Wallpaper - EP

Album Review

Wallpaper is a side-project for members of New Bad Things, a band whose low-fi and utterly casual approach to bashing pop tunes is a pretty wonderful thing. Wallpaper has the same dimly recorded feel and loose melodicism, but applies them in a much more low-key environment — New Bad Things' tinny grooves and reckless pop enthusiasm are traded for a sound that's less organic, more oddly constructed, and entirely appealing. The occasional groove appears ("High Roller"), but the album's real interest lies in listening as off-kilter pop formats crop up on each new track — not all of them work, but the majority manage to surprise the listener by winding up hugely appealing despite their apparent oddity. This sort of low-fi pop experimentalism has worked for a great number of other indie projects, and it certainly works for Wallpaper — some of their constructions actually rival the work of New Bad Things, which is quite an achievement.