Wheat

Hope and Adams (Sugar Free)
by Tim Den

Some have called Wheat “Wilco sieved through Pavement.” I can see some validity in that statement – all three are lo-fi (to a certain extent), play minimal-yet-full-sounding indie rock, and are members of the “guitar as an element of the song, not the focus” school of songwriting. However, these more recognizable attributes aside, what makes Wheat different from other lo-fi rockers is that they are the least willing to actually rock.

Whereas Pavement or even early Crumb once in a while whip out the beats and get the dance floor going, Wheat prefers a movement of a different kind: mental and inner movement. The songs on Hope and Adams are like little musical doodles done after significant events in the lives of the musicians. They capture the Kodak moment that’s so fleeting, right after the event but before the artist becomes too removed from it. Wheat does this by not rocking out at all. Ever. Instead, by capturing that precious moment, the most powerful element in songwriting, the slow and welcoming melodies rock the listener’s heart, not his/her body. The best examples, “Don’t I Hold You,” “Who’s the One,” and “San Diego,” are trance-inducing sways that take listeners straight into the heart of the songs without ever kicking into high gear. And as the broken-sounding vocals come in, especially on “Don’t I Hold You,” (“Don’t I hold you like you want to be held?/Don’t I love you like you want to be loved?”) it’s evident that momentum is not in the bpms, it’s in the source.

At the center of Wheat is the understood fact that not rocking out is the best trick up their sleeves. They understand that they deliver the most potent substances in their most relaxed, quiet, and reflective moods. Why, they even confess this fact in one of the first tracks (“Slow Fade”) by declaring “No one likes it slow/and we take our time… and no one seemed to notice when we disappeared… we’re only trying to do our thing.” In the end, that “thing” – as they so humbly call it – is what makes Wheat stand apart. If this is the method to their madness (or, rather, composedness [?]), and these are the kinds of quality songs it produces, then I hope they never rock out.
(PO Box 14166 Chicago, IL 60614)