Surfer Blood, Astro Coast [Kanine]
Reviewed by: Chris Polley
I hate that with some bands, if I were to free associate to a music psychiatrist of sorts, I would never be able to hear/read their name without the Pitchfork Media logo hovering nearby in the canvas of my brain. “Pitchfork!” I would exclaim embarrassingly to the therapist when he/she asks me to respond to an image of Surfer Blood’s debut album Astro Coast. As I would see his/her right eyebrow curl in judgment out of the corner of my eye, I would pivot my foot, blush, and immediately bawl my eyes out on the couch, my speech becoming barely comprehensible behind the buckets of tears and snot, pouring forth with the admission, “I can’t help it! I’ve visited the site daily for over six years! I can’t seem to pull away from its tentacles of music-recommending warmth!”
The funny thing about this whole scenario is that I didn’t even first hear about Surfer Blood on Pitchfork. Granted, I downloaded their top-notch single “Swim” from some random MP3 blog, which probably got the tip about the Floridian quartet from the bastion of indie music in question. Regardless, I was going nuts with “Swim”, putting it on mixtapes, jamming it out in my car, all the while thinking Surfer Blood was my band. The one I was waiting for in 2010 to release a record that I’d be able to hold dearly to my heart and share with friends. It’s elitist, yes, but us music geeks get off on that shit. Might as well admit it. Then Pitchfork comes along and grants the guys the coveted Best New Music label and suddenly everyone with a shared fondness for reverb-heavy guitars and catchy throaty vocal melodies is doling out the love for Surfer Blood.
When all is said and done, though, as long as they don’t start embracing Paul Simon and khakis like Vampire Weekend, there won’t be too much of a public backlash. Because as much as we’d all like to ignore Pitchfork and form our own opinions on the newest band that figures out how to make guitars and drums sound exciting again, they are the ultimate monopoly. So let’s just accept that and move on.
As for the record (since I guess that’s what a music reviewer’s supposed to muse about), well it’s solid. It’s a remarkably cohesive collection of tracks that never veer off into experimentation or eclecticism, but manages to hold the listener’s attention enough so that their voice doesn’t get old after ten songs. Some of the tracks lack the immediate attention-grabbing exhilaration of the aforementioned single, such as “Harmonix” and “Slow Jabroni” (though even the title of the latter prepares us for something a little more downbeat), but overall these guys know how to work the pop rock formula for their benefit.
For example, “Take It Easy” succeeds at doing exactly what its title implies while also letting vocalist John Paul Pitts employ a joyous falsetto and some hand-beat drum embellishments, and “Catholic Pagans” harks back to a steady, ambling 50s-style guitar lick in the verses, which contrasts beautifully with the track’s messily delivered chorus. With songs like these and an overall mastery of a sound that’s not exactly groundbreaking but sure is pleasing to the ear, this is a band that has caught our attention not only because they got Pitchfork to listen to their music, but because they’ve gotten even cynical buzz/hype-hating loathers like me to jump on the bandwagon. And boy does this wagon ride nicely.
Rating: 86%
OMD: 69% (↓17%) It’s still objectively good rock music, never meandering and never lacking confidence, but after a while some of the once-awesome tracks are just serviceable. “Swim” is still an outstanding single, but apart from that, while still a fun listen by all means, it may all sound like flat indistinguishable indie rock that is just that: Fun, but not revelatory by any means.
