The band Wild Pink put out a new album, Still Coming Down, last week and the discussion of the album on the Endless Scroll podcast, which is the main music pod that I listen to, prompted me to gather a few thoughts that have been circulating since their last record.
I had seen the band's name a few times on Twitter, I assume in posts by either Stereogum or The Alternative, but what prompted me to actually check them out was the inclusion of their then-recent album Dulling the Horns on, again, several of the hosts of Endless Scroll's year-end lists. I'm not sure what I expected the band to sound like, but it definitely wasn't the reworked heartland rock that I found on that album. Since I often pair listening of albums, I was high on the recent discovery of Box for Buddy, Box for Star by This is Lorelei,* and I remember listening to Dulling the Horns for the first time while I walked in -30 Celsius January weather to get a flu shot before the semester started. My initial thought was that it sounded like a more indie rock version of the War on Drugs' Lost in the Dream in a good way. My second thought was that I really enjoyed the way that the band introduced a new, distinct riff in each song after running through the initial motif. That felt creative and was the sign of a true riffer.
*Becks and I listened to this record in the car while driving to Ontario last weekend, and I referred to it as my favourite album of the 2020s. Hadn't reflected on that statement before I said it, but it's true.
I listened to Dulling the Horns a fair amount in the winter of 2025 and I was elated when a Wild Pink/Greg Mendez tour came to Montréal in the summer of 2025. I rode my bike to L'Esco, a darkhorse for my favourite venue in the city, by myself and smoked a joint on St. Denis before I went in. It felt like a lot of the crowd was there to see Mendez, including a former student of mine that I didn't approach to talk to, and who could blame them? He and his wife played in dark blue light and I heard multiple people cry during the set. One of my friends was going through an intense mental health episode at the time and it was weighing heavily on me at the time. Felt like every song Mendez played touched on that.
A lot of the room cleared out after the Greg Mendez set and didn't return for the Wild Pink set. I felt bad for them and tried to stand up front to deter the horseshoe. In hindsight, I think I was expecting the band to really blow me away, but that feeling never fully arrived. They were solid and I enjoyed my night, but ultimately I think that the live experience lowered my estimation of Dulling the Horns. Wild Pink's vibe, fuzzy, groovy rock, is decidedly different from the morose acoustic songs of Greg Mendez and unfortunately the songs seem a lot dumber in comparison. An unfair comparison, since the two are going for different sounds and achieving them, but nonetheless made Wild Pink seem less serious. The riffs also hit different live and didn't seem as good. It could have been the result of me standing stage left in front of the bass and drums, but it felt like those two were actually what carried the band instead of the guitars that each song was built around. Rather than the riff changing in each song, as I said above, I noticed that the change was actually the bass and drums introducing a new rhythm under the riff to make it pop. That's still good playing, but I guess we're moving the credit around in the band.
The actual reason I was so judgmental seeing them? The singer was wearing a Mets hat with an Orioles shirt, and, to me, wearing gear from two different teams in the same league is an insane faux pas. Which team are you a fan of? The band is from New York, so I assume the Mets, but then why rock an Orioles shirt with the hat? Are you trying to signal that you are a ball-knower by wearing vintage sports gear and a Mets hat when OMG! fever was still smouldering? The lyrics of the second song on Dulling the Horns, "Swallowing the Egg Whole" point to this, as after discussing the rebranding and relocation of the Washington Bullets and Expos, he says:
Don’t know how many switches I flipped
Flip a switch and then the thing just don’t exist
But my stupid ass is always searching
Hoping for a pearl when I open up my fist
He also wears a Portland Seadogs hat in a bunch of press photos, which takes my mind here:
Just can't get over the idea of a true ball-knower power clashing team branding like that.
I've had Still Coming Down and then Dulling the Horns on while writing this and after all these thoughts my verdict is that the former is listenable and the latter is still good and better than I remember after the show. Biting critique from Timbo there. More biting? Becks' absolutely feral take on the band:
They sound like a band from Kingston, Ontario.
Rest in peace to Rebecca's aunt Debbie, who was always kind to me. Felt powerful to hear teachers get up and talk about working with her on union business at their school. Ties like that still matter after death and it impacting you when you didn't know while they were alive is a way to keep them here.
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