If you’re a bit embarrassed to admit it’s not many, I have good news for you: “Aesop”, the opening song on The Wulongs' debut album Videodrome, will pick you up and whisk you away in less than ten.
Sounding like a long-lost My Bloody Valentine track circa just before Isn’t Anything, it’s all frantic strumming and heart-tugging harmonies. After the 2 minutes and 54 seconds have flashed by, only a cold and jaded cynic wouldn’t be smitten by the sheer fresh-faced joyous rush of it all.
Rev (guitar), Sophie (drums), and Omaika (bass) make up Japan’s The Wulongs. They are so new the net is almost empty of info, and their first Instagram post appears to have gone up in April.
Yes, this is a band working within familiar indie-pop territory, wandering into dream pop and adding a bit of shoegaze here and there, yet they still succeed in two crucial areas. One – and it’s important – they’ve written some great tunes, a key factor that, strangely, many overlook or are simply incapable of.
Secondly, Rev, Sophie and Omaika successfully stamp their own identity onto these songs and add lots of nice sonic detail to keep you paying attention, stuff like the melodic background swirl that ebbs and flows throughout the joyously exultant “Stargazer”, or the irresistible stop-start tumble that introduces the blazing title track.
Song after song reassuringly displays the quirky little touches that hold your interest and make you want to press replay. The woozy “Fertile” sinks its claws via guitars that push and pull and a bass that lurks in the background, stepping out just enough to steer the track towards the zone of melancholy.
Late in the album, they even throw in the two-minute instrumental drone-scape that is “Superfluity", just to show this isn’t all sweetness, light, and all things nice. But it’s “You’ll Fit It”, the super-endearing acoustic kiss-goodbye, that occupies the final minute of Videodrome’s exactly judged run-time.
The Wulongs have quietly appeared and, without fuss, given us a seemingly effortless, modern, genre classic.
