The Wants Stare Into the Void on ‘Bastard’
The Wants have always lived in the blurry spaces where genres collide. Their 2020 debut, ‘Container,’ offered an intriguing glimpse into their strange, tightly wound chemistry. Now, with their second album ‘Bastard,’ the NYC trio explodes outward, pushing their self-styled “No Wave No Pop Techno Punk” into a more volatile territory.
Right from the start, ‘Bastard’ makes it clear this isn’t just a continuation. The sold-out shows following ‘Container’ laid some of the groundwork, but the real shift came in 2021 when Yasmeen Night joined on synths and bass. Her arrival alongside Madison Velding-VanDam and Jason Gates has transformed the band’s sound completely. Industrial pulses slam against ghostly melodies; punk aggression dissolves into widescreen electronic textures.
The album’s origins are tangled up in personal tragedy. Just after Christmas 2019, Velding-VanDam learned his father had died back in Michigan, the discovery coming eight days after the fact. What followed was grim: hoarded belongings, piles of empty liquor bottles, oxycodone containers, old childhood photos layered in dust, all of it feeding into the emotional core of the record.
The recording process reflected that tension… . ‘Bastard’ captures the band’s kinetic live energy, that almost telepathic cohesion.
Beneath it all runs a constant push and pull between Velding-VanDam’s Midwestern roots and his life in New York. The album wrestles with disconnection in an era of constant connection, a theme that hits uncomfortably close to home.
The Wants have always skirted the edges of convention. With ‘Bastard,’ they dive straight into the void and come back with something difficult and unflinching. A band unafraid to confront darkness and find a strange beauty in the wreckage.
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