Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
A little like Weezer, a little like Pavement when they were trying to get radio play.
In one of those typical music industry moves, this record came out in January in America, so many of you might have heard it already thanks to the nefarious ways of the internet. Some of you might know then that Surfer Blood sound a little like Weezer, a little like Pavement when they were trying to get radio play.
Whether you've heard them or not, the name is a clue to another aspect of their sound– Surfer Blood trade in west coast American pop. Or there's another clue on 'Floating Vibes', where the lyric “If you're going to move to the west / You'd best learn how to surf” appears. Or there's the big clue on track five, 'Neighbour Riffs', which IS a late 60s surf-pop instrumental, recast a few decades later.
Early fans will know 'Swim', which attracted the fairly meaningless accolade of being Pitchfork's 37th best track of 2009. It's suitably epic, with a “large chorus”, but it's one of the weaker tracks. Others are much better, more fun, less typically west coast American pop. 'Take It Easy' burbles along on a tropical guitar line switching around the stave before a slight, dreamy chorus swoons in.
For something that easily could have been an American classic pop covers album, the band mix up their styles well - the simple, dumb riff on the end of 'Fast Jabroni' leads into the sparse melancholy of 'Slow Jabroni', before that opens up into a chugging wide sky slowburning beauty. 'Harmonix' is darker, with chiming chords breaking up Strokes-esque rumbles. The switching keeps the feeling throughout fresher than it might otherwise have been.
Surfer Blood are heavily tipped/hyped, attracting high scores across the pond etc etc. The problem is that another nefarious part of the internet is the space it gives for the many writers out there to create a consensus around potentially undeserving bands. And it is all too easy to see why 'Astro Coast' has attracted such hyperbole – it fits in with American musical history, allowing writers a chance to talk about all the old bands that Surfer Blood resemble. They are not undeserving of the hype though. That Surfer Blood manage to reconstitute those styles incredibly successfully – 'Astro Coast' is full of perfectly composed indie pop ditties – is why the band should continue to see success. Their only problem is that the postscript will always say not to expect anything 'different' or 'new' from Surfer Blood. It's up to you, whether you've heard this record yet or not, to decide whether that bothers you.
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