FOLIO
by Jack Diablo
Artists: Surfer Blood
Label: Kanine Records
Release Date: January 19, 2010
Put away your neon kids, 80s retro is out and it’s time to remember the 90s. “Already”, you ask? “Hell yes!” comes the adamant reply of indie-pop outfit Surfer Blood. Hailing from none other than West Palm Beach of all places, the band of early twenties Florida Atlantic University students blew their scholarship money on new equipment to record Astro Coast in their dorm room.
As far as the name is concerned, the boys in Surfer Blood are not surfers. Quite the contrary, as implied by the ferocious feeding shark on the cover. If anything, they resent the beach bums who ostracized them in high school and chose the name from a random backseat shout.
Likewise there is no surf rock nor any notion whatsoever that the tracks on Astro Coast were conceived anywhere near a beach. Which isn’t to say the album doesn’t carry with it an element of summer bliss. Songs such as ‘Floating Vibes’ and ‘Twin Peaks’ bring a Magnetic Fields vibe while ‘Swim’ evokes early Weezer. The band even experiments with a little Afropop a la Vampire Weekend on ‘Take It Easy.’ The pairing of acoustic and heavily distorted guitar on the opening of ‘Slow ‘ contains the slightest hint of Neutral Milk Hotel juxtaposed with the New Pornographers feel of ‘Fast Jabroni.’ On album closer ‘Catholic Pagans’ the boys flip the nine upside down and take it back to 60s pop. It seems that for their freshman release, the band has chosen simply to let us know what they’re capable musically. There is no superfluous over-production anywhere to be found, and the album is all the better for it.
Surfer Blood will be setting out on two tours in support of the Kanine Records release with heavy-hitters Art Brut and Japandroids. Having already drummed up some seriously positive press, Surfer Blood are starting off the year to come with their best foot forward.
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