Jaws The Shark - Wasteland (2024) [Hi-Res]

When you enter Jaws The Shark’s Wasteland, it feels as if you’ve found a world in which punk is the way it’s supposed to be. But it’s deceptive. As you venture through its 10 tracks, Jaws… – real name Olly Bailey – explores all the angles and possibilities the chosen instruments and ideas have to offer. From traditional drum breakdowns to fills reminiscent of marching bands, guitars conveying fuzzy bends and slides in California, and smart solos during Wasteland, Got It Made and Summer Puddle, you can never truly predict where he's going to go.

Taking a bite out of your expectations of a typical punk record, the opening title-track keeps in tone with the genre’s loud and in-your-face roots, accompanied by political commentary. But California taps into a more melodic side, with harmonised backing vocals in the chorus.

Got It Made brings you straight back with a raunchy riff intro before sailing into a meaningful guitar solo. Lately plays off the back-and-forth motif, steering off into a toned-down, melodic chorus. Instead of a guitar solo, you’re met with an arrangement of thin, echoed guitars, before crashing and bursting into the peak, accompanied by strings.

Last Train To Santa Fe’s first verse brings you into a Western film, with haunting harmonies, before opening into a full chorus. The push and pull between individual songs has now been infused into a singular one. Olly flexes his adventurous side through Rejoice Or Pray, Nothing Lasts and Summer Puddle – trying on different styles, but still maintaining his standard everything-all-at-once choruses.

End Of An Era brings you back to the world of punk, before Just Popping Out For Forever reinforces what an atypical journey this record is. Though anthemic and optimistic, it's not the expected powerful chorus. Rather, he strips the sound back.

A well thought-out and cohesive record, with a tangible line that you can follow throughout, Jaws The Shark delivers good punk music for whatever path of Wasteland you decide to walk down.