QUIET TONGUES – THIS WATER IS WET

London based band, Quiet Tongues, release their latest single, This Water Is Wet, today (23 Septemeber 2022) and if you’re a fan of indie rock, then we’d urge you to take a listen. We here at the Send Me Your Ears studio have had a few listens this morning and we’re hooked!

We absolutely loved the theme of this song. Starting out as a song about stating the obvious, it morphed during the writing process into a song about feeling burned out. It’s about being on the edge of a breakdown, about clinging on to what you believe to be true; “Everything else is going wrong but at least I know that this water is wet”.

This Water Is Wet starts with a dreamy sounding guitar with filtered vocals before quickly moving into the full band sound after about 15 seconds. For fans of The Smiths, we caught a few moments in both the vocals and the guitars that would very much appeal.

The vocals are clear and present in the mix. It is easy to hear every lyric (we particularly liked “far too busy to get anything done” – who hasn’t felt like that at some point. It’s nice to hear an accent in the lead vocal too, and the very delicate backing vocals bolster the lead very nicely.

One thing that we particularly want to draw attention to is the bass playing. The bassline is interesting and expertly played. We especially noted how the gaps in the bass line really aided the feel of the song. The gaps make it even more interesting as they often don’t come back in when you expect them to – forcing you to pay even more attention. The bass is warm, and the stereo and panning in the guitars is a nice touch.

There’s a break down towards the end that just builds and builds. Fantastic stuff! It builds and builds with the repeated vocal line “This Water Is Wet” over the top of it.

The song ends on a bass solo over the drums with a sudden and unresolved ending. The final note isn’t when you’d expect it, leaving the listener to truly think on the idea of whether everything they know to be true (musical rules and expectations for example) is actually true. In fact, the thing we liked most about this track is its unpredictability. We had no idea what was coming next without it sounding odd at any point.

A song with superb separation between the instruments. Everything can be heard clearly and has its own space in the EQ spectrum.

From a production perspective, this is one of those tracks that doesn’t ‘need’ anything. To our ears a boost around 60Hz for more thump in the kick drum and maybe another boost around 3kHz for more edge to the guitars.

Quiet Tongues was a new name to us today, but most certainly one that we will be keeping a keen eye on. This Water Is Wet is an extremely creative, well written track that oozes class from start to finish.