’s eponymous third album is their most assured effort yet, a mesmerising fusion of high-energy art-rock and intricate songwriting. The Scottish five-piece coalesce to establish a fully-fledged identity on ‘walt disco’, nearly a decade on from their formation. “It really feels like a record that speaks with the voice of the entire band,” drummer and songwriter tells CLASH. Joining Martin in seasoning this collective voice’s accent are frontwoman , guitarist , bassist and synthesist .
It is astonishing that this quintessential project emerged from a period of intense instability, as the band had seriously considered abandoning the walt disco name after the release of their last album. “We changed our sound, and when we play shows, we don’t play any old material. And we were like, well, we’re doing it as if we’re new,” Si tells us.
The years since the band’s conception have been marked by significant personal and sonic development, culminating in this refined sound. “With our old material, we’d made it in a style that we weren’t actually too connected to, and then we were getting boxed into stereotypes of genres that we didn’t feel that connected to either,” Si explains.
Their original goal had simply been to become ‘the most different band you’ve ever heard’: “We were doing a lot of stuff that we didn’t really know about, that we were trying to teach ourselves to do on the fly,” Si says. The resulting sound was technically impressive but emotionally inauthentic, ultimately leading the band to dissociate themselves from their old material. So when they returned to the studio, they trialled a new process: “We just wanted to see what writing simply would do, but also honestly, and in line with the tastes that made us musicians.”
“We were doing what we’re good at, we were doing what came naturally, and I think that’s why it felt so different. Writing and recording this album was just so fluid compared to before. It was a lot easier, and I think it’s resulted in a more honest piece of work,” Si adds.
‘walt disco’ also benefited from the band’s stabilisation, as the group had been in a state of flux since their beginnings as university students. Years of personal maturity and a now-settled lineup allowed the band to record their new work with a clearer sense of self, both individually and collectively.
“I don’t think someone who just started a band or someone in their early 20s could have written this,” Si says. “It required life experience, it required us to have struggled throughout the music industry and struggled throughout life, and, for me, to have struggled through queerness and gender dysphoria. We couldn’t have written about this when we were early on into those processes.”
“I guess we had to be this deep into it together for the album to be this focused,” Martin adds. “We just all had to be embroiled in this experience of being in this band and of having this common goal that we’re trying to reach all the time, suffering setbacks together for years, like all the kind of shared victories and shared failures.”
The only issue now was that they were unsure if they could reinvent themselves under the same title. They had to consider the commercial risks of revising their sound at a relatively early stage in their career, as losing listeners could threaten the band’s longevity. “We loved what we made so much, and we wanted it to have the best chance,” Si explains. “But I think we realised [changing our name] wasn’t the sure-fire route to success that we hoped it would be. We realised it was going to be a gamble either way, so we might as well do it behind our own name.”
Thankfully, their high risk paid off with a high reward: “We played some shows where we only did the new material. I remember we played a sold-out show at Paper Dress Vintage in London. We only played new stuff and the feedback after that was like ‘I can tell that you’s have upped your game’ and ‘this new stuff is so much better’. After that, we felt safer in the notion that we can build something new with walt disco rather than just wiping everything.”
And so, ‘walt disco’ was released, a theatrical glam-pop triumph highlighting five musicians in their prime, resilient and rejuvenated. “We all played to our strengths,” Martin notes. “Our skills have developed, and it’s broadened our horizons for what we can do on our records.”
‘walt disco’ draws a turbulent era to a satisfying conclusion, enabling the band to redefine themselves in front of the same crowds. But their willingness to start from scratch affirms that the crux for walt disco has always been simply making and releasing music. “This is all a means to play for more people and get given the opportunity to make another record,” Martin says. “We feel like we’ve said something important on this record. If we didn’t think that, we’d be less bothered about sustaining a career.”
‘walt disco’ is out now.