Golem, Gene

Wand's second album is a very ambitious record that starts off with a bang. Wall of sound takes over, taking my breath away, makes me wonder what comes next. I really start to question whether I'll be able to handle it because what do I expect next after experiencing a handful of this heavy substance. The west coast quartet have a great experience translating studio to live and back guiding me through a rich landscape of organized chaos. Golem is a decade-long album, is a stroke of untidy genius and an eruption of creativity. There is a strong psychedelic theme throughout the record, and it comes on unexpectedly every now and then. The energy carries on until "Melted Rope" with echoes of Pink Floyd, but not for long as we're thrown back in the hot fire of heavy garage riffs for a few songs. The whole experience is a thrilling roller coaster with a build, suspense, and high speed descent on repeat. Towards the last portion of the album, I'm experiencing what I'm imagining, a private show taking place in the basement while I'm peaking on acid and witnessing playful energy of these seasoned rock wizards as they're putting a torch to my mushy brain. As we suspend into hellscape of hot lava, there is sense of accomplishment, an epiphany, yet I emerge and walk away with nothing, just wishing for more.

Album of the Week: Golem

I am wondering, as I do every once in a while, whether the whole "sending emails" thing is reaching a tipping point in terms of it just being too annoying for most people. On the one hand, the blog does send out a lot of emails (including the ones for the upcoming Summer Homework project, I guess check those out if you haven't already), and it is most certainly annoying as shit for most people. On the other hand, I think I'm probably reading too much into it, because, for the most part, I think the reality is that most people don't even read or acknowledge Puke's emails at all. Which is fine. I'd rather be ignored than perceived as annoying, I think.

Record Club:

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WEEK 380 — May 10-16, 2026

Golem

by Wand

LISTEN:

Spotify | YouTube | Bandcamp | Apple

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PICKED BY GENE

GENE'S PITCH: "Get ready for the psychedelic ride that will whip you side to side, up and down, and spit you out into the sunrise."

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ALBUM DETAILS

GENRE: Psychedelic rock, heavy psych, garage psych, heavy psych, garage rock, noise rock, neo-psychedelia, space rock

RELEASED: March 17, 2015

LENGTH: 47:36

TRACKLIST:

1. The Unexplored Map
2. Self Hypnosis in 3 Days
3. Reaper Invert
4. Melted Rope
5. Cave In
6. Flesh Tour
7. Floating Head
8. Planet Golem
9. The Drift

LYRICS: Genius.com

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ARTIST DETAILS

PRONOUNS: Hanson uses he/him/his

ABOUT: Wand formed in 2013 in Los Angeles, California. The band consists of Cory Hanson (vocals, guitar), Robert Cody (guitar), Evan Backer (bass) and Evan Burrows (drums). A few other members have come in and out of the band, but this is their current lineup. Golem has Lee Landey on bass, and Daniel Martens on guitar. Hanson is probably considered the frontman, though at other times this band feels like a full-band effort. Maybe I'm just saying that because Hanson has four solo albums under his name too. They operate in the same garage-psych circles as Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. They named themselves Wand because: "We wanted a name that was kind of empty, like a wand is more of an idea, like a magical tool; it's a means, a vessel to execute a superhuman thing."

DISCOGRAPHY: Golem is Wand's second of six studio LPs. The first was Ganglion Reef in 2014. The most recent is 2024's Vertigo. They also have one live album, 2022's Spiders in the Rain.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

READING SOME SHIT: a 2017 interview with New Commute that speaks to the making of this album

WATCHING SOME SHIT: full January 2020 show that features at least a couple cuts from Golem

RECORD CLUB CONNECTIONS: In 2016, Cory Hanson and Evan Burrows were both members of the Muggers, which is Ty Segall's backing band. Another former member of the Muggers is King Tuff.

The name "Wand" has shown up in RC before (Cat Power's Wanderer). A few other linguistic coincidences include: IGOR having "New Magic Wand"; another Wand album being 1000 Days which is close to 10,000 Days; a Wand EP being Perfume which is close to Perfume Genius.

Speaking of a Hanson, there was a Hanson brother who was a member of Tinted Windows.

MENTIONS ON THE BLOG: Tough to search for "Wand" on the blog, but I know for sure that I chose "1000 Days" by Wand for YSC at one point, since that was a blog post that took me weeks to write (this is the blog post where the story of Donny Most being a virgin originates from—see below!). Nate also mentioned a Golem in a MMM blurb.

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COUNTDOWN:

69 Weeks Until Week 420

We are tracking and counting down every week from here on out till Record Club Week 420. We started this countdown 69 weeks out. During Record Club Week 420, we will be covering Donny Most by the esteemed Happy Days virgin Donny Most. The goal for Week 420 of Record Club is that it will feature 69 reviews from 69 different people. 

THIS WEEK: We are 40 weeks away from Week 420.

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Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!

Short Film Premiere (on the Blog): Barely Recognizable by Francesco Battaglia

Exciting news on this Sunday morning: friend and PoYB contributor Frank B. (blog sobriquet "Batts") has made a short film, and he'd like y'all to watch it. I've embedded it below.

Look. I'm just some fucking guy. I'm a social worker by trade. I run this blog in my free time, for fun. I have a lot of creative friends, but very few in the industry. The fact that my friend Batts is out there making and creating the art that we're just sitting here talking about on most days, I dunno, it makes me real proud of him. He's out there doing the motherfucking thing. It's my honor to embed his short film below.

Batts has sent the following:

"Feedback/reviews, for me, are a big plus because it tells me if people are connecting with the film or not. I'm also inviting people to leave their honest thoughts with ratings or reviews on IMDb, if they have an account. It was a pretty tough experience making it, but even if this just gets one person to watch and enjoy it, I'll consider this a success!"

If you'd like to send your thoughts over to me at any point this week, I'll compile them in a blog post to be published on Friday morning. I will also most likely reach out to some of the more film-inclined bloggers on here already to see if they'd like to watch it and write a few words.

Without further ado, here is Barely Recognizable.

Thanks for watching, and like I said, we are welcoming all feedback this week for the director. Hope to hear from you. (Drop a comment below if emailing me is too much of a chore.)