that’s going to be on Skins anytime soon either; it’s sincere in its mentalness. It’s not pretending to take anything and shout ‘Mate, I’m so random’ from the rooftops. ‘Age Waves’ isn’t going to revolutionise anything, but it’s not trying to. It just is.