The Wails, Via

[ED. NOTE: Here’s Part II of the sorta-kinda dual review of The Wails/Broken Land. Refer here for the review of the band members’ newer stuff.]

Recorded in Brooklyn, Via is the only album The Wails will ever make, since they are no longer a band. Now, this is a relatively everyday occurrence in music. People get together, they mash up their ideas into a solidified medium, and then they part to pursue other interests. The whole break-up-before-the-band-makes-it-big schtick is pretty uneventful, these days.

I was upset, though, when guitarist Tom Hagen confirmed the fact for me. Via is a good album. Not great, no, but good. It has its imperfections, for sure. Simply put, Via makes its listeners think; it prompts the listener to ask questions. Here’s what I don’t understand: why not make the album entirely conceptual (see the descriptions of “Highway Pirates” and “Intermission” below)? The songs start out fairly bland and uneventful, yet towards the end, vocalist Caroline Edelen’s howls are layered, the music climaxes and, just when the band is getting comfortable, when they begin to really let it all out, the song ends and the feeling passes. Why is that? Case in point: in “This Is All A Lie,” Edelen sounds like Belinda Carlisle, “Mad About you”-esque for the first half, and then the cymbals pick up and she begins wailing. Layers of her voice weave in and out of each other, like the vocals of Lucia Cifarelli from Drill. Her voice is unmasked and raw, and her rather chilling cries echo on and on and — sigh — she takes a breath, and the song is over. Same thing occurs in “Schadenfreude.” When Caroline sings “Schadenfreude / And taking it back / What about when I’m old,” I want to scream “Why? Let it out — you’ve got the pipes! Be bad!” Another small problem I have relates to Hagen’s part in this band. He wrote most of the words and music for this album, and yet his guitar plays a very minor role in Via. It sounds hollow, and the music lacks fullness in sound.

For those who’ve read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, they’ll remember silly Alice jumping into a hole after the crazy, watch-wearing rabbit. They’ll also remember that her fall involved confusion as to whether it adhered to the laws of gravity. Was she hurtling downward or merely descending lackadaisically? At any rate, “Intermission” could be what Alice hears during her journey to the center of the earth, or Australia, or wherever. One can envision the growls emerging from her surroundings, as Alice drifts into other dimensions. Smith’s tabla drums add a prehistoric, worldly freshness into the dank, stale depths of this magical abyss. All the while, Edelen (as Alice) is heard, reverberating gasps aplenty. I mean, seriously, would a little girl who may or may not be floating toward her demise really be remarking upon her missed tea-time or some such? No, she’s concerned, she’s worried about her current predicament.

“Highway Pirates,” another experimental sound-fest, features Edelen’s meek squeaking: “Long, blonde hair / Deceiving smile.” This could be a song about fake women who try too hard, or it could just be a mass of words that sound good together. (Regardless of all of that, Edelen used to model, and she’s also a brunette.) Her voice is eerie and seemingly everywhere, as she breathily utters, “Warped sense of reality / The talented with lies.” Is she to the left? The right? Or in my head? Definitely creepy.

Here’s the problem I have with the disbandment of The Wails: they showed only a modicum of their collective talent on Via, and they won’t be able to develop their sound into a cohesive whole. Yes, the majority of Via is a bit generic and, on occasion, the timing may be off, and Edelen’s vocals may come off as sounding contemporary soft-rock, but that doesn’t discount their potential. It takes a substantial amount of time and effort for four people to get it right, and, for whatever reason, The Wails decided to expend upon their creative energies separately. In any case, you can do whatever you want with this information; I’m just going to go stick my head down a rabbit hole.