GutterPutter

And no one seems to notice it. Not even the likes of Pitchfork, Stereogum. Except for a small RateYourMusic group.

“Why should I feel like I still have more time?

“Year after year paid in more than my crime

“One thousand night shifts all end with a song

“Still breaking rocks into songs we never get taught…”

So ends the story of one of the greatest bands in American indie rock. The splitting of the Wrens by the end of 2021 which saw the release of former co-frontman Kevin Whelan’s album Observatory as Aeon Station is, at best, a bittersweet ending. With brother Greg Whelan and drummer Jerry MacDonald migrating over from the band, the three could at least find less obstacles to perform live even as all signs show that their dreams of music stardom will never surface. Reviews surrounding the record are generally positive from publications like Pitchfork although it didn’t strike the gem in the same way that The Meadowlands had done 21 years ago. The good news at least is that they’ll march on however unpredictable their future might have looked.

Last year, another co-frontman Charles Bissell opted to strike out on his own under the project of Car Colors with the release of his single, ‘Old Death’ with rave reviews from what is left of the band’s fans. I love it to say the least. Too bad it seems that the perfectionist tendencies appear to have reared on its head once more and paralyse any prospect of Bissell’s works coming out as an actual album itself once again. Absolutely Kosher is finally back on as a record label with a small group of signed artists on top of Car Colours although they aren’t the most active on social media. 

With these little updates in mind, what is worth bringing up now is that there has been a leak of the band’s demo surrounding their now-shelved (at the very best) fourth album. A handful of online users, including one who had uploaded it to YouTube, have picked up on it through Soulseek, a file-sharing software which specialises in music with a reputation as a source for leaks. The amount of hype it has received in what could have been 20 years is akin to the Beach Boys’ Smile, so much so that one might spend decades to make everything picture-perfect. Oops for that because that did happen. And it then fractured into pieces that were re-imagined into being distanced from its greater whole.

An informational page dedicated to it is also available on RateYourMusic at the time of writing under the name that leakers and much of the fans had settled under – Album 4.5 (2014 Demo). I actually learned about it from the comment section of Car Colors’ released single version of ‘Old Death’ which confirms that there had been a leak regarding the unreleased materials from the Wrens, ones that are seemingly set for the now-hypothetical fourth album release. It’s funny to know that there are some people my age who are geeking out about how it is finally out in a similar fashion compared to the Gen-Xers who are much more likely to be in line with the age of the band members. There’s always the opportunity of greatness if an artist is good enough in their work. Especially funny in retrospect is that despite the band’s acclaim, the Wrens had since then fallen into a level of obscurity disproportionate to their renown no mainstream publications are picking up on it. Not Pitchfork, not Stereogum, not Uproxx. Only the fandom are in alert about the reveal.

Aptly named after the speculated year of when all of the songs were recorded and compiled together, the demo is a lot more rough around the edges. Compared to the polish of The Meadowlands, the lushness of the limited release version of ‘Three Types of Reading Ambiguity’ in 2015, or ‘Old Death’’s modern intricacies, much of the album’s tracks are clearly not mixed or mastered. Instead, the more lo-fi production of the album lends itself to the band’s earlier years from Silver or ‘Per Second Second’’s more bustling feedback. This is especially notable in ‘It’s the Whole Thing, It’s the Whole Thing’ with its flushed-out vocals. Some are more quiet with a ballad-like introspection like ‘Greg’s Ballad’ or ‘Mallie Sings Old Death/The Ghost Flees Her Burning Body’. Other tracks are more maximalist with thundering instrumentals and an overwhelming sense from the volume in ‘In Pairs to the Palestra’.

Out of the 18 tracks, the five songs in ‘Dog End June/Twice Reversed’, ‘Leaves’, ‘Face Facts’, ‘Sophie’, and ‘December Piano’ are later taken by Kevin Whelan for Observatory. Outside of ‘Leaves’, the four remaining tracks are renamed and remade in order as ‘Hold On’, ‘Air’, ‘Queens’, and ‘Alpine Drive’. It’s notable that in my review on Aeon Station, one of my biggest criticisms is that I find the production to be a lot more neutered compared to the more expressive ambitions from Bissell’s meddling. Now it is clear in retrospect that the three-piece are more inexperienced in making full use of the studio as an instrument and, despite the twinkling riffs, didn’t fully make their music shine on disc.

For the remaining pieces that are done by Bissell, there are a lot of glimpses that highlight his auteur-like precision and it helps to make them feel a lot more impactful. The original version of ‘Crescent/As I’ve Known’ lacks the climactic crescendo on the 2014 cut that is transcendent. ‘In Pairs to the Palestra’ contains the violin-like music notes that sound ecclesiastical in the beginning, but you might have figured that they’re from his borderline-signature creative use of the electric guitar. The vibrato there really adds to the nostalgic impression of the whole track which, had it been released even in a relatively unfinished state, would have been among my top favourite songs.

Bissell’s infamous perfectionism and artistic strive for revising his works meant that a lot of the songs are otherwise more different compared to its later versions that we know of. I’ve implied a few paragraphs ago that ‘Three Types of Reading Ambiguity’ has what amounts to an impeccable production as per hoped from his tinkering. However, the original version as it stands lacks the more rapid shifts in timeline between his childhood and his current anxieties as a middle-aged failure near the end while the more literary symbols in the lyrics are obscured. ‘Old Death’ lacks the more autobiographical account as a whole that pervades the released single cut and it contains a more non-linear song structure with a chorus. ‘It’s All Guns and Arrows’ isn’t a slowcore mediation on recent ancestry as it is a triumphant stare in the face of failure (if the more listenable parts of the lyrics are anything to go by).

There is no doubt that, being the demo that it is, Album 4.5 has a very unpolished kind of mixing that is subversive of the post-Secaucus outputs that the band took more time to tidy over. It stands however as a very real testament of a what-if given the acclaim that The Meadowlands had garnered alongside its small yet devoted cult following. That the demo received a lot of love from the handful of people who sought to listen to it shows the tragedy of the band’s complacency in letting their iron cool down as they devise the most perfect way to sharpen it. 

Had Bissell not let his antics get the best of him and revise the work over and over again, if a record label like Sub Pop had stepped in with a definite deadline, should the Whelan brothers and MacDonald had set up firmer rules on how the band will work, could we get the demo out as a studio album? Does it have the potential to help build on the band’s legacy and, in a fairy tale-like way, offer more potential for them to consider a deeper dive into their music career? Will it resonate the same way as their previous albums had done with its sharp production? That will only be left up to the fandom to consider. 

By the way, if the 2014 demo is out now, there is no doubt that there are a couple of people lurking about to poach for the 2019 version. The one which should be the last that was sent out by Bissell before he reins in on the prospect of releasing it once again – and thereby send the whole band crashing down in their mid-life zugzwang. It could be out there now, with its sound and layering as delicately refined as in ‘Old Death’, waiting to escape into an entire world that had eluded it for so long.