Russell HughesWet Dreams – Wet Dreams (Black Pop Records)
If Wet Dreams were every struggling to choose a genre to influence them or a band’s sound to make their own they’d only have to look down the list of the greatest Scandinavian acts to find their muse.
The Hives, Turbonegro, The Hellacopters – the list is extensive and certainly not exhaustive. And they’ve all lent a bit of their specific noise to help create the Oslo native’s debut sound.
Throw into that mix some early Pulled Apart By Horses and DZ Deathrays and you’ve got an intoxicating cocktail of raw, powerful and furious influences.
Wet Dreams have already been described as ‘Motorhead covering The Hives’ and their furious brand of low-fi, fuzzy, garage punk has definitely got shades of that in it.
Songs like the 59 second long Depression are hit that comparison right on the nose. Band Aid has all the feel of a high school band giving this rock n roll thing a crack for the first time before Wet Dreams decide to peel off a delicious little guitar solo just as the chorus was starting to get a touch too repetitive.
Fronted by former Death By Unga Bunga lead Sebastian Ulstad Olsen and featuring members of FOAMMM, Warp Riders and De Marvells.
And as Olsen started writing distorted, raw and scruffy songs that didn’t really fit with Death By Unga Bunga, he needed a place to put them. And so, out of that grew Wet Dreams.
These songs might sound masculine and larger than life, but the noise betrays an insecurity – as soon on Beautiful as Olsen sings ‘I am beautiful in every single way, nobody’s going to bring me down.’
So turn it up and get vulnerable with this raw, rowdy, abrasive yet tender masterpiece of a debut album from Wet Dreams.