Band:	Without Waves
Album:	Comedian
Style:	Experimental, Progressive metal
Release date:	March 2022

01. Good Grief
02. Animal Kingdom
03. Algorithm
04. Set & Setting
05. Sleep Deep
06. Do What Scares You
07. Sleight In Shadows
08. Day 15
09. Worlds Apart
10. Seven

Without waves, the layers of the ocean would become stagnant and unconducive to life. However, Without Waves by no means sound stagnant.

Coming from Chicago, Without Waves return with their first album in five years. Comedian is described by the band as channeling a thread of anxiety that is representative of the experiences the band have gone through in the years since Lunar, and the frenetic energy of the music found on this new album is reflective of that. On my early playthroughs of Comedian, I found myself categorizing it as a mathcore album, and in part it is; however, arguably the biggest name in mathcore, The Dillinger Escape Plan, made clear their appreciation for alternative metal, particularly Faith No More (exemplified by Mike Patton appearing on one of their records), and Without Waves similarly aim to bridge the two styles.

The mathcore-oriented tracks are mainly focused towards the beginning of the record. The panic chords and frenzied drumming on “Animal Kingdom”, as well as the technical guitar runs during its chorus, assault listeners with chaotic noise, while “.algorithm” progresses from a dirty bass-driven opening to vicious, cacophonic collisions of sound. However, these songs find ways to integrate the aforementioned alt-metal influences, whether it’s the grungy bridge of “Animal Kingdom” or the punky grooves on “.algorithm”. Then you have a song like “Good Grief”, which kicks the album off with an insidious, convoluted groove before slipping between manic mathcore blasts and Patton-inspired vocal hooks. It’s a fusion of sounds that Dillinger demonstrated works over a decade ago, and Without Waves show that it still works today.

On top of these two clashing styles, there’s also a progressive mindset to the songwriting at times on Comedian; there’s multiple songs over 7 minutes here, all of which branch out in intriguing ways. “Set & Setting” has a seductive soft mid-section that slips into a gnarly complex groove, whereas “Do What Scares You” takes things in an even more mellow and melodic direction for an extended period of time between the abrasive sections bookending the track. Rounding off the album, “Seven” largely eschews heaviness, with Patton-esque vocals over moody soundscapes and delicate clean guitar for the longest time before a brief blast of mathy djent. Other songs that commit even more fully to the lighter end of the musical spectrum are “Day 15”, a nice subdued cut that is driven by impressive percussion, and “Worlds Apart”, an acoustic sing-along with a similar energy to Between The Buried And Me’s “Desert Of Song”.

As for how I enjoy these fusion of styles, on the one hand, the fact that I’ve made it to a dozen playthroughs of the album before writing this review probably makes it clear that I found it to be easily replayable; the mixture of frenetic aggression and mainstream-conscious melody works nicely, and Without Waves are confident about how best to combine them. On the flip side, I can’t say it’s an album that’s ever necessarily grabbed my attention. There’s parts of the album that stand out positively for me, including the moody Dillinger moments and heavy outro of “Good Grief”, the melodic progression and use of an eerie repeating motif in “Do What Scares You” and the measured development of “Seven”; at the same time, I can’t say any of these, or anything from the rest of the record, particularly stays with me when the album ends. Additionally, there’s enough moments that I find at least somewhat irritating, including the spoken word parts during “.algorithm” and the chorus of “Set & Setting”, that this lack of true killer moments becomes more problematic.

Still, while it’s not an album I can claim to be overly excited by, Comedian is an album with a general good level of quality and a successful genre fusion that allows Without Waves to stand out quite effectively. I can hear enough in Comedian to believe that a Without Waves album could click strongly with me in future, even if it’s not this one.