''Hey kids if you want to dissolve/do the nod off.'' The function of wallpaper is to fade
in the background, which is something that Wallpaper the band does not do.
Wallpaper does not reflect upon the current state of rock 'n roll with boredom - they
find the need for idols to be a bore. On the Chewing Gum Ground captures the modern
era that they ostentatiously do not feel a part of. Keeping a steady sneer but
subtracting angst and teenage romanticism, Wallpaper keeps the outlook shiny and
appealing - just so long as you don't try and find a new rock icon within. It's all
guitars. It's all handclaps.
Wallpaper's core members started working on music together in middle school, and On
the Chewing Gum Ground represents much of their adult work over the past four years.
Hailing from Auburn, Washington - a place just close enough to the ocean to make
weekend trips and understand what the Beach Boys are about - they mix '50s
rockabilly and '60s surf mixed with the crucial wave of '80s underground music. The
strength allure of the album comes in the juxtaposition of pop sensibilities with lyrics
sung like a sliding shimmy but written with a call for a pop-cultural reform.
For taking such a stance, this album lacks the bitterness that one would expect. They
want to get people excited about hearing rock 'n roll not bored by post-post-post
movements. The lack of ego on The Chewing Gum Ground is striking and makes their
grooves so deeply satisfying. Wallpaper's songs can move from shirts tucked and
un-tucked, from fist pumps to knee slaps; it is refreshingly laidback and uncomplicated
- just how they want their rock 'n roll world to be.
14 songs: Rock Collage * Solar Panel Sleeve * Nod Off
Pop Rocket * Vertigo * Shag Carpet * New California
Auto Bop * Bottom Top Blues * This is the Chase * Deflated * Totalled * Total Explosion * Rock & Roll World