Wishy – Triple Seven | Album Review

Winspear

If one believes in numerology, a set of three sevens in a row is said to signify luck and spirituality. Also known as angel numbers, these repeating digits represent intuition and divine protection going all the way back to the turn of the century. Wishy seems to be a true believer of this phenomenon as they clench their significance wholeheartedly by naming their debut record Triple Seven. 

A lot of times, life is about timing. Whether you’re trying to achieve a goal, pursue a relationship, or revive a friendship, sometimes all each instance requires is the perfect moment. This proves true for singer-songwriters and guitarists Nina Pitchkites and Kevin Krauter, who attended the same high school in Indiana yet didn’t rekindle their friendship until later in life. The two initally sought to start a band together, but it wasn't their time yet. Krauter was in the synth-induced indie rock band Hoops, while Pitchkites was making feathery electro-pop under the name Push Pop. It wasn’t until Pitchkites moved from Philadelphia back to Indiana that this dream of uniting under the same name became a reality. 

Last year, Wishy came together officially, forming a Voltron-like quintet by bringing in drummer Connor Host, guitarist Dimitri Morris, and bassist Mitch Collins. With a lineup solidified, the band released two EPs in 2023, and while both excelled at mixing sugary indie pop with college rock jangle, it felt like the band members were still exploring what sound worked best for them as they developed their chemistry. Through each guitar riff and snare hit, they got closer to the music they envisioned creating. Now comes their debut full-length, and it's safe to say the band found themselves executing a well-thought-out alternative rock experience, delivered with the confidence of Larry Bird shooting jump shots in his backyard. 

As the band explored their sound, what emerged from those EP sessions was a nostalgic turn to the past, influenced by bands that both Krauter and Pitchkites cite admiration for like The Sundays and My Bloody Valentine. For those tapped into the scene, various 90s styles from shoegaze and slacker rock to dream pop and “nu grunge” is a lane that’s been carved out by what feels like a trillion other bands right now, but Wishy are students of their craft, and this is more than just emulation. These five musicians have meticulously studied the songs of yesteryear and noticed that melodies are the secret sauce. Whether sung by Krauter or Pitchkites, each song boasts a hook specifically designed to give the listener earwormy jams to sing along to. 

The debut single, “Love On The Outside,” packs a wallop of a punch with a chorus that will be stuck in your head like Double Mint gum. Krauter belts out, “Are you down? / Are you free? / I’m talking ‘bout love on the outside.” The song itself is pulsatingly energetic and shows that Wishy has legitimate star potential by delivering an indie-pop banger right out of the gates. On the record's second single, Pitchkites brings her conversational delivery to the table in the dream pop song “Triple Seven,” with airy, pillowy vocals that ride the 90s revivalist wave. 

The sound of Triple Seven floats in and out from various 90s and 2000s staples, from touches of fuzzy shoegaze to bright power-pop and even a pinch of grunge. The band never stays in one lane too long before shifting to the next, making the experience of listening to the album more like flipping through radio stations in your bedroom as a kid, whisked away at the whim of whatever was playing across the airwaves. The addition of Collins and Morris makes this a four-person guitar band that is stacked high and full of growling guitars while turning up the fuzz another decibel or two. Wishy has officially entered into a space I like to call "Noise Ordinance Rock," which is a specific category set for bands that make music designed to be played at the highest octave possible. For example, think of albums in the vein of Soundgarden's Superunkown or Ovlov's TRU. If the police or a surly neighbor aren’t banging on your door to turn the volume down, then you aren’t listening to the album correctly. 

Being a 90s revivalist, there’s a fine line you have to walk between ripping off your heroes and paying homage to the music that inspired you. Wishy executes the latter with bullseye-like precision, and there’s no greater example than “Little While.” The song is a blend of shoegaze and dream pop that’s exciting and soothing, reminiscent of Souvlaki-era Slowdive. Pitchkites delivers another outstanding performance with passionate, velvety-soft vocals as she depicts the feeling of continuously missing someone she cares deeply about, singing, “I’m spread too thin, I can’t see you.” 

At the end of the album, “Spit” roars to life with a riff worthy of Golden Era Smashing Pumpkins. The song comes as a jubilant Monster Energy Drink-style jolt at the very end of the story that helps send Triple Seven off with a proper closer. It’s impossible not to get wrapped up in, and the instrumental comes packed with so much forward momentum that you might find yourself hanging on expectantly waiting for the next beat. It feels like Wishy has anywhere and everywhere to go from here. 

The band put all their chips on the table with this record, joining together for a jackpot in a genre that many don’t make it out of. In the cranked-up guitar pedal opener, “Sick Sweet,” Krauter sings, “Well it’s a sick sweet life, and I’m gambling it all tonight,” portraying a nothing-to-lose attitude as if he is just happy to play anywhere with his friends. The genesis of Wishy, whether it be luck or fate, doesn’t matter because luck is where skill meets opportunity, and there is no fate but what they made from themselves. 

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David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He's also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.

Endswell – Keepsake | EP Review

Thumbs Up Records

I have often wondered if, in my 23 years of life, I would find myself feeling some sense of nostalgia. After all, I’m just a kid who grew up too quickly and never really got the chance to feel like they were a kid. How could I yearn for a simpler time if things were never that simple? It turns out the answer was contained within the new Endswell EP, Keepsake. The moment the first song came on and that sample from Ocarina of Time played, I was transported back to my childhood friend’s basement with its white walls, tattered leather couch, concrete floor, and long-forgotten pool table. Suddenly, I’m sitting there on that concrete floor, blowing on an N64 cartridge, getting ready to transport myself back into Hyrule once again. Although that kid had to grow up and go through this primordial hell we call existence. Endswell takes this feeling of childhood naivety fading into adulthood and bottles it up on their debut EP through percussive and riff-heavy tunes. 

For those who aren’t in the know, Endswell is something of a DIY supergroup from Madison, Wisconsin, comprised of guitarist Kyle Kinney (Excuse Me, Who Are You?), bassist Luke Ferkovich (Kule), and guitarist Louie Barlaw (Tiny Voices). Rounding this out, you have drummer Alan Morris (who also mixed and mastered the EP), and centerstage, you have vocalist Maxwell Culver at the heart of this project, delivering screams and emotional wails in equal measure.

Until the release of this EP early on in the summer, Endswell only had one song released: a single mix of “Heart Container,” which both acted as an introduction to the band and as proof of concept for the group while they honed this collection of music. Keepsake is made up of four different tracks, each approaching transitory ideas like growing up, moving on, experiencing loss, and weathering heartbreak. The themes are addressed through a mix of traditional singing and screamed vocals, all layered over intricate guitar parts. The riffs are consistently heavy and, in some ways, almost clash with the lyrics as they offer a danceable counterpoint to some of the harsher themes found in the songwriting. This dissonance creates an interesting conflict as you might find yourself compelled to dance, even as Culver is screaming lyrics like “I just feel like shit.” 

As I was listening to Keepsake, I kept finding myself drawn to the drumming, which I would argue is the best part of this EP. Musically, I will admit my knowledge of drum techniques and terminology is limited, but I am a rhythm dork, and I couldn’t help but get caught up again and again in these mesmerizing drum parts.

The EP begins with the title track, and the whole thing kicks off with that aforementioned sample from Ocarina of Time that plays whenever you open a chest in the game. This sample builds and then seamlessly blends as the guitars and drums kick in, and as the fanfare leads to post-hardcore riffage, you can practically see the pit opening. This song explores the theme of not being enough for someone, with the phrase “Keepsake” encapsulating the feeling of being a trinket thrown on a shelf and forgotten until someone cares to remember you. One of the stand-out lines in the song is, “I’m only as nostalgic as you make me / and I break easily.” At some point, we have all fallen in love with someone or something that didn’t give us that same love back, and this song captures that feeling in heartbreaking beauty.

If “Keepsake” is someone trying hard to hold onto something they love, then “Cruise Control” is learning to accept that, at some point, you have to walk away and give up on someone you once loved. The lyrics absolutely lock in on this theme as Culver wails out the lines, “Sometimes the people you know / become strangers you love / become people you wish / you never knew at all.” We are all cursed with forcing ourselves to forget the people we once shared our lives with. Sometimes, we have to watch someone change and become different from the person we initially met, and it hurts. The song handles this nuance very well, with an almost nostalgic feeling baked into the guitars, adding to the dissonance between the music and lyrics. 

The penultimate track of the EP is a new rendition of “Heart Container.” The biggest difference between the single mix and the EP version is that there is a stronger sense of production that makes the song fit in better sonically with the rest of the tracks on this release. The mix also features more of a focus on the guitars and puts the vocals a little lower in the mix, which creates a nice wall of noise. It almost feels like Culver is drowning in the sea of sound and loss as he yearns for things to be what they once were. This track exists as the mid-point of the release and quickly grabs the listener’s attention with another Ocarina of Time sample that perfectly sets up the most energetic and angry song on the EP.

The final track, “Spirit Blues,” is an anthem about trying to be better, whether successful or not (and mostly not), knowing that you at least tried. This is the acceptance song that can only come after experiencing all the strife found throughout the preceding tracks. Whether you like it or not, eventually, you have to admit to yourself that you are going to die, and so will the things in your life. At some point, that kid playing those video games on the concrete floor in the basement has to turn off the old CRT and walk upstairs into the real world. Things won’t ever be perfect, and most of the time, they’ll never be what you wanted, and that just has to be okay. 

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Ben Parker is an emo kid from a small town in Indiana who has spent a little too much time reflecting on life. Ben is a poet and has written about topics ranging from death to addiction to that feeling when you meet someone, and once you part, you realize you’ll never speak again. Ben can be found at @Benyamin_Parker on all social media.

Abel – Dizzy Spell | Album Review

Candlepin Records + Julia’s War

Hailing from Columbus, OH, up-and-coming punk band Abel make what they describe as “loud guitar music for quiet people.” True to their word, their new record, Dizzy Spell, delivers songs that are always noisy and sincere, never slick. The music video for the album’s lead single is full of dirt biking and fireworks after dark, creating a vibe that is both small-town America and post-apocalyptic science fiction alike. The video is a good metonym for the energy of Dizzy Spell as a whole; it can be explosive like a Roman candle or quietly eerie, like the sensation of standing alone in a field at nightfall.

The group’s new record strikes upon the central challenge of being a shoegaze band in a growing enclave of similar sounds. Carving out a space in the crowded thicket of the shoegaze scene is intimidating, and Abel has their work cut out for them. At the outset of the record, “Dust II” sounds like My Bloody Valentine mixed with razor wire; I jotted down “swerving car vibes” in my notes on my first listen.

But Abel’s sound is fully displayed on “Rut,” with sound waves gushing and flushing. It is uptempo, with a surprising summery shimmer and one hell of a guitar solo. While slightly reminiscent of other contemporary shoegaze bands (e.g., Wednesday and Hotline TNT), Abel distinguishes themselves with fiercely honest lyrics and a gritty lo-fi sound. The jangles reach discordant new depths on “Hexed,” yet there are no false notes; the previously present tightness relaxes, and the chorusing voices sound almost fugue-like. There is a sweet nostalgia to many of the songs; “Occupied” gave me a sudden flashback to watching bands playing in basement shows put on my college radio station, with dizzy forays into guitar fuzz.

“We All Go To Heaven” features a crunchy riff, delicious! In a moment, it becomes suddenly spare, but still fuzzy. The lyrics are scarcely audible over the glare, but they carry words of quiet despair. And here, we begin to see a sharper, sadder edge to the album. With a feature from fellow Columbus band Villagerrr on “Placebo,” the band sings about the agony of home: “My sister can’t call me anymore / She hates that I live so far away / But I can’t live if I don’t stay away.”

The feelings of frustrated youthfulness culminate in the album’s apocalyptic closer, “Wanna,” parsing the pain of living and dying with an almost adolescent intensity. This song, and the record as a whole, hits upon a surprisingly tender final note; “I’ll walk across the country / to make you feel loved again.” It requires a certain moral courage to confront the fear of death and a boldness to be honest about it. Abel, with gutsy musical drive mixed with Midwestern sincerity, shows both and closes the album perfectly.

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Elizabeth is a writer from Northern Nevada.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Flight b741 | Album Review

p(doom) records

Ben Franklin once said, “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and King Gizzard,” and I just think that’s beautiful.

Perpetually booked and busy, Aussie psych-rock royalty King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are back with their 26th record, Flight b741. After a run of über-conceptual albums revolving around everything from pure-synth analog experimentation (The Silver Cord) to death metal climate criticism (PetroDragonic Apocalypse), their first LP of 2024 sees the sextet kick back and try not to take things so seriously. Leaning into a ‘friends round the campfire’ approach, the songs on Flight b741 were merely loose ideas before the group went into the studio. In true Gizz fashion, the jams came naturally, with Stu Mackenzie saying, “The best takes were always the ones where we were winging it pretty significantly.” Once they got to the lyrics, all six members chimed in with their ideas, each riffing off what their bandmates contributed. To put the cherry on top of the whole ‘casual jam with friends’ vibe they created, the group decided that each member would sing the lines they wrote, creating a perpetual passing of the mic that exists across the whole record. Every single song on Flight b741 has all six members on vocals, a role previously only credited to Mackenzie (and occasionally a few others) on past releases. 

Flight b741 is the musical equivalent of laughing with your friends, taking turns adding to the joke to make the group crack up even harder. Sometimes that laughter is literal (multiple lines in “Rats In The Sky” made me LOL IRL, but I’ll get to that later), and other times, it’s unexpectedly deep and introspective, or musically astounding. Every aspect of the album—from the various levels of crispiness on the vocals and guitars to the Gizz-ified renditions of nearly every subgenre of ‘70s rock to the persistent mentions of planes and flying and animals—is riffed and expanded upon to the point where you wonder if this is all actually intentional. You wonder if this album not having a concept is the concept. Or is it just impossible for King Gizz to come together and not end up with a narrative for any group of songs they create? In their “Making Of” mini-doc that dropped on YouTube a few weeks ago, we see the band working through song structure, huddling around vocal mics, and seemingly making it up as they went along. But we also see them all in matching jumpsuits, in a room painted sky blue with white sound absorber clouds scattered across the walls, singing about flying in the sky and exploring its expanses. Is the journey they’re continually singing about the journey of creating this album?

While we may never know the truth behind Flight b741’s genesis, it’s clear King Gizzard had a vision for the sound they were going for with this record: good old-fashioned rock and roll. The sextet tackles some of the most iconic niches of ‘70s rock, keeping the record varied and engaging from song to song. Album opener “Mirage City” kicks off with a screech of intensity before veering into a pared-back, twangy Allman Brothers Americana jam. “Antarctica,” the grooved-out surf rock song about a tundra, features one of the most unexpectedly deep-fried vocal moments in the Gizz discography (Stu’s euphoric, warbled “Put it on ice” belt that comes at the end of the track) that left my brain bouncing off the walls of my skull. 

The group even takes surf rock one step further on the title track, “Flight b741,” using vibey, Jimmy Buffet-meets-Beach-Boys-meets-Beatles textures and an unconventional song structure to have their own personal “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” moment. There’s also the most unserious, Zappa-esque doo-wap blues on tracks like “Rats In the Sky” and “Le Risque,” with the latter being the most straightforwardly bluesy. Featuring drummer Michael “Cavs” Cavanagh on vocals for the first time ever, “Le Risque” was the first single to kick off this new era for the band. The song’s airplane hangar-set music video shows the group in the same jumpsuits we see throughout their mini-doc, with Ambrose Kenny-Smith serving up his usual deranged realness and intense commitment to the bit, straight from the cockpit of a jet. 

King Gizz thrash out on “Field Of Vision,” arguably the ‘hardest’ song on the album, with a similar pulsing intensity as Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild,” the biker rock track to end all biker rock tracks. The dueling guitars in the solo break have some of the crunchiest tones and most explosive harmonies, with Mackenzie and Joey Walker using every ounce of power their feeble solid state amps had in them. Amby’s harmonica adds that bit of hick flair you’d expect in any kind of biker rock, taking the intensity of the guitars to another level. I really am obsessed with the riffs on this one, especially at the breakdown right before the end; it’s even more moving slowed down, and flexes some ‘90s shoegaze tones. It’s one of my favorite parts of the album because it sneaks up on you emotionally, offering a chance to breathe before being propelled into the song’s wall-punch-inducing final stretch. 

On the 8-minute closer “Daily Blues” (uncharacteristically the longest song on this album), there’s enough space for a back-and-forth between a racing 4x4 and its half-time counterpart. It’s not necessarily changing the meter, but changing the entire feel of the song between these two sections, basically all depending on what Cavs was doing behind the kit. “Daily Blues” is the Summer of Love track: using the chorus to talk about empathy in terms of who is or isn’t “getting fucked up daily” (by life) while also using the verses to say some pretty existential things about religion (“Faith only binds ideology” and “Is it fair to be born into belief?” specifically). This mix of fun and depth is a sneaky presence across the record, at times hiding behind the blown-out guitars, screeching harmonica, and gritty keys.

I expect to be blown away by at least one musical choice every time I listen to a new King Gizz song, and the songs across Flight b741 are no exception. There’s no doubt this album is fun to listen to in the good old-fashioned musical sense, but I wasn’t expecting the lyrics to take me out the way they have. I was only halfway through the opener before I realized I was missing out if I wasn’t reading the liner notes along with every song (something I recommend, nay, demand, everyone does with this album at least once). Every lyric is intricate, creative, and deliberate, bouncing off the next in perfect cohesion. It makes you forget that they were puzzle-pieced together by all six band members in real-time. From the play on idioms ‘casting pearls before swine,’ and ‘when pigs fly’ on “Hog Calling Contest” to the various POVs taken across the record (birds, pigs, a drunk pilot), what King Gizz lacked in preparation, they made up for in pure wit. 

The lyrics throughout Flight b741 are either so deep and intense they have the potential to shift your entire worldview or so unserious you wonder if this was all one big joke to them. Between posing a question like “What would it mean to be a beam traveling like lightning?” on opener “Mirage City,” to coherently cramming in every word of “The splatter of the engine and the creaking of the skeleton, composing a requiem / I’m frightened” on a verse of “Flight b741,” you’d think Gizz were contemplating the meaning of life every time they picked up their instruments. But then, in the same song, you’ll hear a line like “How are we floating here? This makes no sense; I wanna go home.” The switch sometimes even happens in the same line, like “Corneal conditions got me scrutinizing / I’m feelin’ like a horse on Ket” on “Field of Vision.” Who would put two things like that in the same lyric? It’s so preposterous that it works. 

One of the silliest songs on the record, which also happens to be my favorite, is the penultimate track, “Rats in the Sky.” Before listening to it, the title reminded me of how my dad calls every seagull he sees ‘rats with wings.’ In my head, I thought, “Ha ha, what if they wrote a song about seagulls?” but a few moments after pressing play, I thought, “Wait, did they write a song about seagulls?” and then a few seconds later I thought, “Did they write this song from the point of view of a seagull?” And yeah, after listening a few hundred times, I think they did. The tempo alone gives me that same pseudo-anxiety the seagulls in Finding Nemo gave me when I was four years old. Everything is staccato to the max, making it impossible not to bop your head and snap along. The whole song feels like going on a tangent and continually having to be reminded of what you were talking about, signaled by the hook in the chorus acting as the track’s anchor. It also just has some of the funniest lyrics I’ve ever heard:

• “My crumb kingdom / And doesn’t Planet Earth look good from this perch?” 

• “Am I a pet, or is this man trying to kill me?” 

• “Eat, fly, survive”

• “The garbage man knows we’re a symbiotic duo” 

• “Bread crusts are my banquet / Puddles are my wine,” 

Like, THEIR MINDS!!! NO ONE IS BRAVE ENOUGH TO COMMIT TO A BIT LIKE THEY DO. And for those reasons, this is the best song on the album to me. End tangent.

On the whole, Flight b741 continues to back up my opinion that King Gizzard is one of the most impressive bands of the last 15 years. They’ve been able to chameleon between genres, techniques, and concepts while producing at a high quality AND quantity (again, this is their 26th album), all while simply enjoying the moment and going full-force into whatever’s inspiring them at any given time. Flight b741 cements the fact that King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is more or less a well-oiled machine at this point, and there’s not much that could stop their creative juices from flowing in any direction they please. Not knowing which path they’ll take for album 27 is all part of the fun.

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Cassidy is a music writer and cultural researcher currently based in Brooklyn. She loves many things, including but not limited to rabbit holes, Caroline Polachek, blueberry pancakes, her cat Seamus, and adding to her record collection. She is on Twitter @cassidynicolee_, and you can check out more of her writing on Medium. 

Ogbert the Nerd – What You Want | Album Review

Self-released

Last summer, I got my first tattoo in my kitchen, stick n’ poked by my boss’s boyfriend. It was a whirlwind decision because, in two weeks, I’d be on a plane to Kansas for the first time since coming out as trans and I needed a sigil to ground me in my identity while surrounded by friends and family who still viewed me as that boy they knew. Across my bicep (a position chosen specifically for its visibility) is Peppermint Patty saying, “I’m not Charlie Brown,” my go-to reply for when my mom would tell me, “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.” I wanted it to be the first thing she noticed when she picked me up from the airport. A defiant statement that I’m not the little boy she made promise would never change.

Ogbert the Nerd, New Jersey’s only emo band, have finally followed up their masterpiece of a debut, I Don’t Hate You, a record full of songs assuaging others, with a record that is a defiant statement of autonomy. The group’s sophomore album, What You Want, is the sound of accepting that failing others’ expectations is okay if it’s in the pursuit of self-actualization. From “drag around my body just to show that I cared” to “they’re gonna cut my head off for the antlers” and “I knew your life’s a candy apple filled with razor blades, but I’d bite if offered every time,” frontperson Madison James sings with a sense of resignation that the only way to get love is to take your lumps… But the horror of conditional love is that you’re always coming up short. 

That feeling is what makes the chorus of “Purple Roses” hit so hard. When James screams, “I’m the patterns on the hallway floors repeating, but I’m always short a tile,” it acts as a reminder that the person you truly are will keep pulling you away from achieving the status others set out for you. I could never be the All-American my parents dreamed of when the girl I’ve always been cowered in the darkest parts of my brain. What finally tipped me over the edge was realizing I was killing myself by living a lie, as James sings on the last line, “‘cause if I killed myself like I wanted to, it’s how you’d remember me.” When I finally came out to my parents, it was because I didn’t want to die without them knowing I wasn’t just a failure of their expectations.

Underneath all these lyrics of conditional love are instrumentals that evoke the feeling of throwing a tantrum with hopes to be seen, even if it means being hated. “Brunson Lied” rushes to collapse into the fretboard-scrambling riffs of “Bike Cops.” The acoustic break on “Purple Roses” is a prelude to the sighing guitar of “Twelve Dollar Snickers.” What makes the centerpiece of the record, the instant classic “Just Like Always,” so fucking beautiful is that it marries the most nostalgic melody and gang vocals with the eggshell-thin illusions of what love means shattering. Since transitioning, anytime my parents tell me they love me or are proud of me, I feel skeptical of who they’re saying it to. Do they like what’s in front of them? Or just how they see me? When What You Want draws to a close on “Dragon Song,” it is with the realization that after all the effort put in to maintain conditional relationships, all of it will crumble. The song fades, and all that is left is yourself. 

There’s a famous clip from an Embrace show of Ian Mackaye calling out Thrasher for labeling the Revolution Summer bands as emo-core, saying it’s “the stupidest fucking thing,” describing these bands “as if hardcore wasn’t emotional to begin with.” That may have been an apt complaint for the first wave, but now in the fifth wave, we see emo as distinct from hardcore, punk, and indie rock for how the practitioners of the genre are aiming to create a state of emotional exultation in their audience. I didn’t listen to “Bike Cops” 30 times in a row earlier this year because I was wallowing over feeling unloved by my parents; I stuck it on repeat because the horns sighing in the background of the mix make me feel like I’m resigned to wasting time, but when James screams  “please gouge your fucking eyes / so you can see it the way I see it” I feel like I can make it. Each time I’ve heard the song live it is a cathartic surge of joy for being alive. 

Ogbert the Nerd can’t make it better, no emo band can, but What You Want can be a guiding star, a reminder to be what you want.

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Lillian Weber is a fake librarian in NYC. She writes about gender, music, and other inane thoughts on her substack, all my selves aligned. You can follow her burner account on twitter @Lilymweber.