Wallows are riding high on confidence and creativity with their third album ‘Model’, a lean, mean indie-pop machine that showcases their growth as a band.

Words: Abigail Firth.
Photos: Derek Bremner.
Grooming: Chloe Rose.

It’s a few days before they’re set to release their third album ‘Model’, and Wallows are holed up in a little Islington studio with Dork. Our shoot and chat are squeezed in between two album outstores on a trip so whistle-stop that we actually end up bringing the boys coffee on our way up to meet them before they head off to New York the next day (to their amusement at 4:20pm). 

It’s hard to tell whether it’s the jet lag or some cliché laidback California attitude, but Wallows are pretty relaxed about the many moving parts spinning around them; if anything, it’s that go-go-go lifestyle that’s influenced the sound and ethos of ‘Model’ more than anything else. 

“With this record, we were operating on instincts and this ‘first idea, best idea’ thing. That’s how we work,” explains Cole Preston, Wallows’ drummer (and the rest) and middle child. “But I think the foundation of it is that we’re just way more experienced. We are more comfortable in these scenarios, and because of that, we’re able to push ourselves forward and make something that sounds like who we are right now.”

‘Model’ crash lands into the start of summer with a decidedly more immediate sound, feel and approach. The boys came into its creation with the goal of making some leaner, meaner songs and achieve exactly that. There’s none of the fumbling self-discovery of debut ‘Nothing Happens’, nor any of the detours or much of the instrumental experimentation follow-up ‘Tell Me That It’s Over’ brought forth.

Instead, ‘Model’ coasts through a plethora of 2000s indie references throughout its pacy twelve tracks and winds up being, contrary to the title, a little bit imperfect.

“There’s definitely an irony to the title intentionally,” says frontman and baby of the band Dylan Minnette. “There’s plenty of reasons we could unpack, but that definitely applies” - there’s a very jet-lagged consideration of the word ‘applicable’ for a moment - “to the title and how the music is performed and recorded.”

“We didn’t have time to overthink things,” adds Braeden Lemasters, Wallows’ second-in-command and the eldest of the trio, “because we recorded for two months, and we recorded 25 songs. It’s kind of impossible to overthink that way because you’re just working on hyperspeed. As soon as you’re finished with one idea, you work on the next and then that space gives you the context when you return to it to see it in a different way, versus if you’re just constantly working on something for too long.”

As a result, the record cuts straight to the feeling. Riding high following their post-pandemic tour and