Wet - Letter Blue Review

I’m a little late to the party when it comes to the music group Wet (Kelly Zutrau, Joe Valle, and Marty Sulkow) as Letter Blue (2021) makes for the third full release in their discography. But the thing about music is it finds us all at it’s own time. You could have heard something on the radio a thousand times but one day it comes up on your playlist and something inside you flips. ‘What is this?’ you ask yourself as you click the ‘heart’ next to the track name. Sometimes that ‘heart’ stays for just that song and sometimes, it leads you deeper into something bigger and more magical.

The album begins soft and short with the track ‘Over and Over’ slowly wafting over you with the dreamy, ambient sounds and gentle mix that will carry us over the course of the record. The track blends into ‘On Your Side’ with choral harmonies drifting in and out over Kelly Zutrau’s light, R&B infused vocals. The first two tracks give a nice intro to the vibe you’ll be getting for the rest of the album. It’s dreamy, its wistful, it’s lovely and sad.

The next track ‘Clementine’ is an early album highlight for me, with the flighty string plucks over the climbing vocal refrain repeated throughout and the snappy percussion kicking in to give a little bounce to the weightlessness of the song. It’s light but as weighty as slowly falling for someone you’ve known for a long time and the infectious chorus ties it all up like a string on a balloon.

Some things, some things, some things never end
They're always

So, I decide I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
In my life
There's nothing more that's on my mind
I decide I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you
In my life
There's nothing more that's on my mind.

‘Far Cry’ brings a faster pace with its driving beat and building instrumentation that really gets sailing when the grooving riff at the end. It’s nice to have dancey tracks like this and ‘Only One’ pick up the pace in the album while still giving that ethereal undercurrent throughout.

Some tracks dive head-first into vibes, like the droning organ of ‘Blades of Grass’ where the orchestral strings build behind Kelly Zutrau’s distorted refrain ‘Like blades of grass’ before the song switches it up with further distortion and ambience in the second half. The title track ‘Letter Blue’ leans similarly into the vocal distortion and orchestral strings mixed over a bed of humming soundscapes. This continues into the beginning of ‘Only Water’ before building into a percussive, Southern-Gospel revival chorus about reclaiming yourself in the face of loneliness, chaos and hardship.

Lifeless and lazy
The boundaries are fading
The hounds have all gone crazy
Howling at the breakers
The waves they lap and sway in
Childhood-like elated
Dried out and misshapen
California's shaking

For that holy, holy water
For that holy, holy water

I went down to the river to redirect my heart
I went down to the river to resurrect my body
I went down to the river to wash away this loneliness
This loneliness
This loneliness

Throughout these dreamlike vibe centered tracks, though her voice isn’t as clearly presented in some of the other tracks, Kelly Zutrau’s voice remains the bedrock of Wet’s journey on Letter Blue. It’s gentle, yearning, love soaked and passionate. There’s an undeniable honesty and emotion in every verse and chorus. It’s what kept bringing me back to this album even when I wasn’t sure I was on the same vibe-train. It’s little wonder why her stylings blend so well with Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes for their track together.

‘Bound’ is the song that made place the aforementioned ‘heart’ next the track so I could dig in further. The song is a pure Blood Orange mood but fits perfectly in the center of this album as well. The melancholic chorus and simple keyboards have a desperation and resignation that still seem hopeful against it all. It’s such a good track and coupled with the sweet catchiness of ‘Clementine’ I knew, that if I gave this album the time to wrap its arms around me we could stare at the same sky and dream together of the love we had.

Bound to you had me tied
Never even had to try
What's it like to never mind
When no one seemed to care?
Close my eyes and hold on tight
Close my eyes while we take flight
Hardly even on my side
And no one seems to care

And I'm screaming in the palm of my hand
Waiting for another chance to be bland
What seems worse?
Trying not to care

In summary, this album is a perfect drift into a dream with the subtle ambient instrumentation by Joe Valle, and Marty Sulkow coupled with Kelly Zutrau’s angelic voice guiding the way. It makes you want to get into a car and drive to an oceanside and dream about the life you live, want, or miss.