Gotta say, it’s very vindicating to hear the line “I hate 50% of our fans / And the other half understands” on a Waterparks album. Long have the Parxies been a skin-crawlingly obnoxious bunch, and it’s nice to get the most no-nonsense acknowledgment of it yet from the band themselves.
Moreover, it’s a good level-set for where Waterparks are on JINX. That is to say, insecurity and an aggressive relationship with fame are dominant themes as always, but the gloves are most definitely off. It’s an interesting development from Waterparks, a band best known for maxing out on the irony that pop-rock of a certain generation holds near and dear. That’s why they’ve been exceedingly hard to love over the years. You can tell that Awsten Knight has thoughts—a lot of them—but having them so couched and redirected does away with all consistency at the end. As much as anyone would want to dispute it, the persistent vibe of Waterparks has come with a lot of additional hands in the pot.
JINX, though, seems to have had enough of that, consequences be damned. And chances are, there will be consequences. Six albums across as many labels suggests that even their tamped-back snark has made Waterparks something of an industry liability. So, as its name suggests, JINX sees the band tempting fate. It’s far messier and unkempt in narrative, lashing out on instinct and id, and portraying a version of Knight that’s essentially an immolated, reactionary take on his former self. It’s also the best Waterparks album in ages, by a comfortable margin.
What gets JINX to that point is how unafraid of expression it is, even compared to past Waterparks releases. If the strongest feeling mustered in the past has been a hyperactive cringe, JINX’s much bigger, bolder swings leap out by comparison. On the very first song TELL ME WHY, there’s a veritable operetta staged, as Knight’s journey through death has a full cast—Mark Hoppus and Dillon Francis as afterlife emissaries; Eric Nally as God; and Danny Elfman as the Devil (trying to say something there, boys?)—to field his questions about the futility of…well, everything. The trifecta of RED GUITAR, IF LYRICS WERE CONFIDENTIAL and PROWLER follows, where the scathing takedowns of fandom and industry practices are about as cathartic as Waterparks have ever gotten.
What surprises even more, though, is how much those themes can percolate further down the line. Waterparks’ work seldom projects a lasting subtext, but on the likes of BETTER THAN THERAPY and PLAYING MUSIC, you get the sense of how much Knight’s insecurity gnaws away at him. Beneath the shell of nominal ‘love’ songs is the sort of pleading, almost debased language by which genuine connection feels more fragile than it often is. It can sound a bit pathetic, honestly, and that’s meant as a full compliment. A big, messy emotion fully committed to can circumvent plenty of ‘objective’ criticisms, and JINX is full of exactly that.
Already, that’s better than what a good handful of Waterparks albums have managed. The performative quirkiness has been dialled all the way down (they actually throw scorn towards the idea of being a TikTok band), and while it’s still heavily put-together, there’s something more likable overall. As buzzy and compressed as a song like PROWLER is, the walloping intent it sports compensates for a lack of organic material. Conversely, NO NO NO NO NO is a high-sheen banger, significantly more kaleidoscopic than Waterparks tend to be. It’s also JINX’s best pure pop-rock moment, thanks to a chiptuned guitar solo that nothing else even gets close to in terms of addictiveness.
Now, because this is a Waterparks album, there’s still some overproduced alt-pop to wade through, though it’s not too bad on JINX. The hip-hop lilts of RED GUITAR and IF LYRICS WERE CONFIDENTIAL are on the cusp of imploding from corniness, but Knight’s motor-mouthed delivery and sense of humour work as intended. They also greatly surpass TASTES LIKE TANGERINE, which strips out that character for a grandson-like lurch that satisfies the least on the whole album (even with a pretty sweet little garage-rock overlay). You could maybe throw NOBODY BUT YOU among that as a sexy R&B jam played bizarrely straight, except a tight hook and glimpses towards Waterparks-standard weirdness let it fill a previously unoccupied space.
There actually is a good amount of variety on JINX, most of which stands up to fair scrutiny. In the past, you’d get a clutch of ADHD-addled pop-rock from Waterparks that’d wind up hit-or-miss from song to song; here, despite its breadth, there’s a ton of purpose. Far be it to assume that Waterparks will ever be streamlined, but JINX might have the fewest loose or outright dead ends of any of their full albums. You could argue that maybe GIRLS NEEDS GUNS is more a clipped-on coda than a closer, but a phone conversation between Knight and his mother about abortion rights is pertinent, at the very least. The ‘real’ closer, in that case, is ANY MINUTE NOW, a string-embellished pop-rock cut that’s an ideal thematic capstone to the album. Even if it comes up with no real, set-in-stone answer, does that not feel correct?
Ultimately, it’s impossible to know where Waterparks will go after JINX, perhaps more so than any previous time. Have they truly burned their bridges for good, or will it just lead to another screed in the hopes that people will catch on? They’re too established and well-liked to be in precarious spot, but they’ll forge their own path regardless. If JINX proves anything, it’s that Waterparks acting on their own impulses is absolutely the way for them to go. As stated, it’s their best album in a long time, where the songs and ideas built in land in such a precise, impactful way. Even that openly-hated half of the fanbase will have a field day with this one.
For fans of: IDKHow, Arrows In Action, Twenty One Pilots
‘JINX’ by Waterparks is released on 24th July on BMG.
Words by Luke Nuttall
