Album Review: Windwaker – Love Language (Fearless Records)

Australia’s Windwaker will release their debut album ‘Love Language’ on the 6th of May 2022 via Fearless Records. Love Language sees the band explore themes of identity, belonging, mindfulness, death and altered consciousness.

The band explains:

The record sees themes of adolescence, identity, belonging, nostalgia, mindfulness, death, altered consciousness; displays typical traits of a concept album, but is left very much open-ended lyrically in its ambiguous, open-book type format. Love Language defines fear and love as fleeting moments, encouraging listeners to take an intuitive leap in all situations, confront themselves and their surroundings, never taking a moment presented for granted. In a balance of chaos vs. control, we manifest, and must take all things as they come, operating with the best intent. We are alive. We are breathing. We are fear and we are love.

Crafting a modern mix of pop sensibilities, electro-driven dance-floor intensity, and anthemic rock and metal head-bangers. Windwaker are looking to take the musical world by storm with this debut album. A task made all the easier when you consider just how much of a whirlwind experience Love Language is.

From the start, the energy levels are set to maximum with the catchy speed of Beautiful. Before the mix of metal roars and soaring singing makes Lucy a powerful listen, Nighthawk sees Windwaker double down on the dance-floor filling groove and Dopamine Freestyle has the band deliver dirty riffs, rap vocal barbs and plenty of aggression.

Take a breath, Windwaker’s storm is only just getting started.

With sharp electronica, melodramatic vocals, and foot-tapping rhythm, Me + You, But Mostly Me is a high point. Although it is just one of many stupidly catchy listens on this album. Another being the pop-infused sound of Glow, a track that is mellower than anything heard before but picks up in pace nicely and features a grand sounding chorus.

Unsurprisingly, the second half of the album doesn’t change a winning formula but the explosion of heaviness on Trenches might startle. It’s Windwaker getting very heavy, something they are very good at. Further showcased in the hefty and anthemic Superstitious Fantasy before Silver Linings stops things dead in their tracks with a short and sobering voice recording.

Where do Windwaker go from there? To one of the more emotional songs on the album with the title track.

Finally it’s the lively pairing of Hide & Seek and The Rain to wrap up this impressive debut release. A pair that has all the pomp and circumstance that Windwaker have made their own throughout. A pair that can join the litany of anthems already featured as songs you can expect to hear everywhere you go over the next couple of months.

Windwaker – Love Language Full Track Listing:

1. Beautiful
2. Lucy
3. Nighthawk
4. Dopamine Freestyle
5. Me + You, But Mostly Me
6. Glow
7. Trenches
8. Superstitious Fantasy
9. Silver Linings
10. Love Language
11. Hide & Seek
12. The Rain

Links

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