Wavves - Life Sux EP

The guys in Wavves are like your immature younger brothers, fooling around with a drum set and some guitars in the basement, annoying everyone in the house. But then one day, you actually go downstairs, and realize that the noise they’ve been making for all these years is quite tuneful, and you’re going to be humming these songs for the rest of the month.

The Life Sux EP takes the raucous energy found on certain tracks on King of the Beach, and instead of interspersing them with chilled-out lo-fi nuggets, retains a hefty punch for six consecutive tracks. The band is scoring the soundtrack for the new MTV series, “I Just Want My Pants Back” with songs like Life Sux’s “I Wanna Be Dave Grohl,” a growling gut-punch with a hooky chorus that’s going to plant the Foo Fighters’ frontman in the brains of kids across the country.

But the band is best here when mixing the murky roar of grunge music with the melodies of Oasis on “Poor Lenore,” a song that, like “Post Acid” on predecessor King of the Beach, is going to take hundreds of listens before getting old. Frontman Nathan Williams gets help from his girlfriend Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast on the beachy “Nodding Off,” and members of Fucked Up contribute their signature metal howls on “Destroy,” a fast-paced garage rock rumble. Perfect for the basement, the sleazy dive bar, and now, even the television.