walking upstream…
Wallows
sourcesWikipedia · Rock Cellar
Wallows formed out of teenage friendship, not ambition: Dylan Minnette, Braeden Lemasters, and Cole Preston met as kids at a Los Angeles music studio and spent years gigging under other names — The Feaver, then The Narwhals, nodding to their shared love of Arctic Monkeys — before settling on Wallows in 2017, taken from a skate spot in the Tony Hawk's Underground video game. Minnette and Lemasters' day jobs as actors gave the band an unusual on-ramp, but 2019's 'Nothing Happens' and its breakout single 'Are You Bored Yet?' (with Clairo) proved they weren't a novelty: hooky, guitar-forward indie rock steeped in 2000s garage revival and 2010s bedroom pop. 'Tell Me That It's Over' and 'Model' pushed the songwriting further into pop and psychedelic textures while keeping the trio's melodic instincts intact.
the sound in question
2019
Are You Bored Yet? (feat. Clairo)Wallows
walk the tributaries ↓
The Strokes2000s · Garage rock revival / Indie rock
Braeden Lemasters has said the band "grew up with all those kinds of bands — The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, all that stuff," and that their sound "innately" seeps into Wallows' own writing, even when it's unintentional; Lemasters separately named Julian Casablancas as a songwriting touchstone. It surfaces as loose, downstroke-heavy rhythm guitar layered under a laconic, half-shouted vocal — a garage-rock economy critics have flagged repeatedly across Wallows' catalog.
listen: upstream & here
2001
Last NiteThe Strokes
2024
Calling After MeWallows
listen forSet 'Last Nite' beside 'Calling After Me' — one reviewer of Wallows' 'Model' noted the latter track "sounds like the Strokes" outright. Both ride a tight, driving riff and a vocal that sounds deliberately unbothered, letting the guitars carry the urgency instead of the voice.
Arctic Monkeys2000s · Indie rock / Garage rock
The band's love of Arctic Monkeys runs deep enough that their pre-Wallows project was named The Narwhals in tribute; in a later NME interview, the band praised how Arctic Monkeys "started so strong" yet kept evolving "bigger and better," and Dylan Minnette has singled out Alex Turner's songwriting in the alt-rock space. Reviewers have picked up the same thread, describing early Wallows cuts as sounding like they "could have fit right in on an early Arctic Monkeys album."
listen: upstream & heresource: NME ↗
2005
I Bet You Look Good on the DancefloorArctic Monkeys
2018
Underneath the Streetlights in the Winter Outside Your HouseWallows
listen forCompare 'I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor' with 'Underneath the Streetlights in the Winter Outside Your House' — both snap into a wiry, treble-forward riff at breakneck tempo, with clipped, conversational vocal phrasing that reads more like overheard speech than a traditional sung melody.
The Beatles1960s · Rock / Pop rock
Lemasters has called the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership "the best combination of songwriting" he knows and named 'The White Album' a personal favorite, and the band has said their writing draws on records stretching "from The Beatles' Revolver to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless." The pull shows up less as pastiche than as a general commitment to melody-first pop craft — stacked vocal harmonies and a hook built to outlast the arrangement around it.
listen: upstream & heresource: The Line of Best Fit ↗
1966
Here, There and EverywhereThe Beatles
2022
MarvelousWallows
listen forPlay 'Here, There and Everywhere' next to 'Marvelous' — both keep the instrumentation spare so a close vocal harmony and a patient, step-wise melody can carry the entire song.