After a few quieter years, Wavves returns with a bang. San Diego native Nathan Williams leads the band with “Spun”. It’s an album that sounds like it was written with the windows down and a head full of dread. It’s a tight, polished blast of surf-stained pop-punk, full of bratty energy and existential fatigue. If you grew up on “King of the Beach” or “Afraid of Heights”, this will feel familiar. It will also feel just a little wearier. It’s like the same guy throwing the party. Only now he’s in his 30s. He kind of wants everyone to leave.

The Sound

Wavves has always excelled at wrapping mental breakdowns in melodic sunshine. Spun continues that tradition but with a cleaner, poppier edge. There’s more control here — less fuzz, more punch. The guitars are bright and sharp. The drums are air-tight. The choruses are designed to rattle around in your head for days. It’s still skate-punk-adjacent, but it’s less sloppy, more curated chaos.

That said, I kind of miss the mess. Part of Wavves’ early charm was how it all felt on the verge of collapse. Spun sounds like it knows precisely where it’s headed. This certainty can sometimes rob it of the rawness. This rawness made earlier records feel so urgent.

The Lyrics

Nathan Williams remains the king of turning self-loathing into a sing-along. Most of Spun feels like a lyrical feedback loop—spinning through the same anxieties, doubts, and disassociations. It’s not poetry, but it is painfully real: straightforward lines like “There’s nothing that should make me stay. But I can’t get up and walk away. ‘Cause I’m too dumb to see that you were never mine.”

There’s a thread of depression running through the whole record, but it’s never whiny or indulgent. It’s more like a shrug and a sigh with a catchy hook behind it. Songs like Big Nothing and Busy Sleeping really lean into that feeling of being stuck — emotionally, creatively, existentially. If you’ve ever stared at the ceiling at 3 a.m. and felt like a ghost in your own house, this album gets it.

The Standouts

The title track Spun kicks things off with bratty confidence and some of the most infectious melodies on the album. It captures the tone, the angst, the catchiness, and the dissociative spiral in under three minutes. Pure Wavves magic. It feels like “Hey, it’s summer!” (But for the fact that it opens with the lyric “It’s a breeze now the summer’s over. And we don’t talk now, ‘cause you got colder.”)

Goner is another favorite — fast, polished, with a beat that could soundtrack a sprint away from your problems. Accessible without being shallow, and driven by one of the album’s best hooks.

Way Down has great production and pacing, especially with that sharp chorus drop. It plays like a radio-ready version of their grungier moments, but I think it loses some rawness in the polish.

But it’s the closer, Holding Onto Shadows, that surprised me the most. It’s slower, darker, and lets the haze settle in. It’s a perfect outro — moody, introspective, and quietly devastating. It slows everything down, strips away the noise, and ends the record on a haunted, introspective note. Surprisingly moving. “Where’s it gone? What’s it good for? What’s it like when you’re alone? Leave it on. What’s it like when you’re alone?”

The Weak Spots

While the highs are high, a few tracks in the middle blend together too easily. There’s a sheen on this album that occasionally sands down the edges. This leaves some songs feeling like background music for a skate montage. I found myself craving the dissonance and sloppiness of Wavves’ earlier, chaotic sound.

Also, emotionally, there’s not a huge arc here. It’s more a snapshot of mental drift than a narrative journey. For some, that will hit just right. Others might want more growth or transformation.

Final Thoughts

Spun is a solid return from Wavves — lean, loud, and emotionally frayed in all the right ways. It might not break new ground, but it doesn’t need to. It’s the kind of album that reminds you how comforting it is to hear someone scream your inner monologue over jangly guitars.

It’s sunburned, strung-out pop-punk. It’s for people who are too tired to pretend they’re okay.

But they still want to dance about it anyway.

Chris Garrod, July 29, 2025

Favorites: Spun, Holding Onto Shadows, Goner, Lucky Stars

Least Favorites: New Creatures, Busy Sleeping.