Circa Waves return with new album ‘Never Going Under’
Far removed from their roots as indie merchants, Circa Waves has become a deeply personal project for lead singer Kieran Shuddall as he takes charge on both the lyrics and production of the new record. The latest album, Never Going Under, is perhaps his most vulnerable release to date and sees the musician tap into an array of different sounds and styles to create a record flecked with emotional tumult and notable moments of pop revelry.
The album was created during the pandemic, a deeply vulnerable time for us all, but was compounded by Shuddall’s personal circumstances being irrevocably changed. The LP arrived alongside the birth of his first child and can be neatly connected to those seismic events. With a new world seemingly crumbling at the edges, Shuddall uses Never Going Under to exert some of the stresses, fears and worries that have now landed upon his shoulder’s alongside the weight of fatherhood.
Speaking about the record in a press release, he noted of the record: “Never Going Under speaks to that uniquely modern phenomenon of genuinely not knowing what type of world our kids are going to find themselves in 30 years. Physically, environmentally, politically – we are completely in the unknown. That scares us all, but ultimately we know we can never give up on the future, because how can you? The songs on the album are written differently from the previous work we’ve put out. They are written from the perspective of my son and also from my own current experience of the climate today.”
All of these claims are met within the confines of the album. The titular single is clearly pitched as a defiant refusal to be swallowed a society seemingly on edge. On the chunky ‘Hell On Earth’ the band tackle climate change, political catastrophe and the general plummeting of society; on ‘Do You Wanna Talk’ there are moments of personal reflection amid a spree of Phoenix-adjacent choruses, ‘Your Ghost’ has a noted “sad euphoria” that is hard to remove from masculine toxicity. However, the issue arises that few of these songs provide much else for the audience outside of a course of exorcism for the band and Shuddall.
The album certainly provides a hefty and welcomed dose of honesty from the group, which Shuddall himself acknowledges as a victory: “I don’t think I would have written on previous records about worrying about whether I was a good enough man or a good enough father, these expectations of masculinity,” he says. “There are certainly lyrics on the record that I wouldn’t have said before. Maybe it’s cathartic, or maybe this far into my career. I’m a bit like, ‘Fuck it! I may as well just say these things!’”
“I’m not trying to be particularly cool anymore,” the frontman adds in the press release. “I’m happy just to write the songs that make me happy and make the band happy. I think the best art is when you serve yourself first, and then hope that people jump on board afterwards.”
There will certainly be a group willing to jump on board. The album is bursting with foot-tapping indie gems, which will always find themselves neatly placed with a dancefloor of churlish happiness. Elsewhere, ‘Want It All Today’ is a slow builder that provides a wonderful refrain and a more considered sound. ‘Northern Town’ adds another dimension to the group’s previously perceived direction, and ‘Living in the Grey’, the album’s finale, likely shows the group’s way forward — big pop sounds with deeply emotional references and delivery.
Never Going Under is the album of a band in transition. The first written, recorded and produced as an independent unit, the group likely suffers a small hangover from their label days — the repetitive use of lead lyrical lines is a testament to this. Concentrating on honing their sound into something unique and powerful will shake off the remnants of phoned-in indie-pop that besmirch some of the cleaner moments of the record.
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