Wammo was the third and final album that Bailterspace recorded for Matador after its members, Alister Parker, John Halvorsen, and Brent McLachlan, moved to New York.  In 1995, Nirvana had just broken big. Loud, uncompromising bands like Dinosaur Jr. were having a moment, as were rough-edged fuzz pop bands like Guided by Voices and Pavement. Sonic Youth was turning away from noise and towards its late period lyrical sound, with Washing Machine. The boundaries between experimental scree and mainstream success must have seemed unusually permeable. It was as good a time as any to shift towards a jangly, droning, unhinged melodicism, and Wammo delivered exactly that.

Not that the band had gone twee. “At Five We Drive,” maybe the disc’s best song, revs and roars at full speed and volume, its guitars screaming in a barbed, head-rattling repetition, as Parker whispers, “Stay on the dotted line,” repeatedly. It is coiled, contained chaos, stabbed through with rays of dissonance, and it picks you up and transports you, whether you’re ready or not. But “Zapped” following immediately after, is from a whole other universe, with bright chimes of guitar and a bittersweet drift of melody. Sure, it kicks up a ruckus mid-cut, as those shimmering guitars sharpen into razor-blade slashers, but there are parts that sound like R.E.M. And “Retro,” towards the end, blossoms out in epic, psychedelic grandeur, its slow clanging guitar riffs falling in radiant, unhurried time, its melody reaching out to the astral plane in modal smoke and incense. It is really rather good, its guitar noise tamed into something like a Paisley Underground jangle.

Wammo strayed far enough from expectations that mid-1990s critics didn’t know exactly what to make of it, but evidently the live show was, despite the tunefulness, still blisteringly loud. In his review of Trinine back in 2014, Bill Meyer reminisced, “When I finally got my chance to see them play, in support of their final Matador release Wammo, they played at dairy-curdling volume; so excessive, even McLachlan’s kit was augmented with electronic pads to trigger even more blasts of noise.” So, yes, Wammo is a bit more accessible, a bit more hummable, but don’t get too cuddly with it. It’ll blow your ears off.