Rogue Wave

Rogue Wave is like a pop Sunny Day Real Estate, only much, much better.

Related Content

• Best Thing I Ever Ate: Dips
  January 23, 2012
• '90s Soundtrack Battle: Angus & Batman Forever Duke It Out
  February 6, 2012
• Capsule Stage Reviews: Easter Catechism, The Marriage of Figaro, A Murder Is Announced, The Trip to Bountiful
  April 21, 2011
• Gaslight Anthem
  October 7, 2010
• Live From The Austin City Limits Festival, Day 3
  October 10, 2010

More About

• Sunny Day Real Estate
• Rogue Wave (Musical Group)
• Zach Rogue
• Jeremy Enigk
• Parks and Historic Sites

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Poor man's Shins no more, California's Rogue Wave moves past the dwarfish indie rock that defined its debut into grand, 70mm glory on its second record. You can tell right away, when the giant chorus blows up big in the center of "Bird on a Wire," with elephant-size drums stomping all over seesawing guitars. If it weren't such a backhanded compliment, you could call this a pop reading of Sunny Day Real Estate. There's certainly enough structural similarity: Zach Rogue's throaty bleat is at times a ringer for Jeremy Enigk's, and both bands have a fondness for gluing together song fragments that shouldn't rightly fit. But where SDRE was inclined to oversell with big yowls and huge electric crescendos, with the exception of the album opener, Rogue Wave is more fond of the soft option. "You" glides gracefully across crystalline guitars, and "Publish My Love" stirs up little spinning eddies of synth and drums. Making such small details feel as big as the Grand Canyon is Rogue Wave's master trick.