French screamo — whenever I hear those two words together, I’m immediately in. There’s something about that combination that just pulls your insides out and paints the whole thing with an extra layer of emotional color. The dynamics, the slowdowns, the space between the tearing pain — everything you want from screamo, basically. Wetwalls, a new three-piece from Marseille, tap right into that nerve with “Demo‘25,” their first release, out since January 2026 on cassette via Bus Stop Press and available digitally on Bandcamp.
The band is Jeff (guitar, vocals), Adrian (bass, vocals), and Lauris (drums) — all with history in the south of France’s underground. Jeff and Lauris previously played together in a post-hardcore outfit called Hundred Eyes, which folded when their guitarist moved to Ireland, as Jeff puts it, “to pursue his quest for love.” The two still wanted something in that lane running alongside their other, more pop-punk and indie projects. Adrian, who plays in the new wave/post-punk band Confetti Malaise, was the missing piece.
“I played and grew up in the screamo/post-hardcore scene in the 2000s, and I really missed the visceral, raw side of that music,” Adrian says. “So the idea of ‘making rock music’ with Lauris and Jeff immediately convinced me.”
Six tracks deep — “Intro,” “In neutral,” “Neon sky,” “Ice pop,” “Split soul,” and “Outro” — the demo moves between post-hardcore tension and noise rock weight, with nods to bands like Storm the Bastille and Kaospilot.
It’s melancholic, politically charged, and deliberately rough around the edges. Recorded and mixed by Jeff across November and December 2025, everything was done in-house. The cassette release, handled by Bus Stop Press (run by their friend Giz Medium), followed the same logic — home duplication, hand-assembled cases and J-cards.
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The songs came together without a grand concept. Jeff describes the process as organic, built from accumulated tensions — personal, collective, or drawn from what they see around them. “We worked a lot by leaving room for instinct, mistakes, and a certain roughness that felt right to us,” he explains. No over-polishing, no second-guessing the imperfections.
That DIY ethos is of course embedded in this gem. The band is clear about that. “When we talk about DIY or politics, it’s not a pose or an abstract claim,” Jeff says. “These are very concrete choices: recording ourselves to stay in control of the process, releasing a cassette because it’s an accessible format, offering pay-what-you-want because we don’t want to exclude people for economic reasons.” He frames it as a rejection of professional and economic thought patterns — keeping control over everything from the music to how it circulates. In practice, he adds, it’s closer to a “Do It Together” approach, because the band is surrounded by friends equally invested in that ethic.
Marseille itself plays a real part. Not as aesthetic backdrop, but as a network of people. The band points to venues like La Salle Gueule and CALE, and structures like Bus Stop Press, as spaces where music moves without artificial hierarchies.
Adrian and Jeff describe Wetwalls as existing on the margins — “at the crossroads of people who take things seriously, with passion, without taking themselves too seriously, and who prioritize energy, urgency, and sincerity.”
The demo dropped about a year after their first show, and came with a release party at La Salle Gueule — a place they call their second home. Members also carry history from The Third Memory, Wake the Dead, Water Mane, and Joyblasters.
There’s no ambition here to carve out a tidy spot in the musical landscape. The band’s stated goal is simpler and harder: to exist, to play, to get involved, and to keep things consistent. “The idea is simply to stay consistent with what we’re doing here,” Jeff says. “Playing in places that make sense, meeting people who share the same approach, and continuing to move forward without worrying about a ‘band career,’ but rather about necessity.”
As a demo, this is exactly what it should be — a snapshot, raw and piercing, charged with intent. I’m genuinely curious to hear what Wetwalls do next with better production behind them. That rawness is already doing the heavy lifting; imagine what it’d sound like with a proper production and even more room to breathe. Even more monumental, even more devastating. Can’t wait to hear more from these guys.
Catch the band live on March 12 in Marseille:
