There was a time in the offices of Sub Pop Records when they strictly carried the flag of their little corner in the Pacific Northwest. If an electro-pop act like Niki and the Dove sent its demos to the fabled Seattle label back in, say, 1989, chances are the tapes would have been returned to them in a sandwich baggie smashed into five easy pieces.
Indeed, Sub Pop has spent the last two decades diversifying its roster enough to include such bold new voices beyond the realms of that classic Washington sound such as Low, Shabazz Palaces and Daughn Gibson. But with the intrastate signing of Olympia’s Strange Wilds, it is great to see them seeding talent locally once again. And with their excellent full-length debut, this savage young trio offers a stiff reminder of those bygone halcyon days when Chad Channing drummed for Nirvana instead of Dave Grohl.
But while the barbed, razor-sharp riffs and tightrope bass thuds of Bleach largely inform the scrappy nature of key tracks like caustic opener “Pronoia” and the pensive “Oneirophobe,” there is an influential undercurrent of the signature sounds of their own city back in the day as well. Shades of K Records classics from Beat Happening and Some Velvet Sidewalk additionally factor into the more melodic elements of Subjective Concepts, particularly within the structures of college radio-ready songs like “Don’t Have To” and “Lose and Found.”
The girl on the cover of this record tiptoeing on the precipice of a building ledge is there for more than just shock value: she’s a symbol of the gleeful edge-dancing Strange Wilds does between the sonic divide of its state’s two most iconic music cities.