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Feb 16, 2024Blu Wave sounds absolutely steeped in sadness – it’s full of pedal steel guitar, luscious string arrangements and Lyttle’s fragile vocals. It is, in a word, beautiful.
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Apr 12, 2024There is a deeply set melancholy in the DNA of Blu Wav, a palpable sense of emotional exhaustion. It’s there in the lush, pillowy arrangements that shroud almost every track, a darkly luxurious soundscape that seems to gently beckon the listener with an outstretched hand.
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Feb 21, 2024On Blu Wav, Grandaddy’s first album in seven years, Lytle leans into bittersweet Americana twang, a natural fit for his fatally flawed, cautiously optimistic cast of characters.
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Feb 16, 2024In truth, Lytle’s crestfallen songs – sung in plaintive sigh suggesting Brian Wilson channelling Charlie Brown’s existential angst – are a seductive joy, and getting lost in his soft-focus happy-sadness is an addictive pleasure all its own.
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MojoFeb 15, 2024For all the heartache, Blu Wav is surprisingly uplifting, transcendent, even.[Feb 2024, p.85]
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Feb 15, 2024It's the first time Grandaddy have in any way rooted themselves in a specific genre, and it proves strikingly successful; Lytle's more experimental electronica pushing against any notion of nostalgia or country pastiche. [Feb 2024, p.24]
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Feb 15, 2024In the main, Blu Wav is Grandaddy’s most grounded album yet, a triumph of reinvention.
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Feb 21, 2024Grandaddy’s latest feels slightly remote but wholeheartedly nostalgic, the synthesis of deeply personal loneliness and some kind of cosmic greater meaning, and all three of my theories seem perfectly suitable. Weary but still imbued with plenty of heart, Blu Wav is all you can ask for as the return of Jason Lytle’s long-running indie project.
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Feb 16, 2024If one is looking for the more adventurous and off-kilter band of their earlier days, steer clear. If it’s introspective, somewhat epic country rock balladry one desires, then Blu Wav might be just the thing. It's certainly the band's most focused record to date and if that seems a little unexciting, the emotional payoff will make it worthwhile in the end.
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Feb 15, 2024Lytle has been here before, ending his main act, but if Blu Wav is indeed the final bow from Grandaddy, it is a solid, restrained offering and a fitting coda to their catalog.
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Feb 15, 2024Think of the best moments throughout the Grandaddy discography and you will rarely praise them for their consistency. Blu Wav is nothing of the sort, and frustratingly so. By Lytle’s own accounting, seven of the 13 songs on the album are waltzes, which, it turns out, might be far too many waltzes. The lonesome, ambling tone works on a few occasions.
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Feb 29, 2024Predictably, there are some excellent sad songs to be found here. Just as predictably, though, when the whole thing sounds essentially the same, the impact is blunted. If Lytle decides to make another Grandaddy album after this, let’s hope he’s at least partially in the mood for something a little more rocking.
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Feb 15, 2024There's a lot to like here. "Bucky, Boris and Dent" aren't long for this world, but their memory lives on thanks to the song's chipper melody. It's just that a good chunk of the tracklist unfolds along a steady procession of waltzes. They're all gorgeous, too, smooth and shiny as a commemorative dinner plate. The spacey interludes will keep you on your toes, but anyone who's looking for a hoedown might get bored in a hurry.
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