Album Review: Wheel - Resident Human

A couple years ago, I was pointed towards Wheel by several people, because of a very distinct similarity between Wheel and the band Soen. I had been proclaiming Soen the best metal band going, and Wheel was about the closest thing to them. That brings up an interesting point. We often have people recommending us music because it sounds like something else we already like. That's a reasonable inference to draw, but it doesn't seem to hold water, at least where I'm concerned. Just because two bands sound similar has little to no bearing on whether I will like them both. It isn't a sound that wins me over, it's the songwriting. No matter how good a clone a band might be, if they don't write songs that capture my attention, it's game over.

When I listened to Wheel, that's exactly what happened. Yes, they had a sound and an atmosphere I liked, but the songs didn't pull me in. So even though they sounded like something I should love, I didn't. But in the spirit of adventure, I'm willing to give them another chance to win me over, to see if we have moved closer to being in the same mindset. Unfortunately, they are once again mired by the bad timing of coming shortly after a phenomenal Soen album. Living up to that standard would be too much for almost anyone.

Of course, those similarities also exist with Tool, and that is where I feel Wheel is headed. The lengthy, lengthy introductory buildup to the album opening "Dissipating" is straight out of the Tool playbook, playing a simple guitar figure repeatedly for almost two minutes. I don't know if I was supposed to fall into a trance, but it felt like a nap. When writing a song that's twelve minutes long, you need to pack it with enough musical ideas to justify staying that long, and Wheel doesn't do that. It's a slow slog of a song that could have been done in five without leaving anything out. Wasting that much time is not a good start for the record.

"Movement" is much more concise, with plenty of pounding tom drums leading the action. I love that sound, but the guitars try to play an angular riff, and the tone lacks any sort of bite. Rather than sounding heavy, it fades into the background like a filtered noise. And with the vocals barely mixed above the rest of the band, it makes for a very flat listening experience, where none of the parts are able to stand out. It's a wash of sound that becomes so easy to forget.

Like Soen did, Wheel is clearly starting from the Tool playbook. It took Soen three albums to find their own identity, and I don't think Wheel has gotten there yet. They still feel like they are reciting bits and pieces of Tool, and not yet writing great songs of their own. The weakest aspect comes from the vocals, where not a single melody jumps to mind as being memorable. Maynard James Keenan gets away with it due to his oddball charisma and Tool's (pseudo)intellectualism, but when Wheel does the same thing it simply sounds boring. There must be a core song there for those listeners who won't know if a deeper and more unusual musical idea is being played. That would be me, by the way. Perhaps there are time signatures and note groupings that are fascinating when you break them down, but they don't sound interesting, which to me seems to defeat the entire purpose of making music. Clever ideas aren't that clever if you can't get anyone to listen to them.

So we are clearly faced with two points on a similar timeline, radiating away from Tool's gravitational pull. Soen evolved into something new, while Wheel is still struggling to break from their orbit. Soen delivered one of the best albums of the year, and Wheel delivered an album of watered-down Tool-isms I'm not going to remember a lick of when I'm writing my recaps at the end of 2021.

Maybe if I just liked Tool more.....