Cusumano, Joel

Cusumano, Joel

Waxworld

Dandy Boy

***Fiery debut power pop LP from a Bay Area underground mainstay! Though you, dear reader, may not know it, Joel Cusumano has played a huge role in the Bay Area underground scene for years—as songwriter and/or lead guitarist in a wide-ranging lineup of bands such as Sob Stories, R.E. Seraphin, and Body Double. Cusumano began writing the music that would become his first solo album, Waxworld, after a stint in a mental hospital treating his debilitating OCD: “It was bleak. For a year I could barely function, barely leave the house. After [the hospital] I recovered pretty rapidly. But instead of feeling relief, there was dread, like, ‘Well, what now’? You spend over a year falling off the deep end and you’re a different person when you hit the ground … I needed to write differently than I had before. I was looking around the world and not recognizing what I saw. The songs had to reflect that alienation. I was done with the ‘angry young man’ jilted lover stuff I’d been doing in Sob Stories. I was bored with that kind of boilerplate rock’n’roll topography.” A painful breakup at the end of writing process further sharpened Cusumano’s eye towards material reflecting his growing unease in a world in unrelenting flux. But despite weighty origins, Waxworld sound is, like all of Cusumano’s work, instantly fun, catchy, and accessible, if a little moody. Waxworld effortlessly weaves between guitar pop styles from bubblegum (“Push Push”) and post-punk (“Death-Wax Girl”), to straight power...