Chicago's EDM trio
Krewella are larger than life on their debut full-length
Get Wet. While sometimes thrown under the dubstep banner in their earlier days, the sound here is pure party pop, more ready for commercial radio play than the club, but still with plenty of dubstep breakdowns and heavy electronic production. The 12 tracks that make up
Get Wet are a non-stop rush of escapist fantasy, mired with nightlife cliches of the "I'll sleep when I'm dead" and "Go hard or go home" variety, painting an impossible picture of an endless party where the bottles never stop popping. This might sound grating or even clueless, and in some ways it is, but more than that,
Krewella's ceaseless party rhetoric is a necessary element of what makes their music the enormous and completely fun experience it is. Opening track "Live for the Night" blasts through different segments of pounding four-on-the-floor beats, smoky interludes, and a melodic chorus that builds infinitely on a familiar but reliable chord progression. "We Go Down" rides a hectic dubstep beat, and "Alive" slows things down slightly with a more inspirational feel, but the album is still upbeat and party-centric. The songs here, while not interchangeable, feel cut from the same cloth, and their hyperactive approach somehow transcends disposable pop product and becomes something really positive and giving. Even the chopped-up samples and brutally over-driven bass synths of "Killin' It" are so cleanly arranged, there's an undercurrent of craftsmanship that makes the would-be messy song seem more considered than constructed. "Dancin' with the Devil," a moody collaboration with both
Fall Out Boy's
Patrick Stump and
blink-182's
Travis Barker, doesn't sound too out of place, but follows the reckless flow of the rest of the album.
Get Wet is full of trite lyrics, lunk-headed anthems, and predictable production, and it's absolutely great. There's nothing groundbreaking or profound happening, but there's something to be said for big, mindless fun, and
Krewella do that better and with a more human touch than most of their peers.