Unless Google’s search is broken, Wallice hasn’t done much press in the build-up to her debut album. She did plenty between the surprise success of her 2021 single “23” and the middle of last year (coincidentally, ‘23). Any checklist items you may wish to know about her can be found in them: content-mill Q&As that invariably address dropping out of music school, her mixed heritage, and, depressingly, ‘What’s it like living in/being from Los Angeles’? Eyeroll emoji.
If all anyone wants to know is her name, age, and eye colour perhaps doing more interviews wasn’t worth it: let the music do the talking. The Jester primarily explores how her Wallice’s confidence levels have been cultivated from feeling lonely and ignored, and she dusts them with a vaguely ‘90s/’00s alt-rock edge. It’s a world where well-meaning journalists and plum opening slots don’t yield an uptick in streaming numbers–the true popularity test.
Gauging its success in non-numerical terms, The Jester never feels like it has faked its way through the 14 tracks. By relying on the youthfulness in her voice, the jadedness she wishes to project gets constantly exposed by an abundance of naivete. Fretful even while daydreaming, Wallice catalogs her contradictions and flawed ambitions with enough guile to individualise each episode.
She starts with the appropriately titled “The Opener”, which is a playful pity-party set on a stage before an indifferent audience. Above an acoustic guitar, she modestly reminds friends that she goes on right at 7:30 and then has to adjust to people talking over her. Slowly, the edges of the track smolder like touch paper and her mood darkens as if a jealous supporting actor eyeing the headliner: “That should be me / That should be me.”
For The Jester’s strongest piece, Wallice based “Gut Punch” on the story of her mother’s one-time fiancé who went missing and later turned up dead. Singing as if her mother in the present, she maturely copes with fragmented memories while being occasionally blindsided by the panic and abandonment suffered during the initial disappearance. The synths are smeared and blurry only for the pace to quicken and nerves sharpen for the chorus.
“Look At Me” mocks her attention-seeking tendencies as well as those of performers in general, while the standout “I Want U Yesterday” rolls out the mellotron while she laments an unrequited crush. Musical touchstones like Weezer, early Metric and It’s Blitz!-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs are prominent, though “Sickness” recalls Neil Young & Crazy Horse while “Flash In The Pan” slaps on some Stax/Memphis brass. Further indications of her range come in the Sheryl Crow-ish “Hurry Babe”, which briefly veers into Paul Simon wordplay: “Told my friend Rita / Maybe I’ll come meetchya”.
When there are missteps, it’s not for lack of trying. “Heaven Has To Happen Soon” never quite connects its chamber-pop and light-industrial sections, every bit as Frankenstein as that looks. One of the few points where her self-loathing approaches boilerplate, “Manipulate” starts promisingly with a nod to Radiohead before breaking into rote pop-punk.
Nevertheless, the charming and effervescent The Jester showcases an artist with ability and character. Its constant shifting between sounds and approaches is a metaphor for trying to find focus. Wallice might be at the mercy of an unpredictable public and mysterious algorithms, but her music portrays someone trying to gain control. Not that anyone asked.
