Premiere: Wages, ‘Rattlesnake’

Kevin Bronson on November 23rd, 2015

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Since making L.A. their home base, Wages’ music has ranged from cinematic art-rock to boundary-pushing experiments, such as their recent “sound art” installations. The band — founders Nick Byron Campbell and James DeDakis, along with Dustin Robles and Matt Rumley — release their second EP of the year this week. The follow-up to June’s “L’oeil” EP (and sticking with the French titles), it’s called “Sacre Coeur,” and the two songs teased so far see Wages settling in for a bout of churning, atmospheric indie-rock. The new song “Rattlesnake” is as close to a pop single as Wages has ever released; it’s a 3-minute purge that was a mix of home-recorded samples and sounds and material captured at Boulevard Recording in Hollywood and engineered by Clay Blair. Here, Campbell urges life’s pain away in a cathartic blast that warns against “using self-destructive behavior to soothe yourself in the moment rather than deal honestly with the pain.” Sometimes, turning up the volume helps too.

||| Stream: “Rattlesnake” and “We Reign”