The Ninth Wave - Never Crave Attention EP

Rating:

A step up from anything they’ve done before, ‘Never Crave Attention’ is the EP The Ninth Wave needed to make.

'Album' of 'the Week'

It takes time for a band to truly figure out who they are. Like a game of moving tracks, a matter of waiting for it all to line up and at that moment switch into something altogether more unstoppable - those early days of being in a band are all about discovery. The Ninth Wave have their manual laid out, a world of gravel streets and looming noir anthems that already sets them apart from most. Yet, while their debut EP was a welcome introduction, there was always this feeling that there was more underneath it all. ‘Never Crave Attention’, across four tracks, is the sound of The Ninth Wave clicking into gear with the sort of starter course that should be served up anywhere and everywhere.

While their previous EP was a mirage of different moves, ‘Never Crave Attention’ is emphatic in its ambition - refusing to let up in their enticing blend of The Cure meets Interpol. Everything is delivered for unbridled adoration, pure in their ambition that rings out and crashes on to each other with ‘New Kind Of Ego’ as its flag-bearing high. A wall of sound crashing down with ease, these aren’t just short nuggets of bliss, but heavyweight tales that unravel and blossom into pogoing anthems. ‘Swallow Me’ saunters and staggers with menacing power, while ‘We Can’t Go Anywhere Else’ builds from chiming chills to full-blown echoes of New Order if they whacked on eyeliner and coated themselves in vulnerable angst. It’s a mesmerising combination, which always reaches a knockout punch whatever direction The Ninth Wave look down.

A step up from anything they’ve done before, ‘Never Crave Attention’ is the EP The Ninth Wave needed to make. Enticing, unstoppable and taking no prisoners - it’s the sound of a band treading their own path in an increasingly copycat world. Jamie Muir