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The Wesleys
The Wesleys
Little Village - 2024
Michael Panontin
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The Wesleys half-flippantly dub their music "a li'l bit of this, a li'l bit of that". Which is revealing if you assume that 'this' refers to the manic drum-heavy indie singles of that C-86 eighties scene and 'that' checks off the rough-hewn pop of New Zealand's Flying Nun label. Add a bit of millennial NYC punk a la the Strokes and you've got a pretty good handle on the Wesleys' take on garage pop.
The group - guitarists William D'Amours and Henry Girard, bassist Quentin Chisolm and drummer Pablo Garcia - are just the latest iteration of the ever-fertile, and equally supportive, Montreal music world, a scene that seems to just get better and better. "Post-COVID, Montreal has really just been kind of exploding," Girard told Calgary's CJSW radio. "There's been all sorts of new bands to come up out of the pandemic, and it's beautiful to watch everybody help each other out."
The Wesleys' first full-length dropped in April 2024 and is without a doubt a step up from their already-impressive EP, Outside Voices. Like that earlier record, The Wesleys was self-recorded, "relatively quickly and just in our basement", Girard points out. Right from the get-go, as the drums and guitars on the lead-off track 'Make It My Way' start to kick in, you get the feeling that this is going to be one heck of a high-energy ride. Tracks like 'I've Been Waiting', the catchy '25' and the equally manic closer 'Death by the Bite' state that case rather well.
But there is a melodic side to The Wesleys as well, and it is especially evident on the jangly 'A Lot to Lose' and the accompanying animated video for it by prop, video and puppet artist Phil Osborn. Osborn was given plenty of artistic freedom ("We didn't give him much direction, preferring to tap into his creativity and let him chart his own course!") and the result certainly speaks for itself.
The Wesleys is self-assured, highly listenable and most definitely worth checking out.
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