Wallows

Wallows' synth-spiked, sun-soaked indie rock captures an aching nostalgia for romances come and gone, and all the innocence lost in between. It's a sound inspired by the Los Angeles-based trio's own evolution: the members have experienced many of their growing pains together, after all. As preteens, singers/guitarists Dylan Minnette and Braeden Lemasters met drummer Cole Preston in California, and founded Feaver (who played 2011's Warped Tour), who became The Narwhals and eventually Wallows in 2017. Through those transformations, Minnette and Lemasters found success in Hollywood (the former starred in Netflix's 13 Reasons Why, the latter in Men of a Certain Age), while also finding their footing in music. In their first two years, Wallows released a string of singles, including the scrappy, Strokes-esque "Pleaser" and the punchy, Vampire Weekend-tinged "1980s Horror Film II". On their 2019 debut album, Nothing Happens, those influences came fused with spiky post-punk rhythms and low-key bedroom pop, best realised on the sublime "Are You Bored Yet?" featuring Clairo. Into the 2020s, Wallows' experimental side has continued to blossom as their hooks keep getting bigger (see gems like "OK"). "[We] push ourselves in any way we can," Minnette told Apple Music. "If there's a traditional way or weird way, let's try to go the weird way as much as possible. I feel like that's what we want to do moving forward."