Wussy Return to Full Band Lineup on Cincinnati Ohio

Wussy’s Cincinnati Ohio is a record about endings, both personal and political, and it wants you to feel them in real time. The Cincinnati rock band’s eighth album strips away the polish of recent years and returns to a full-band lineup built on raw harmonies and storytelling that cuts through the noise. It is their first record in over a decade to feature this group, and it plays like a band rediscovering why they started making music together in the first place.

The record runs ten tracks and 40 minutes, and it wastes almost none of it. It opens with a statement of intent and closes with a quiet resolve, with everything in between doing exactly what it sets out to do: deliver songs that land with weight rather than volume.

The Great Divide Sets the Tone

The opener, “The Great Divide,” is a mission statement disguised as a pop song. It starts slow and builds into a chorus that feels both anthemic and intimate, a trick Wussy have pulled off across their career. The song sets the album’s central tension: a world splitting apart and a band refusing to look away from the cracks.

“The Ghosts Keep Me Alive” follows and does exactly what its title promises. It is a song about staying alive through memory, about letting the dead keep you company even when the living can’t seem to connect. The harmonies are exposed here, and they carry the emotional weight that the lyrics don’t spell out directly.

“Desperation AM” shifts the tone without losing the intensity. It is a song about waiting, about the hours before dawn when hope feels less like a destination and more like a habit. The pacing is deliberate, and the band lets the space between notes do the work.

Disaster About You and the Middle Stretch

“Disaster About You” is the shortest track here, and it earns its brevity. It is a sharp, pointed character study wrapped in a riff that refuses to sit still. There is no filler here; every second carries a judgment.

“Sure as the Sun” slows things down again, a song about certainty that arrives at a moment when nothing else seems sure. The melody is warm but the lyrics are not, and the contrast gives the track its power.

“Inhaler” is the album’s most direct statement of intent. It is a song about breathing through hard times, about finding air in a room that feels sealed shut. The harmonies are raw here, pushed to their limits, and the song rewards repeat listens for details that slip past on first pass.

Please Kill Me Through Winged

“Please Kill Me” is a darker turn, a song about exhaustion and the desire to stop feeling. It is not a plea for death; it is a plea for release. The band leans into the darkness without collapsing into it, and the track stands as one of the record’s strongest moments.

“The Night We Missed the Horror Show” is a quieter narrative piece, a song about missing the moment that defined a night. It is understated in a way that the louder tracks are not, and it shows the band’s range outside the arena-rock mode they often inhabit.

“Days and Hours” is a song about time passing, about the small moments that add up to a life. It is the most reflective track on the album, and it lands with a sense of finality that feels earned rather than forced.

“Winged” closes the record on a note of movement, a song about getting back up after being brought low. It is a fitting end to an album that spends its runtime examining the cost of staying upright.

What Works and What Doesn’t

Not every track reaches the same heights. The middle stretch, particularly “Sure as the Sun” and “Inhaler,” is where the album dips slightly. They are strong songs, but they do not match the peaks around them. The record is at its best when it commits fully to its emotional core, and those two tracks lean more toward mood than narrative.

The opening and closing thirds of the album are where Cincinnati Ohio truly earns its reputation. “The Great Divide,” “The Ghosts Keep Me Alive,” “Desperation AM,” “Disaster About You,” “Sure as the Sun,” and “Inhaler” form a sequence that moves from statement to memory to action without losing momentum. The lesser tracks, while competent, do not quite carry the same force.

Raw Harmonies and Haunting Storytelling: Cincinnati Ohio Finds Wussy at Their Reflective Best.

That line sums up the record’s appeal: the band’s ability to make big emotions feel small and immediate, to strip away excess and leave only the song. This is a band at the peak of their powers, working within a full-band lineup that has been dormant for over a decade.

The Verdict

Cincinnati Ohio is Wussy’s best album in years, and it stands as a reminder of why their earlier records were so celebrated. The songwriting is reflective without being nostalgic, and the performance is intimate without being fragile. It is a record about endings that refuses to end badly.

The lesser tracks are not failures; they are simply the parts of the record that do not demand the same attention as the highlights. The album is best experienced in order, from the opening statement to the final movement, with the middle sections serving as a bridge rather than a detour.

This is a band at the height of their creative powers, and Cincinnati Ohio is the clearest proof of that.

The recordCincinnati Ohio Wussy10 tracks · 41 min