The new album from RVA’s young band The Wimps takes you back to a simpler time with its vintagey pop feel and catchy lyrics.
The four-piece released the 10-track album April 8th at OUR House with fellow bands Wild Moon, Ashes, and Grave Hooker.
A memorable and very 60s-esque pop album with an alternative edge is how I would best describe The Wimps’ self-titled album which is what lead vocalist/guitarist Brent McCormick said the band was going for.
“That’s what we’re all really interested it,” he said. “Just keeping it really simple, good rock and roll, pop stuff. As far as the old school stuff goes, I think that’s where our heads are at generally, all of that music from the 60s. Some grittier, garage-60s stuff.”
The group took inspiration from The Beatles’ The Magical Mystery Tour, The Velvet Underground and The Stooges for this album which you can definitely hear a little bit of all of them immersed throughout the tracks.
“Poor Alexander” and “Dream Girl” are definitely a few of the tracks to check out.
McCormick said they recorded the album at Virginia Moonwalker in Mechanicsville with Russell Lacy. It was mixed and mastered by Adrian Olsen at Montrose Recording.
Fresh on the scene, The Wimps formed under a year ago and started work on their album about six months ago, but the sounds are that of a band who’s been playing for years.
Despite being new to the RVA music scene, The Wimps have been steadily trying to make a name for themselves in the city with one or two shows nearly every weekend at places like Hardywood, Gallery5 and The Camel.
The crew, which consists of Ralph Mason (bass), Eric Godsey (drummer), and Gilson Fearnow (keys), met through mutual friends at open mics in Richmond and set up a jam session to see how they meshed together as a band.
“We decided to get together one afternoon and see if it felt right,” McCormick said. “Eric kind of had the idea for us to get together to see if we could write stuff as a group, it felt good so we just picked up from there.”
McCormick did most of the songwriting on the album, but he said the whole process was a collaborative effort.
“Ralph and Eric and Gilson are all music majors so they have really good ideas how to make the song 10 billion times better,” he said. “We’ll work on it together and talk about what could make it interesting and get people’s attention. We were interested in capturing a live raw sound on the record, we didn’t really want to feel too polished.”
It’s a really good listen overall, and will have you wanting to play it on repeat so go check it out.
The Wimps are slated to play their next show at Hardywood for RVA Day in May.
