Waterparks - FANDOM review

Waterparks – FANDOM review

Score: 5 stars

The Houston trio impress with their genre-bending third album, FANDOM

After months of anticipation, Waterparks have released their third album, FANDOM. On this album, frontman Awsten Knight continues themes of his relationship with his ex-girlfriend while also commenting on toxic fan culture in songs like Watch What Happens Next and Dream Boy with lyrics like ‘You wanna hear my art, but only on your terms’ and ‘Am I the boy you dreamed of?. 

A lot has changed for Waterparks since they released their second album, Entertainment, last year. They left their record label Equal Vision Records after the band experienced various issues, which sparked a new era full of honesty for Awsten, and this comes out in lyrics like ‘I know I’m not around enough to make me worth the wait, it’s like who wants to be close with someone who always goes away’ in slow-paced ballad High Definition. Another example of this brutal honesty shows in Worst, a track which has been known by the Waterparks fans for 2 years, when Awsten released the demo onto YouTube after he and Ciara Hanna broke up. The song contains lyrics like ‘Am I dealing with a break-up or a breakdown? and ‘Miss Unfaithful hit the backboard breaking bed-springs’.

Overall, it’s a very cohesive record with all the tracks flowing perfectly into each other, for example the transitions from Cherry Red to Watch What Happens Next and from Group Chat to Turbulent. The band also very cleverly loop round the album with closing track I Felt Younger When We Met going straight back into opener Cherry Red. This album is a great demonstration of a relationship and the aftermath and Awsten Knight shows this brilliantly.

Finally, Waterparks have definitely outdone themselves with this album and it makes me very excited to see what they do next when the FANDOM era is all said and done.