4 out of 5

Label: Modular

Produced by: Dave Sardy

I follow producer Dave Sardy around to his various projects, which has – whether during his indie, metal, or more mainstream days – led me to things I would never listen to otherwise, but that I’ve ended up appreciating, thanks to the way he helps bring whichever artist’s music alive. Still, even with several decades of experiencing that, projects will occasionally have me cringing, my inner cool kid wanting to avoid whatever popular bandwagon to which the mighty Sardy production has been attached, and when Wolfmother – whose notoriety was blowing up in an (from my standpoint) obnoxious way at the time of their debut album release – paired up with Dave, my eyes rolled mightily, and I wanted to wait out the surge of singles to give the album a go.

…Which was unavoidable, working in a mainstream music shoppe at the time. But as soon as I heard the album, I got it. I got, firstly, the hype – ’cause this stuff was catchy and muscley as hell, during a time of White Stripes and Queens of the Stone Age fame – and I also got why you’d want this band with Sardy, as there was a clear line from Jet to this album, and Wolfmother arguably had better riffs and chops to make the magic happen. And a reminder: that maybe it’s because of Sardy that these things blow up in the first place, though not to discredit the bands themselves. (…For the most part.)

But, I mean, let’s be clear: Wolfmother’s debut is also dumb as shit in many places, with Andrew Stockdale’s lyrics a vague blur of loose fantasy phrases, cheesy love / relationship odes, and then most puzzlingly, some total non-rhymes that seem to just exist as a way to dodge out of a more obvious word choice; and musically, this stuff is undeniably derivative, with the attempts at stepping off that path not as successful as the tunes that leash the band to it and have them pound it to dust.

…Which is where Sardy comes in. Jet is a good example of Dave helping shape an artist with weaker songwriting chops; once you’re used to his style, you can sense his hand (or when he may step back) on projects. While I’d believe Wolfmother came into the studio with fully-formed ideas, I can imagine Sardy having encouraged sticking to the hits more often than not, and there are some insane production flashes here that would just fall flat in others’ hands, like the heavy duty breakdown on the climax of Colossal. It’s just so, so badass.

Some wisdom also rearranged the international version’s tracklist to mostly move all the most accessible stuff to the album’s front half. After Mind’s Eye, the disc drops off a little bit, allowing the group to get a little more jammy or funky, and the songs are still catchy as heck but maybe don’t have that gut-punching riff or chorus or drumbeat drop that nearly every first-half tune does.

Wolfmother is one of those discs I still kinda roll my eyes out when browsing through my discography, but I’ll put it on for a refresher every now and then, and it’s that same reminder: man, I get it. This deserved to be a huge hit.