Wheat

Everyday I Said a Prayer for Kathy and Made a One Inch Square

(Empyrean)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

Formed in 1996, Wheat was sort of an experimental band, but working within that '90s indie arena. You could place them beside Pavement, push them against the Flaming Lips, or slide them close to Mercury Rev, but they’d never really stick next to any band for long. Playing completely within their own agenda, avoiding labels and press and promotion, Wheat managed to capture the ears of many, regardless. Mine were definitely caught by the 1999 release of the album Hope & Adams and the moody indie-pop sparkling beauty of songs like “Don’t I Hold You” and “ Body Talk”.

After that, I guess I sort of let the Wheat drift through my fingers, as it were – pretty much missing the following release, Per Second, Per Second, Per Second… and now, maybe four years after that, I’m slowly letting myself sink blissfully down into the Wheat fields again. Drummer Brendan Harney and singer/guitarist Scott Levesque come full circle, or square, as the title suggests, and bring out another album full of songs that ebb and flow like atmospheric tides with ties and sighs to songs past and present. Moving from ethereal indie melodies to epic soundscapes to noisy guitar pop that hooks on to your pulse and pulls you along.

The vocals speak and sing and wrap you up in the stories being told, as the guitars and sounds wrap you up in some smooth blanket, and the drums, while keeping everything moving, also provide a solid place for you to rest your head. The notes and the beats are purposefully fractured and out of place at times, but this only serves to strengthen the songs as whole pieces. This is not just another straight ahead indie band playing into the future, but a band that has found, again, the voice it used to have, and a direction that perhaps, for awhile, had been lost.