THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Since they emerged as leading lights of the late-’00s indie-rock scene with their 2007 debut A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation, Liverpool’s The Wombats — Matthew “Murph” Murphy, bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen and drummer Dan Haggis — have maintained an incredible upward momentum.
2011’s electro-flecked second album The Modern Glitch made them Top 10 regulars; 2015’s third Glitterbug saw them embraced by the TikTok generation — albeit years later when Greek Tragedy became a viral. By 2018’s Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, they’d stepped up to arenas, and 2022’s Fix Yourself, Not the World was the band’s first U.K. No. 1 album.
The Wombats enter a new era with their sixth album Oh! The Ocean, a project that grooves with social anxiety, internal strife, compulsive behaviours and the dilemmas and tribulations of Los Angeles life, where Murph and his family live. From behind the band’s deceptively cuddly façade, Murph has always written openly about his anxiety, depression and addictions (he’s now “sober as hell”), but with this collection there’s a sense of progress towards confronting, accepting and coping with his issues. Alongside familiar sounds they explore new genres from glistening tech rock to sci-fi pop, futuristic fuzz rock to bluesy rock ’n’ roll, with touches of disco and hip-hop-inflections.”
