Unfortunately, rock ‘n’ roll is in one of its periodic nadirs, as noted even by the likes of The New Republic, struggling with relevance and popularity against genres such as hip-hop, EDM, and more. That’s why it’s so good that bands like Welles are coming out and putting out new music. Red Trees and White Trash is unvarnished rawk n’ rawl.
Red Trees has everything rock, from the guitar solo that is “Interlude” to the grunge of opener “How Sweet It Is To Love”, the Beatles-psych of “Life Like Mine” to the stripped take on the age you fell in love with rock, “Seventeen”. It has its requisite strong single, “Codeine”. There is even literally a song called “Rock N Roll”. It can get a bit much, and some pieces are better than others (the emotion of “Seventeen” is far superior to the pleading, also stripped “Summer”), but this is the classic style of music, done today.
Hopefully soon there will be a new Nirvana or The Strokes to shake the music world out of its current love of DJs, like they did once to the likes of Whitney Houston and boy bands (respectively). Welles will be there.
