Vertigo is the sixth studio album by the American psychedelic rock band Wand, released on July 26, 2024, through Drag City. It is the band's first studio album since Laughing Matter (2019) and follows a period of touring, a live album release, and lineup changes that saw Wand return to a quartet. Recorded entirely in their home studio, Vertigo was developed from over 50 hours of improvisation and assembled through an exploratory, self-produced process.
Musically, Critics have categorized Vertigo as a rock recording with elements of psychedelic rock and art pop. The album incorporates orchestral textures such as strings, horns, and woodwinds, and prioritizes mood over technicality. Critics highlighted its layered sound and evolving song structures, noting influences from Radiohead, Can, and Talk Talk. Vertigo was supported by a North American and European tour, during which Wand debuted much of the new material in live settings. The band also released two singles—"Smile" and "JJ"—ahead of the album's release, with early copies made available at tour merchandise stands.
Background
Following the release of Wand's fifth studio album Laughing Matter in 2019, Wand entered a five-year period marked by continued activity. During this interval, the band undertook extensive touring in support of Laughing Matter[1] and issued a live album, Spiders in the Rain, in 2022.[2] The live release captured the expansive nature of their performances during this era.[2]
After the band's lineup functioned as a quintet for their previous two studio albums, Wand returned to their original quartet configuration.[1] Keyboardist Sofia Arreguin and founding bassist Lee Landey departed[3] and bassist Evan Backer joined the group in 2022, replacing Landey,[4] leaving a lineup consisting of Cory Hanson, Robert Cody, Evan Backer, and Evan Burrows.[3] The album was recorded after another change in the band's lineup. Langdon Hickman of Treble noted this shift as part of what they viewed as a broader creative reset before Plum (2017).[5] This lineup change was credited with renewing the band's chemistry and contributing to the "visceral charge" of their subsequent recordings.[6]
In addition to group activity, lead vocalist and guitarist Cory Hanson also pursued solo projects, releasing two full-length albums: Pale Horse Rider (2021) and Western Cum (2023),[1][7] ranging from "cosmic country" to "glam guitar crunch".[6] These solo efforts were recorded with contributions from Wand guitarist Cody and new bassist Evan Backer.[3]
Recording
Vertigo was recorded entirely at Wand's home studio,[8] with the band self-producing the album.[7] The album was developed from over 50 hours of live improvisations, which served as raw material for the band to cut, restructure, and reshape into the album's eight final tracks,[8][9] and Spin journalist John Wenzel described the writing process as "semi-improvised".[10]Vertigo was recorded through an unconventional and highly exploratory process that marked a departure from Wand's previous studio efforts. Throughout the sessions, band members frequently shifted roles, embracing what has been described by the band's label as "an intuitive, strangely ego-less approach" that allowed them to venture into unfamiliar sonic territory.[1] The songs were developed from the improvised material through extensive editing and refinement.[8] The recording process is described as "yield[ing] material that bristles with strange beauty and a sense of constant discovery", according to Under the Radar writer Danile Gardner.[6]
Musical style
Overview
Ryan Meehan of Pitchfork has categorized Vertigo as a rock recording,[3] with other critics noting its elements of psychedelic rock, art pop, noise, indie rock,[8] and post-rock.[3] The album consists of eight tracks and appears to aim at provoking shifts in perspective and disrupting conventional spatial reference points.[9] Meehan describes Vertigo as a kind of contemporary Western, comparing it to the revisionist films of Monte Hellman and Jim Jarmusch.[3] Multiple critics have noted comparisons between Vertigo and the music of Radiohead,[8][5] particularly in the mood and vocal delivery of lead singer Cory Hanson, to which he is compared to Thom Yorke's.[7][11] The album also contains references to the music of the Dylan Group,[1]Neil Young, Can (specifically their album Tago Mago), and Talk Talk.[9]
Orchestration was incorporated during production,[1] including string arrangements by bassist Evan Backer,[3] as well as the inclusion of horns and woodwinds.[1] The production emphasized atmosphere over technical display, continuing the post-rock-influenced improvisational style hinted at in their 2022 live album Spiders in the Rain.[3] Hanson's high tenor vocals are featured prominently, often floating over darker instrumental textures. The album's production reflects a shift toward mood-driven songwriting, with the band favoring mood over moments of grandeur and a more restrained approach compared to previous releases. The band has described this as finding a "new gravitational center", suggesting a recalibration of their creative identity as they entered a new phase of development.[1] The sound includes saturated guitars and motorik rhythms, along with additions of brass and other borrowings from jazz.[9]
Songs
"Hangman" features shoegaze-influenced instrumentation that focuses on the style's darker and more discordant aspects rather than its typical luminous soundscapes. Characterized by heavy use of reverberation and repetition, the track has a disorienting arrangement, with instruments fading in and out of focus in uneven sequences.[1] "Curtain Call", similarly contains reverberation and repetition[1] and evolves gradually from tremolo-tinged feedback into expansive string arrangements and subtle synthesizer layers.[12] The track serves as an extended coda to "Hangman",[3] maintaining the earlier song's mood while incorporating strings, keys, and synthezisers.[8] "Mistletoe" is described by Fred Thomas of AllMusic as "one of the more wandering tracks" on the album.[12] With an inharmonious texture,[1] it builds from a progression that shifts from a driving Zamrock-inspired rhythm into a dense mixture of horns and electronic sounds.[12] It was also compared by Mojo's Victoria Segal to if "A Day In The Life" by the Beatles was covered by Radiohead, describing it as a "blissful slide into wild orchestral melodrama".[13] Patrick Gill of PopMatters interpreted the lyrics as reflecting a realization of time lost to introspection and self-absorption.[1]
"Smile" is built around heavy guitar riffs and a sound described as reminiscent of Sonic Youth's Jim O'Rourke period.[14] The song features melancholic lyrics and gradually fades out over a duration of more than six minutes.[1] Its dynamics shift toward louder, distorted rock passages, drawing comparisons to the work of Bardo Pond and the Smashing Pumpkins during their Siamese Dream era,[12] and has also been likened by Wenzel to a slower interpretation of Pavement's "Summer Babe".[10] "Lifeboat" presents a hypnotic soundscape,[1] incorporating ethereal horns, plucked piano tones,[10] and elements reminiscent of 1970s Latin and soft rock.[10] Hazelwood noted that "Lifeboat" begins in a gentle drift that mirrors the album's closing track.[7] The arrangement develops gradually, incorporating swirling synthesizers, brass, and reverberant guitars,[8] evoking the sensation, according to Hazelwood, of gentle movement akin to a leaf floating on still water.[7] The track ultimately transitions into a darker folktronica tone,[13] with Wenzel noting a sonic palette that blend characteristics of Santana and Steely Dan.[10]
"High Time" is a seven-minute track[7] that incorporates hooks characteristic of alternative rock.[12] The song features distortion and noise that build toward a climactic section with prominent vocal harmonies and string arrangements.[1] Hazelwood described it as a "towering" and "noisy song", commenting its use of a wall-of-sound aesthetic reminiscent of Spiritualized.[7] It leans toward art rock and experimental influences, combining pulsing electronic elements with contrasting calming and unsettling tones.[8] In "Seaweed Head", Gardner described Hanson's vocal performance as simultaneously "weary and at peace", set against quivering string lines and a gently driving rhythm.[6] Wenzel likened the song to Loaded-era the Velvet Underground.[10]
Release and promotion
Vertigo was released in July 26, 2024, through Drag City.[3][15] The album marked Wand's return to studio recording after a five-year hiatus following their 2019 album Laughing Matter.[1] On May 7, 2024, Wand announced the release of their new studio album, along with the first single "Smile".[16] The single "JJ" was released in June 17.[17] The album cover was seen by Langdon Hickman as a reference to A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead or Crack-Up by Fleet Foxes.[5]
To support the album, Wand launched a North American tour in the summer of 2024, with performances spanning club venues as well as stadium shows where they opened for Red Hot Chili Peppers.[18] The tour ran from July through September across North America, followed by a series of UK and European dates in the fall.[18] The band previewed material from Vertigo during these live performances. A show at Bowery Ballroom in New York City on July 18, 2024, featured a setlist heavily composed of new songs. These live renditions were described BrooklynVegan's Bill Pearis as having a more forceful presence than their studio counterparts and omitted the orchestral string arrangements found on the album.[18] Copies of Vertigo were also made available for purchase at merchandise stands during the tour, before the album's official release date.[18]
Vertigo has received acclaim from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, it received a rating of 81 out of 100 based on nine critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[20]
The resulting album is what PopMatters' Patrick Gill considered it to be a "modest output", with the band deliberately paring down the material to create a more restrained and at times subdued listening experience.[1] Ryan Meehan from Pitchfork portrays Vertigo as elusive and indirect, its songs "excavated" rather than composed. The album, he writes, "is a second debut of sorts", and likens its ambition to Pygmalion or Spirit of Eden—works built from "metamorphic parts".[3] Editors at Stereogum chose Vertigo for Album of the Week, with critic Chris DeVille writing that this release "leans into the ensemble element by building its songs out of the best parts of jam sessions", resulting in "a set of patient yet explosive guitar-powered epics that reaffirm Wand's stature as one of underground rock's hidden treasures".[11] Holly Hazelwood of Spectrum Culture said that the recording process resulted in compositions that are "thoughtfully constructed" and "anything but straightforward".[7]
Bill Pearis of BrooklynVegan called the music on Vertigo unlike the band's previous releases, being their "most expansive, subtle and varied record yet and a bit of a swerve from 2019's flashy knockout Laughing Matter".[18] Peter Watts wrote for Uncut that the songs still reflect their freestyle roots, making Vertigo the band's "most exploratory album".[21] Writing for Mojo, Victoria Segal praises Vertigo as a bold continuation of Wand's willingness to venture into unstable, experimental sonic territory.[13]AllMusic's Fred Thomas says that Vertigo strikes a steady balance between catharsis and ambience, unfolding as a "quietly adventurous album" that "never feels like it's pushing too hard in any one direction", even as it shifts from "blown amplifiers" to "bubbly flutes".[12] According to Langdon Hickman from Treble, the arrangements are considered "sophisticated", and there was an aim to make things feel "cinematic".[5]
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