Canadian duo Wotts just dropped “he spoke with conviction”, a fuzz-drenched, synth-soaked beast that shows them plugging directly into the mains of unease and filtering it through a wall of vintage amps.
The engine behind this machine is Jayem, the band’s vocalist and multi-instrumentalist freak of nature who produced this bad boy. The man says he wanted it to feel like “drifting between truth and illusion,” and hell, he nailed it. You can feel it in the textures—it’s warm on the surface, sure, but there’s a seething, quiet weight underneath it all that lets you know this ain’t just sunshine and rainbows. This is music with a purpose, and that purpose is to drag you through the mud of your own self-deception.
And what’s it all about? The lies we tell ourselves to get by. Now that’s a rock and roll theme if we’ve ever heard one. It’s about putting on a brave face when everything is falling apart, about “speaking with conviction” when you’re full of doubt. It’s a coping mechanism, and it’s a loud one.
This single is the second scorching track from their forthcoming EP, COPE, which is all about existing in that gnarly state of uneasiness. Ricky 100, the other half of this duo who handles the low-end and six-string duties, confirms it: each song on the EP tackles a different way we cope. Sometimes you face it head-on, and sometimes, like in this track, you hide in a hazy, distorted soundscape and just try to survive. It’s the follow-up to their last EP, FLANKI, and where that one dealt with loss, COPE is about the messy, chaotic aftermath. It’s the sound of picking up the pieces, even if you have to glue them back together with distortion and reverb.
As the final release of 2025 for Wotts, “he spoke with conviction” is a look into the emotional core of what’s to come. They’re not promising you any clean, happy endings. They’re promising you a journey through the noise in your head. And sometimes, that’s the most rock and roll thing you can do.