Surfer Blood – Astrocoast

Album Reviews • Tuesday November 24th, 2009 • 9:42 am

Man, the hype for these guys! Jeez. Our generation’s Vampire Weekend, know what I mean? Surfer Blood is a time bomb with about 0:00 minutes left on the clock. This debut, Astrocoast, will drop and Urban Outfitters will bat her mascara-drenched eyelashes coyly in their direction. After that, it’s gonna be all Late Show this and Pitchfork that and cool people (All of us, right? Right.) can ditch the bandwagon. “I listened to them before they were big; in fact I was the only person who went to their first basement show back in 2006 and then we all crashed on my couch.” That’s what we’ll be like.

I get it though. They’re the sort of band that oozes hype by the fuzzy, lo-fi bucketful. They recorded their album in a West Palm Beach dorm. They’re innovative, but still appealing. John Paul Pitts, the lead singer, has a very Brian Wilson-esque ear for harmonies backing up his Neighbor Boy charm. And the guitars are hazy, humid, and washed out, but always with some tangible pluck up front to keep it on the tracks.

So, if you’re paying attention, that means it sounds a lot like the Shins. But that influence has been so hot over the past five years that it really goes without saying. I mean, everyone sounds like the Shins, so it’s not really so much a mark against Surfer Blood as much as it’s proof that they’ve listened to music on an iPod before. We won’t quibble about who sounds like whom, and enough about how huge they are going to be – let’s get down to brass tacks! Are they good?

Definitely. They’re even great at times. But they’re never better than the first single, “Swim.” It’s their most original tune, and also their ballsiest – with lots of hollering and Blue Album-era Weezer power chords aplenty. It sounds untrue to the rest of the Astrocoast’s West Coast vibe, but they play it like they mean it, so even that comes off as a strength. It’s really good.

So good that it almost hurts the rest of the album. Even I, sitting here, reviewing this, am fighting the temptation to keep replaying “Swim” over and over. Only my dedication to the cause is keeping me going.

The rest of the album is good though. “Twin Peaks” is their most Shins-y song, but it’s got a summery charisma. “Anchorage” has a crunchy riff that almost fools you into thinking that lines like “I don’t wanna spin my wheels/ I don’t got no wheels to spin” is some sort of hand-clappingly happy anthem (it’s not). Album closer “Catholic Pagans” is all pop, singing mournfully to “you,” about everything that “I” did wrong. And “Slow Jabroni” is a melancholy little guitar strummer that keeps you guessing every second of its six-minute running time.

So, there’s that. People want them to be big. Might happen. Will they blow up the charts all Fleet Foxes like? Or will they go Vampire Weekend on us and suffer the misfortune of too many people liking them before other people like them or whatever? Who knows! One more of life’s mysteries. But, big or not, they’re the real deal.

Tagged as: California, palm beach, pop/rock