The Wants explore grief, legacy, and isolation on bold sophomore album Bastard
The New York City trio returns with Bastard, a genre-blurring post-punk record shaped by personal loss and sonic evolution.
Produced by: Madison Velding-VanDam, Yasmeen Night, and Jason Gates (The Wants)
Following their critically acclaimed 2020 debut Container, the band—Madison Velding-VanDam, Jason Gates, and Yasmeen Night—have undergone both sonic and personal transformations. Now a trio, with Night joining in 2021, The Wants push the boundaries of electronic post-punk with a volatile mix of industrial textures, spectral melodies, and raw vulnerability. Bastard is the product of that evolution: a record born from grief, shaped by duality, and executed with both precision and chaos.
Recorded live at Peter Katis’s Tarquin Studios in Connecticut, the album draws heavily from Velding-VanDam’s personal loss—specifically, the unexpected death of his father just before the pandemic. The aftermath, marked by emotional disarray and unsettling discovery, became the foundation for Bastard‘s narrative. The music wrestles with this trauma in both sound and structure: electronic elements blur with live instrumentation, melodies veer between clarity and dissonance, and song forms splinter before coalescing into something entirely new.
Tracks like ’87 Gas’ and ‘Data Tumor’ delve into themes of societal expectation and identity commodification, while ‘Lover Sister Mother’ and ‘Feeling Alright’ experiment with texture, tone, and rhythm to heighten emotional tension.
“The [album] title Bastard comes directly from this song. It’s a term that resonates with all of us in The Wants, both literally and figuratively. We’ve created a space where we can articulate difficult truths without fear of judgment.”
With Bastard, The Wants don’t just refine their sound—they stretch its definition. Drawing from no-wave, industrial techno, post-punk, trip-hop, and alt-rock, they’ve created an album that is too raw to be electronic, too sculpted to be rock. At once deeply personal and sonically expansive, Bastard signals a bold new chapter for The Wants—one that transforms pain into propulsion and proves there’s no limit to how far this band is willing to push.
Standout Songs: ‘Data Tumor,’ ‘87 Gas,’ ‘All Comes At Once,’ and ‘Feeling Alright.’
Release Date: June 13, 2025
7.1
We’ve covered The Wants previously: ‘Data Tumor,’ and ‘87 Gas.’
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