Following the success of their breakthrough debut Triple Seven, Wishy return with Planet Popstar – a six-song EP composed of B-sides from the same recording sessions that produced their acclaimed first album.
Planet Popstar goes all out on channelling the wistful allure of the ’90s and glossy early 2000s nostalgia. If you found it amongst your old attic collection alongside a Veruca Salt album, a burned Weezer CD or the Teenage Dirtbag single that you always insisted wasn’t yours, it would not be out of place. Planet Popstar plays like a mixtape made for a crush – or by a Gen-Zer for whom genre boundaries were never really a thing. This, in short, is a throwback love letter to love letters viewed through the lens of 2020s’ anxiety-rent introspection.
There’s a coherence to the work despite the myriad of sonic colours: a dreamy blend of alt-pop, shoegaze, swamp rock, and adult-contemporary sparkle. It’s about young love and self-discovery, a yearbook scrawl of a record – think band badges and tippexed names on school bags and scribbled signatures on a leaving sweatshirt. There’s a whiff of Lemon Jelly on a Midwestern gap year here; the record’s ineffably pan-American aesthetic evokes the spirit (to me, anyway) of Axel Foley cruising down a palm-lined Rodeo Drive, only this time he’s from Indiana and has seen the actual future (and realised Biff Tanner finding a sports almanac in 2015 would turn out to be the least of our worries).
The members of Wishy have known each other for decades – high-school acquaintances turned musical soulmates, with roots in the Midwest and sessions spanning from Bloomington to LA – and this shows in the easy creative fusion and ebb and flow of the record.
The EP opens strong. ‘Fly’ leads the charge – a glowy, euphoric pop-rock gem with lo-fi snares and fuzzed guitar loops that hint at early Beck and Sheryl Crow, in which Pitchkites tenderly muses on the fragility of relationships.
The title track, ‘Planet Popstar’, is pure theatrical yearning – a crunchy, cosmic banger laced with alt-rock drama and soaring, euphonic harmonies. Think Foo Fighters’ melodic uppercuts with Smashing Pumpkins’ fuzzed-out guitar squeals. It’s knowingly over the top, and that’s the point: “‘Call me when you’re planet side’” is both a cheeky pick-up line and a metaphysical SOS.
‘Over and Over’ swoons like Robert Smith’s teenaged niece, combining Sixpence None the Richer-style vocals with One Direction backing guitar licks. It carries the flickering heart-flutter laid down in “Fly” and spins it out into full-body crush territory.
Then comes “Chaser,” a poppier, steel-guitar-slick track that mixes Taylor Swift energy with the catchy bounce of ’90s Europop. It’s pure first-date adrenaline. Imagine a Millennial rework of Ann Lee’s “2 Times” with the same twang but a little more longing.
“Portal” delivers the shoegaze turn – a lush, ambient haze of doubled vocals and bittersweet lyrics like, “You know it always had me like loose gold in my hands.” It’s unclear whether we’re hearing from the ghosted or the ghoster, but the emotional disorientation is deliberate. There’s a laid-back Balearic tone to it at the back end as the song burns out like the embers of an Ibizan sunset.
The EP closes with “Slide” – breathy, strummy, playful lovers’ gambol over the dunes. Think Nuno Bettencourt with a boy-band melody and Bacharach-influenced vocal stacks. It’s a breezy, polished end to a record that never takes itself too seriously but means what it says.
Planet Popstar is a heady mix of age-old but evanescent youthful exuberance and new-school self-acceptance. It’s as sincere as it is ironic, as heartfelt as it is fun. Wishy manages to pull off something rare: an EP that feels featherlight while carrying the weight of memory, identity and the messiness of youth.
It’s alt-pop at its most joyful and poignant – a sparkly, sun-faded chronicle of a band glancing back but forging new trails.
Wishy: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
Review by John Molyneux
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