Nothing Happens: Wallows' Reflection on Growing Up

On March 22nd, Los Angeles-based band Wallows released its debut album, Nothing Happens. After being in bands and releasing music together since their preteen years, Dylan Minnette, Braeden Lemasters, and Cole Preston have finally let their highly-anticipated full-length into the world. As a longtime fan of the band, I awaited this release with great expectations from the trio, and they did not disappoint.

With Nothing Happens, the band expanded their musical horizons, yet deep down in every track, listeners will be able to recall the bright indie-pop/rock style that the band has become known for. The band ran with their creativity while writing the album, resulting in a collection of songs that ranges from an unexpected jazzier tune like “Ice Cold Pool” to a track like “I’m Full,” which features crashing drums and louder guitars. Each song flawlessly transitions into the next, making a front-to-back listen even more enjoyable.

The album has a clear theme: the trials of entering adulthood. There are songs that describe heartbreak, self-discovery, and nostalgia for how things were. These themes, mixed with peppy guitars and passionate vocal deliveries from Minnette and Lemasters, make the album seem reminiscent of a coming-of-age film’s soundtrack. A perfect example of this is “Scrawny,” the second pre-released single, a song that became a favorite of mine almost immediately. The song’s in-your-face beat and relatable lyrics about loving the parts of yourself that others may not like make it so easy to sing and dance along to.

Each track brings something unique to the table, coming together to make one cohesive body of work. The one that stands out the most is the second track, “Treacherous Doctor.” The song relates the burdens of overthinking and the lyrics are full of questions, such as ‘Are the things I think are important simply just distractions from death?’ Lemasters, the primary vocalist of the song, definitely knows that his mindset isn’t ideal, but he cannot change his ways and longs for an explanation as to why he is feeling this way. The moments of sheer cacophony in the song bring a sense of urgency, which takes listeners by surprise but still works perfectly in supplementing the lyrics.

Another highlight is “Remember When,” a song that shows off how complementary Minnette and Lemasters’ voices are. Minnette’s slightly deeper voice contrasts with the higher ‘oh’s’ and Lemasters’ solo in the first verse, yet the whole song comes together to make a pleasing, danceable track. In “Remember When,” the band takes on the topic of nostalgia. The vocalists both wish they could relive the memories they spent with someone and try to ask them ‘Would you go and do it all over again?’ Though only clocking in at around two and a half minutes, the infectious and bouncy chorus and lyrics that are easy to relate to make it an instant favorite of mine.

  Two more of the most remarkable tracks are “Worlds Apart” and “Do Not Wait.” The former is a change of pace for the band — it is the slower, emotional moments on the record where Braeden Lemasters shines. Accompanied by Cole Preston’s prominent drums and eventually some horns, he sings of becoming physically and emotionally separated from an old love of his. Finally, the closing track, “Do Not Wait,” is a six-minute summary of what the band wanted to prove with this album: even when it seems like things feel like the end of the world at the moment, the truth is that ‘nothing really happens at all.’ With a minimal beat for its majority, the band was conscious in making the lyrics the forefront of the song. The spoken-word half of the song, backed with the repetition of ‘Nothing happens’ and the appearance of horns at the end, is a perfect way to close out the album with meaning.

Overall, Wallows has made itself stand out from its indie rock peers with an exciting, relevant, and hard-to-resist debut record that demands not to be missed.

You can listen to Nothing Happens on all major streaming platforms!

Written by: Gianna Cicchetti

Edited by: Mary Perez

Graphic by: Emily Lantzy