Hype City: Surfer Blood
Summer is still forever away, but it’s bands like these that make it feel like those wonderfully slow July afternoons no matter what time of year it is. As the snow continues to fall in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record, Surfer Blood have been playing gig after gig up and down the east coast and through the heartland, bringing their hometown Florida sun along with them as they play songs off of their debut record, Astro Coast.
The boisterous opening chords on “Floating Vibes” hit you like the touch of hot asphalt on unsuspecting feet, and that theme sticks like melted ice cream for the duration of this perfectly paced album. Recorded in a small University of Florida dorm room, Astro Coast packs some serious top-down cruising anthems, coupled nicely with the sand-between-your-toes slow (sun)burning jams to create a much needed reminder that there’s very little to like about winter. The vocals are muffed, the guitars are echoed, and traces of early Weezer are all over these poppy songs, (listen to “Twin Peaks” while imagining Rivers in sandals and try and tell the difference) but really, that can only be a good thing. The songs often break into pieces built on different bouncing, grooving riffs that surround mellow pleas for romance (”I’m not saying I’ve earned love/But I can really use it now”), and killin’ time during hard times (”Why is everything such a chore?/I’m too young to be defeated/Let’s make fun at the video store”) while throwing around references to David Lynch and cocaine addictions. Astro Coast is a simple record with obvious influences, but sometimes that’s what we need when shit gets a little too crazy.
It’s a fantastic debut, one of the better albums I’ve heard in a while, and the chances of me listening to these songs in five months time are extremely high. Some upcoming shows include an in-store performance at Other Music in downtown Manhattan in late February, so check them out if you get a chance. Astro Coast is out January 19th on Kanine Records.