Walleater are a young band from Leeds in the UK and, interestingly enough, they take their inspiration from mid 1990s Seattle. Yes, Walleater are a grunge band in the 21st Century.
I lived through Grunge the first time, and it was awesome! Chubby white guys with long hair and flannel shirts were cool for a brief while... Hmm. I don't currently own a flannel shirt. Maybe i should go and buy one, in order to be ready for the resurgence of this movement.
All fashion-related joking aside, Walleater do a great job with this sound. The voice is quiet and kind of mopey, often lost in the flurry of guitar work, which is distorted and grinding. The rhythms are pretty straight-forward rock and roll. The overall effect is catchy and fun, and these guys can write a pop song with a hummable melody and a nice head-banging chorus. I think that Walleater would have had big radio hits in 1997, maybe toured with Soundgarden, dated Hollywood actresses who were trying to look cool...
The A-side to this single is Can You Feel My Love?. Yeah, it's a love song, a radio-friendly rock tune about love, longing, and loneliness with a guitar wallowing in tremolo under a bright, shiny level of production. This is a lovely happy tune.
B-side Lifeline is a really similar sort of song, only a little catchier. The chorus isn’t as sing-along-able, but the guitar riffing here is amazing, the two layers sliding against each other with the voice bellowing along on the chorus.
This is a pretty fun single. Old grunge fans like me will really want to check this out.
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