Despite its lethargic moments, the latest offering from The Wombats is for the most part punchy, infectious, and surprisingly cohesive. Coming in at a lean 40 minutes, Fix Yourself, Not The World is an album that goes down relatively easily whilst rewarding those who are willing to give it the closer examination it deserves. It’s certainly a self-indulgent listen where Matthew Murphy spends much of the runtime getting to the core of his deepest insecurities, but the themes are universal and that’s what makes it so magnetic for me.
The biggest reason why is the production. The sheer variety of glittery, walloping hooks on this thing is truly a treat for the ears. Things might start out a little rough with the jittery opener ‘Flip Me Upside Down’, but all is made up for by how well the slick bassline blends with the sputtering electronics on ‘This Car Drives All By Itself’. But The Wombats are clearly a band operating at their best when they’re working with a solid foundational groove that can match Matthew Murphy’s charisma. As such, ‘If You Ever Leave I’m Coming With You’ ends up the easy album standout and proves that this band has an unmistakable eye for hooks that will get lodged in your head and never leave (see also the guitar line on the chorus of ‘People Don’t Change People, Time Does’).
That doesn’t mean to say that The Wombats don’t also get a lot of milage out of underplaying. The mesmerising slow-burn build up on ‘Method To The Madness’ is a one-of-a-kind entity on the album, especially when the whirring, washed out mix erupts for that final climax and the percussion gets a lot rougher. The album as a whole might be a very polished affair (few would contest that), but when the band cut loose, they prove they’re not scared to ditch their commercial sheen altogether to thunderous results.
Unfortunately, the back half of Fix Yourself, Not The World doesn’t quite land with the same pummelling, infectious punch as the opening half. The album locks into a stable comfort zone, with ‘Wildfire’ being the sole misstep where the overmixed synths end up clashing hard with the wall of booming horns. Overall, it’s the slower, more lethargic moments that make up some of the album’s weaker songs, the sluggish ‘Ready For The High’ being the most obvious example: one of the drearier hooks here.
Fortunately, The Wombats make up for a few minor hiccups with their surprisingly thoughtful songwriting. Matthew Murphy spends much of the album on the precipice of a total breakdown, with his relationship seemingly acting as his only escape. It’s part of the reason why he’s so defensive over it on ‘If You Ever Leave I’m Coming With You’; he’s engineering a backup plan in case the relationship doesn’t work out because he’s just that insecure, although the song seems to me to be the product of an individual moment of panic rather than being linked to any sort of malicious intent. The references to how he’s going to “throw a banquet in a mosh pit” and “stop listening to Radiohead” for this person are just too amusing to imply any kind of darker intentions.
This insecurity comes up again on ‘Everything I Love Is Going To Die’, where instead of focusing on that titular fact, he urges his partner to shut up and kiss him as he searches for some kind of relief coming out of what was a crazy year. And while that relationship does weigh hard on this album (especially given how it opens with the crush initially taking hold on ‘Flip Me Upside Down’), the album is mainly about trying to sit back coast through all the chaos the world throws at you, even as Matthew Murphy’s paranoia seems to be clouding his judgement at every turn. On the one hand, ‘This Car Drives All By Itself’ highlights Matthew Murphy’s uncaring ‘sit back and relax’ attitude in this relationship (and perhaps life as a whole) without any worry in the world, but flick forward one song later to ‘If You Ever Leave I’m Coming With You’, and he can’t quite shake his anxiety over what he’d do if the relationship in question doesn’t work out despite how hard he might try.
The entire album is an exhausted mess that both wants to relax, letting the world wash over it, and also indulge in deeply unhealthy anxieties at the same time. The juxtaposition would be jarring if it wasn’t handled with such grace (and the hooks weren’t so consistently powerful). This balancing act is best encapsulated by ‘Method To The Madness’, a turning point on the album where all the chaos in the world becomes too much for our frontman to bear and everything begins to collapse. The lyrics are surprisingly triumphant, though: “Fuck our options, and fuck the life plan / No more worry, I killed it with both hands / Just give me something to light the fuse.” But however much Matthew Murphy might be convinced he’s ‘killed his worry with both hands’, certain things just can’t be cured that easily.
‘People Don’t Change People, Time Does’ is the natural extension to all of this, describing the anxieties and expectations that come with trying to pursue a Hollywood dream. It might be so obvious to someone on the outside looking in that LA is tearing them apart, but for that person specifically it’s something that only time is likely to reveal. It might be one of the most revealing tracks here. Time is a great healer after all. Perhaps that’s what we all need, especially right now. ‘Don’t Poke The Bear’ plays in similar territory, highlighting how sometimes it’s best to just be left alone with your thoughts. Again, sometimes we just need time.
But while time might be a great healer, it’s not the cure. Despite how much Matthew Murphy unpacks and describes his anxieties across the album, it’s not quite enough for him to escape them outright. ‘Worry’ has this memorable moment: “It’s not paranoia if it’s really there.” It’s a cute line until you realise the darker implication it could carry. The anxiety is real, time can help but not cure, and the album has no real answer for what the way forward is or whether there is an escape. The final message is cryptic: “I don’t want to lose myself in someone else’s game / I’m gonna stay right here in the Californian rain.”
Ultimately, Fix Yourself, Not The World ends up living up to its title. It’s an album about the value of looking inward, even if it takes you to potentially self-destructive places. The world is a mess right now, and I think we could all do with a reminder to look out for ourselves before we try to ‘fix the world’.