Wallows are the face of alternative/Indie

Image from Billboard

There’s nothing quite as fresh and unique when it comes to Indie music as Wallows. I often forget the mechanics which go into songwriting which in my age group focuses on teenage/young adult angst and galore. Indie has always been “out there,” and I distinctly remember in middle school when pop music was out and replaced with rap and Indie as “cool.” Although I can’t shy away from my pop favorites, I find myself diving back into Indie from time to time, and Wallows is worth discussing as they are the face of new wave angsty appeal.

The band began in 2017 with “Pleaser,” featuring Braeden Lemasters (lead singer), Cole Preston (drums), Dylan Minnette (vocals and guitar), and Zack Mendenhall (drummer and bass), who is no longer with Wallows. Wallows is based in Los Angeles and despite their Hollywood roots, the band is anything but ordinary. Wallows capture the freedom that comes with being young and maneuvering the thrill and sometimes depressing webs of life.

Other well-known bands like Foster the People, Poolside, and Band of Horses, amongst many others, have been around since the mid-2000s, early 2010s. And although many bands in that era have evolved with the times like anything else, Wallows was birthed from new-age sound, giving them an advantage for younger listeners, which, let’s face, are the music industry's future. Wallows take inspiration from the 90s aesthetic, as viewers could see from tracks like “OK.” In that regard, the band pays respect to its elders as Indie didn’t start with a trio of guys with unique vocals.

In addition to remaining relative, Wallows’ latest EP Remote captured both the pandemic’s effect on the music industry and the band's talent. The EP was recorded entirely during the initial quarantine when COVID-19 was relatively “new” to the world. The youth of this and last decade will forever remember the pandemic, which was the first on a global scale since the Spanish Flu Pandemic, which hit back in 1918.