As far as modern indie pop rock artists go, I’m hard pressed to find a group I’m more in love with than Wotts. “Garden” was really a landmark project in my eyes, filled with such delectably melodic bops from back to front. On “be kind”, the Ottawa based musicians return with a tune that’s glazed with influences of shoegaze, 90s rock, and draped in a veneer of DIY contemporary bedroom pop styles. The vocals glide over the arrangement as always, creating this sort of wistful and lackadaisical feeling that oscillates between utterly relaxing and effervescently euphoric. The chorus is immediately addictive, a earworm that doesn’t leave your head and has you yearning to hit that loop button instantly.
That final refrain, “There’s an ocean and I’m ready to go” lives long in my memory despite how washed over and distorted it comes through in the master.
Incisive, inventive, and imaginative, this is the kind of indie record I’m always dying to hear.