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Laughing Matter

I became aware of Wand around the time of their 2017 album Plum, and liked what I heard of Laughing Matter, its 2019 follow-up, but was only persuaded to buy the latter after seeing the band's performance of some of its songs on KEXP. The version there of the song 'Airplane' particularly appealed to me. I bought it on CD from an ebay seller.

For my money it's a decent double album that might perhaps have been cut down to make an excellent single one. It's not without filler: I'm not too fond of 'High Planes Drifter' or 'Jennifer's Gone', for example. The several highlights do make up it, my favourite tracks being 'Scarecrow', 'Walkie Talkie', 'Wonder', and the abovementioned 'Airplane'.

It's a well-presented package in a sturdy gatefold, though I'm not that keen on the cover image. I thought I'd read somewhere during the pandemic that they had disbanded, but on perusing their wikipedia page, I see no mention of that, so perhaps there's more fine music yet to come from them.
 

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