The Waeve at Band on the Wall
Johnny James, Managing Editor
A year on from their acclaimed eponymous debut album, Rose Elinor Dougall and Graham Coxon AKA The Waeve are back with a new record and a new tour.
Combining dreamy, foreboding folk with motorik synthpop, The Waeve might not be what you’d expect from Coxon, a Britpop guitar hero, nor Dougall, a onetime ’50s girl-group revivalist. But if uncharacteristic, the elixir of sounds and styles they’ve created together feels fresh and exciting, and it’s growing only more potent as they prepare to tour their new album, City Lights.
It was just a few years ago that the pair met backstage at a show in London, swapped playlists and discovered their mutual love for British folk music. “Within a week we were recording”, says Coxon. “Our work was exploratory. Two people asked questions of each other, and as a consequence the void became less yawning. Music was created, and these two voices in the songs became two people: Rose and I.” Sidenote – that’s Rose, I, and the baby, now, if you’re interested…
Their debut came loaded with a pretty strong sonic signature: brooding analogue synths, dissonant saxophones and industrial, krauty beats. On top, the shared vocals (hers, strong, velvety, deep; his, twangy, faltering and vulnerable) offered pastoral vignettes of “jagged shores” and “ancient tides”, drawing on a long lineage of folk horror in British film and music. Among countless other press plaudits, DIY called it “Cinematic in scope, often luscious in its arrangements, it’s a singular gem”.
With City Lights, The Waeve’s sound solidifies into something bolder, more expansive and self-assured. From the off, everything feels dialled up. The motorik beats are heavier and wilder (‘Broken Boys’), the folk and chamber elements more lush and beautiful (‘You Saw’), and the songwriting markedly more ambitious (‘City Lights’).
70s post punk is a frequent touchstone, and we even get a bit of interstellar glam in the title track, which The Quietus called “a futuro Roxy Music or less depraved version of The Moonlandingz”. It’s the first of many tracks to be splashed with Coxon’s sax, whose dissonant squalls offer deranged commentary on Dougall’s brooding synth pulses. He might be one of the country’s most loved guitarists, but the man can’t half toot a horn.
It’s a great second album, and the heavier tracks make an exciting live proposition. Catch them at Manchester Academy 2 on 18 March.
