Wussy
Cincinnati Ohio
Shake It Records [2024]
“Raw Harmonies and Haunting Storytelling: Cincinnati Ohio Finds Wussy at Their Reflective Best.”
Album Overview: 2020 was a hard year for most people, but doubly so for Wussy. Not only did they have to stop touring like every other band (thanks global pandemic), they also suffered internal tragedy with the passing of guitarist and pedal steel player John Erhardt. Core songwriting duo Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker played online shows and eventually started playing in person again too, but the future of the full band was uncertain. Thankfully, though, the pair reconvened with bassist Mark Messerly and drummer Joe Klug, adding Travis Talbert on pedal steel to open for fellow Ohio rockers Guided by Voices in early 2024. A few months later, the band announced their eighth studio album, Cincinnati Ohio—their first since 2018’s What Heaven Is Like.
Musical Style: Self-described as “Ohio noise rock,” Wussy’s sound is built around the imperfectly perfect harmonies of Cleaver and Walker, whose vocal back and forth makes the songs feel like a conversation. Alternating between loud guitar-driven pop hooks and quieter folk-inflected tunes, the band often add subtler textures via keyboards, pedal steel, melodica, accordion, and carefully sculpted feedback. The result is a blend that works in a surprising number of “rock” styles from the 60s onward, from country-rock and psychedelia to indie folk, noise-rock, and dream-pop.
Evolution of Sound: After the success of 2014’s Attica!, the band began exploring a more textural, spacious approach that drew comparisons to shoegaze acts past and present. While there are still clear traces of that sound on Cincinnati Ohio, many of the album’s tracks take a more stripped-down, organic approach that highlights Cleaver and Walker’s lyrics and songwriting. There are a few heavier moments, but the record has a quieter, more introspective feel compared to its immediate predecessors. These are songs that unfold slowly, but that ultimately pay off, and they’re especially rewarding with repeat listens. There’s a maturity to both the songwriting and the lyrics that gives the album a varied but cohesive feel—and the result is probably their best album since Attica!
Artists with Similar Fire: Wussy’s blend of midwestern rock, noisy guitars, and folky songwriting sensibility have drawn comparisons to acts like REM, Heartless Bastards, and The Mekons. On Cincinnati Ohio there’s a greater focus on the quieter side of their sound that calls to mind classic singer-songwriters like Neil Young and some of the more atmospheric moments on the Robert Plant/Allison Krauss albums. The more uptempo rockers, on the other hand (which I wouldn’t have minded a few more of), mix melody and guitar noise in ways that are reminiscent of The Breeders, Ride, and Wednesday.
Pivotal Tracks: Cincinnati Ohio opens strong with “The Great Divide,” a hypnotic track that sets Lisa Walker’s ethereal vocals atop layers of echoing guitars, pulsing synths, and a driving rhythm that pushes the song along insistently. “Desperation AM” sounds like the more somber flip side to “Halloween” from Attica!, with acoustic strums, electric guitar lines, and bubbling keyboards supporting Walker’s double-tracked vocals. The folky “Disaster About You” follows, a whirling waltz that features accordion playing from Messerly and some sublime harmonies from Cleaver and Walker. “Inhaler” kicks off side two with one of the album’s most uptempo rockers, which ramps up the energy on the chorus by having Walker and Cleaver sing two different sets of lyrics simultaneously. Other highlights include the folky Cleaver numbers “The Ghosts Keep Me Alive” and “Please Kill Me,” as well as side one closer “Sure As The Sun.”
Lyrical Strength: One can’t help but read some of the lyrics as reflections on the loss of bandmate John Erhardt, even if some of the songs were kicking around before his passing. One of Cleaver’s and Walker’s strengths as lyricists, though, is their ability to write songs that feel like glimpses into a larger story, and that’s definitely the case on Cincinnati Ohio as much as any of their other albums. Many of the tracks feel like pages pulled from a gritty midwestern novel, but their literary qualities don’t feel pretentious or off-putting; instead they infuse the songs with a pathos that makes them easy to relate to even if you don’t know all the details. There also great one-liners in just about every song, like “If dreaming were a job / We’d have been employee of the year” (“The Night We Missed The Horror Show”) and “I was born to be Houdini / On the day of Steve McQueen” (“Desperation AM).
WUSSY REVIEW HISTORY
Forever Sounds (2016) / Attica! (2014) / Strawberry (2011) / Wussy (2009) / Rigor Mortis (EP) (2008) / Left For Dead (2007)
WUSSY LINKS
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp | Shake It Records
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- Wussy: Cincinnati Ohio [Album Review] - November 14, 2024