Webbed Wing – Vol. III | Album Review

Memory Music

No matter how many parties you attend, vacations you plan, or hours you spend napping under a blue sky, there’s always a point in the summer when the sun’s glow turns into sunburns. Suddenly, the season’s promise becomes covered in sweat and mosquito bites. The once-endless days that stretched before you are now hazy nights long behind you. When the sun goes down, it’s all briefly too much: too hot, too humid, the day was too long, and oh yeah, are my friends, like, mad at me or something? Did I suck at that party I just left? Why is the bar always so crowded? It's like 100 degrees out. Do I just need to drink water or something? The overwhelming nature of the season sets as fast and low as a sudden summer storm cloud.

With guitars that test how high your car speakers can go and lyrics that dictate a spiraling internal monologue, Superheaven’s Taylor Madison and Jake Clarke are back with Mike Paulshock for Webbed Wing’s loudest project yet, Vol. III. The group’s third album solidifies the genre-melding music Webbed Wing is best at–combining garage grunge, 90s alt-radio rock, and fuzzed-out country with their signature guitar shredding. Through ten tracks, Vol. III, soundtracks that looming feeling that you did something wrong at a house party, and also maybe your whole life, while you sit on a plastic lawn chair in jorts. 

If you weren’t ready to rock out with the album’s opener, “Further,” you have about two seconds to brace yourself before “Tortuga” kicks in. The chords hang low, surrounded by static, as Madison laments the bitter feeling that he drags the people around him down. This is a common thread throughout the album, a near-obsessive worry about how others might see you–not how they actually criticize you, but how you think they might. Through the song, the pang of insecurity winds through the guitar strings as the opening static builds into the first livewire solo of the album. The repeated lyrics fold into the melody as the guitar soars and dives in a way that feels almost improvised if it wasn’t so precise. The solo is full of frustration but pushes forward, ultimately crossing the finish line of the impossible race the lyrics describe.

If “Further” was a race, then “So It Goes” is an all-out sprint. It’s the music for a montage at a particularly frustrating part of a movie, and it’s the song that will make you jump at a show. The track feels chasmic as it repeats the universal conclusion, “You’re never gonna get what you feel like you’re owed.” While in other bands this might be a particularly grim lyric, spiteful even, it’s not with Webbed Wing. Instead, it’s factual; it’s just a reality-based observation. The band threads this declaration through the song and ties it together with a relentlessly heavy drum beat, delivering a crushing weight before a brief lull.

The final hum of “So It Goes” feeds directly into “Hero’s Death” – the closest Vol. III ever gets to a breather. The song diverts from the cannonballing drums and pick slides for quieter introspection, allowing the audience a brief period of reflection now that they’ve reached the halfway point. It sits amongst other recent ballad breaks like Militarie Gun’s “See You Around” or Liquid Mike’s “Am,” and its twang feels evocative of Ratboys’ “Black Earth, WI.” While other songs on the album use indirectness to convey their observations, this one looks the listener straight on and relies on layers of self-doubt combined with tongue-in-cheek overconfidence to protect itself from vulnerability. While the personal lyrics toe the line between humor and honesty, the outrageous desires laid out in the lyrics meet the sound, creating a huge and spiraling song. After sitting on your roof in a panic about how weird the summer has been, it’s the equivalent of tipping your head back, breathing in the night air, and staring at the stars sprawling across the sky. It’s not a solution, but it’s a break.

Past an always-appreciated whistle break in “Change Me,” the Nashville keyboard in “I Shared a Cell,” and the psychedelia-infused riffs of “Take It From Me” are the final barnstormers of the album. Vol. III (and Webbed Wing generally) is, first and foremost, a necessary case study on why guitars are the coolest thing in the world, and “Where Mortal Men Dare Not Tread” is the album’s best example. It’s a stoner rock instrumental track that digs its roots deep and spirals up, big and bold, casting a shadow on the rest of the songs. It looms, it sneers, it has a harmonica. Fueled by brash kinetic energy, it reminds me of the relentless buzz of cicadas on a summer night and the feeling that the night sky that briefly offered solace might crash down around you at any moment. 

The album ends on “My Front Door,” the last chance for Webbed Wing to throw in everything they have. The closer takes several turns, switching between the final song a radio station DJ might play before their shift ends and the encore a beloved country act would break out at the end of a festival after the amps have already been humming with hours of electricity. But its finality is apparent as it lulls the album to a natural close. Between a stadium drumbeat, a brief bass solo, and guitar riffs outrunning the rest of the song, “My Front Door” feels like the sun is slowly coming up on the horizon. 

Every weird, gross summer night will end eventually, and the sun will come up. That doesn’t mean that things that ignited exhaustion are suddenly gone; it’s just an assurance that there will always be another day. Similarly, Webbed Wing is not in the business of just saying it’ll be fine, it will happen, and it will eventually be over, and it might happen again. So, unstick your thighs from that lawn chair, turn off the porch light, and call it a night. 


Caro Alt’s (she/her) favorite thing in the world is probably collecting CDs. Caro is from New Orleans, Louisiana and spends her time not sorting her CD collection even though she really, really needs to.

Webbed Wing – Right After I Smoke This... | EP Review

Memory Music

Webbed Wing makes loud ass rock music. Led by singer and songwriter Taylor Madison, the band has surprise released a new EP today titled Right After I Smoke This… In only seven minutes, the Philadelphia three-piece manages to deliver three songs that are filled with hooks, riffs, and infectious power pop energy. If you close your eyes really tight, you’ll think you’ve been transported back to the mid-aughts, and you can hear them slotted between Third Eye Blind and Switchfoot on your local alt-rock station. It’s not hyperbolic to mention the group alongside such acts because these songs are absolutely bulletproof. 

Medication” gets things started with a bang as Madison declares that he is in a rut saying, “I’ve been avoiding all my problems, I can’t move forward.” Moments of apathy ring throughout each track as Madison looks for ways to get out of the situation he’s in, but the solution always feels just out of reach. The darkly humorous “Sure Could Use A Friend” finds Madison getting in his own way as he claims that he’ll get his life moving, but only after he lights one up for old times’ sake. He’s procrastinating adulthood, but he’s sick and tired of being down on himself. On “I’m Feelin Alive,” Madison breaks free from his dark thoughts as he wonders how to “keep these feelings awake, and the other ones asleep?”

These songs epitomize the old “spoonful of sugar” notion as the band candy coats each one in deafening guitars and punchy drums. Each hook has “lead single” written on it, and if it wasn’t for Madison’s vocals being front and center, then you might mistake them for cheerful love songs. Sonically, “Sure Could Use A Friend” is a real stand-out here. Accompanied by a soulful twang, Webbed Wing are in full Lemonheads worship mode on this song, but they don’t let their influences get the best of them. “Medication” and “I’m Feelin Alive” are both straight-ahead guitar rock bangers with no superfluous frills. 

Right After I Smoke This… might find Webbed Wing in between albums, but that doesn’t mean they’re motionless. With the band about to embark on a nationwide tour with Drug Church, Prince Daddy, and Anxious, they’re likely about to earn themselves many new fans, and rightfully so. Proof that sometimes three songs and less than ten minutes is all you need to get your point across.


Connor lives in Emeryville with his partner and their cat and dog, Toni and Hachi. Connor is a student at San Francisco State University and is working toward becoming a community college professor. When he isn’t listening to music or writing about killer riffs, Connor is obsessing over coffee and sandwiches.