SURFER BLOOD – ASTRO COAST

Surfer Blood are not a surf band. Despite their violent oceanic album art, and a use of reverb on these recordings that truly awakens an essence of the sandy-eyed romance of surf life, they are simply exercising their need to hammer out a classic pop tune. Most immediately arresting is the singleSwim, a titanic pop affair that somehow blends the stadium bravado  of  80’s Springsteen with the lyrical melody-hopping of James Mercer. It’s catchy stuff.  Some of the playful tape experiments of bands like Animal Collective and Efterklang come to mind with Take it Easy and Harmonix, and as the record carries on the guitars and the catchy factor get more intense. To a point where  these guys pack a double-punch of power on the same theme – the outlandishly bittersweet sing-song Odyssey Fast Jabroni/Slow Jabroni. In essence, Surfer Blood have melded together the best elements of American alternative music of the last 30 years, distilling their cocktail of shoe-gaze guitars, soaring new-romantic vocals and thinking-person’s pop tunes into the powerhouse collection on this album, while never wearing their influences too proudly on the sleeve. Brilliant, and weirldly original.

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