Surfer Blood - Astro Coast (Kanine)

You can a lot of the times tell exactly where a band hails from. The Beach Boys were obviously straight from the beaches of California, The Beatles out of grizzly Liverpool, England and so on and so forth. That theory is in definite support of very young new group Surfer Blood straight out of Florida. Surf rock is definitely Surfer Blood's main stamp on their sound as they blast their way through their songs on their debut Astro Coast.

Surfer Blood's sound has a simplistic quality that so many other bands have as well, but not to the extreme of simple like Wire or early Spoon. Surfer Blood has the simple that has good round influence and textures of lo-fi guitar noises like Pavement but with a touch of Weezer's somewhat simple sound. On top of all that, there is a surf rock twist that adds in for a very unique sound. Even on the hard-hitting intro of the opening track "Floating Vibes" the mood is set that Astro Coast is going to be a guitar heavy adventure.

The guitar riffs may seem a bit repetitive and unoriginal, but jangly lead guitar lines rainbow over the heavy rhythms of the guitar. It seems like there isn't a single different guitar "sound" that Surfer Blood tries to use. Astro Coast all sounds like one chilling, groovy song that is split into different parts. That may have its advantages, but takes away from the enjoyment in the long run of the album.

The same complaint is true to the vocals, bass and drumming of Surfer Blood; it all sounds the same. Though the song structures do change up everyone in a while, the repetitive nature of the whole sound is quite tiring after a while. The song structure change-up is quite obvious especially for the "Fast Jabroni" and "Slow Jabroni" sequence of Astro Coast, there basically the same song except the ladder is slowed down, obviously. It's a bit unoriginal.

Surfer Blood have a good twisted sound that can be pretty fun to listen to, but I feel like that they aren't striving for much to put themselves ahead of the pack in the indie universe. Boring reptitive songs that may drone on and on really impede the enjoyment of the second half of the album. The two opening tracks "Floating Vibes" and "Swim" are the strongest on Astro Coast.

Overall: 7.8/10

Track Listing:

1. Floating Vibes - 9.0
2. Swim - 8.5
3. Take It Easy - 7.5
4. Harmonix - 8.0
5. Neighbour Riffs - 7.5
6. Twin Peaks - 7.5
7. Fast Jabroni - 7.5
8. Slow Jabroni - 7.0
9. Anchorage - 8.0
10. Catholic Pagans - 7.5

Sample:

"Floating Vibes (Live)"