Wunderhorse – ‘Midas’ review: a masterclass in the business of evolution

30 August, 2024

Wunderhorse

Within the world of business, success is often measured by expansion and companies hiring new recruits to capitalise on their triumphs so far. The business of Wunderhorse – the brainchild and former solo project of ex-Dead Pretties frontman Jacob Slater – is following suit. After entering the scene with his debut album – the acclaimed ‘Cub’ – in 2022, Slater has found the need for the band to evolve.

READ MORE: How Wunderhorse banded together: “You’ve got to look out for each other. It’s a cut-throat industry”

That album’s success took him from pub gigs to selling out Kentish Town Forum and appearing at the 2023 edition of Glastonbury. Now, to aid his expansion, two years after Wunderhorse’s debut, Slater has morphed the project into a full group. His previous backing band – guitarist Harry Fowler, drummer Jamie Staples and bassist Pete Woodin – have traded in their part-time shifts for a full-time nine-to-five (or the rock band version of that, at least). Together, their second offering, ‘Midas’, is a thick-cut business card, like the one Patrick Bateman flaunts in American Psycho, reintroducing themselves with raw and immediate emotion.

The indie quartet have opted to take a more raucous route with their sound on album two, fueling their tracks with eerie screeches and Slater’s wailing, making listeners feel as if they’re pressed up against an amplifier. It is a massive switch from ‘Cub’’s neat, “cookie-cut” – as Slater himself has described them – songs.

The opener ‘Midas’ immediately succeeds in bringing in that loud tone. Its crisp, bluesy guitar riff serves as a sharp introduction to a new, untamed era as Slater’s booming voice, reminiscent of Bob Dylan, sings: “The voice inside the suit came crawling through the telephone / Somewhere between a chessboard and a nursery rhyme.” It paints a haunting picture – one of a corporate beast ready to greedily capitalise off its employees.

Spine-tingling clanking and a bouncing bassline await on ‘Rain’, a song whose inspiration sounds rooted in Fontaines D.C.’s ‘A Hero’s Death’. The devastatingly dark ‘July’ brims with apocalyptic cymbals and whirlwind tones as Slater screams, “I’m ready to die”, uneasily declaring he’s ready to let everything go.

Even the album’s slower tracks are unapologetically vulnerable and in your face. Gritty guitars and thunderous drums are all over ‘Emily’, with lyrics that detail the scenes tormenting Slater’s mind: “Deadlines, no sleep / This job is killing me slowly / Oh well, I’ll keep quiet counting sheep.”

Midway through the album, ‘Superman’ is a cathartic palette cleanser, softer and more pensive. It’s a brief moment of release in which the frontman takes a moment to share the belief he has in himself, contrasting the darker songs within the album’s tracklist. “I wish I could show them the power inside me / I wish I could show them all the things I can do, and I’ll save the world,” he sings passionately, symbolising the potential he knows he can show.

‘Cub’ highlighted Slater’s gift with a pen and cemented him as a wordsmith, and ‘Midas’ acts as a continuation of that. Whether he’s describing a tender moment feeling like a beautiful eagle in ‘Superman’ or explaining how the desert flowers bloom during a rainstorm in ‘Arizona’, the musician’s lyrics are a tool to paint vivid scenes for his intense and unprocessed feelings.

Where that debut album focused on Slater finally becoming the songwriter he had the potential to be, its follow-up reworks and refines his strong storytelling. Here, the frontman enriches his lyrics and pairs them with a dash of chaotic energy brought in by his bandmates and the unity between them. Though it’s meant to be a second album, ‘Midas’ feels like a fresh start for a group that, through becoming a proper team, has found its way. It may only be a second album, but it looks like the business of Wunderhorse is set to continue to prosper.