Waterparks‘ fifth album Intellectual Property sees the band try to crystallise their blend of pop / electronic elements with the guitar driven pop punk of their younger years with sometimes mixed results but generally coming out on top.
Waterparks have always been the kind of band to have fun with their music and that can be seen by the bucketload here, a wonderful example being the false ending on short intro track ‘ST*RFUCKER’. It’s the surprising but playful start to the album fans have come to expect from the group. The track cuts off mid-bar, totally unexpectedly, making you check whether something has gone wrong with the playback for a split second. Then we’re into the first main song ‘REAL SUPER DARK’. It’s not dark at all, but there are some guitars with the gain cranked up. Singer Awsten Knight commented that he wanted to get more guitars involved on the album. Last record ‘Greatest Hits’ was much less of their pop punk roots and more electronic bubblegum pop. There’s certainly some moments of that here, with the main riff hook of the track delivered on mean power chords like some sort of soft industrial metal bop.
‘RITUAL’ is along the same vibe but takes things to the next level with its heavier, more evil sound on the verses mixed with the melodic choruses and Knight’s falsetto vocals which even sound a bit Oli Sykes at times. ‘SELF-SABOTAGE’ is probably the most pop-punk the band have sounded in a while.
By this point everyone’s probably heard lead single ‘FUNERAL GREY’ and it’s pretty impossible not to get it stuck in your head. Standing third in the track listing, it still easily holds up as one of the strongest songs on the record and possibly one of the greatest the band have knocked out. ‘FUCK ABOUT IT’ is another key stand out. With its strong chorus and infectious melody, its another one that will undoubtedly kill it in a live environment.
‘BEST FRIENDS’ is a jaunty, quirky love song that sounds like it could be out of a slightly cheesy romantic comedy. It’s not a slow number though. It’s got plenty of that upbeat bounce typical of Waterparks. It’s actually later song ‘CLOSER’ that offers up the ballad of the record. Unusually placed second to last on the album, it’s a stripped back track which focuses mostly on guitar and vocals with much less of the bells and whistles. It’s actually one of the most beautiful songs on the record, possibly for that reason. In recent years, the band have had something of a habit of overkilling it with production techniques, autotunes and layerings of random electronic elements. Obviously they’ve picked it up and ran with it, the more chart leaning sound exposing them to a whole new audience outside of the alternative genre. And while that’s great for them, for older fans of the band it’s equally as great to hear them be more ‘back to basics’. Awsten Knight’s vocals are good enough on ‘CLOSER’ to not need any extra effects; raw and haunting and vulnerable.
If you’ve heard the last two Waterparks albums, you’ll hear moments of recycled sounds, styles, lyrical cadences and delivery, and repeated lyrical themes. Sometimes that works, when it harkens back to a lick or a melody you enjoyed, but sometimes – on the likes of ‘BRAINWASHED’ for example – it just feels like more of the same without being particularly fresh. On the other hand it really works on something like ’SELF-SABOTAGE’ which definitely sounds like an old Waterparks song but pulls it off thanks to the catchy chorus.
Doubling down on the new sounds established with the likes of ‘Greatest Hits’ while still trying to take things to the next stage, ‘Intellectual Property’ is a decent collection which represents an interesting turning point in the group’s career. If they can successfully blend both sides of the band’s ‘personality’ they could potentially create something even more interesting in the future.