It’s summer time again, and just like last year the indie music world has taken a turn toward the chill. Although we’ve been hearing from Beach Fossils for a while now, we’re just now introduced to the Brooklyn band’s attempt at a full-length album. The eponymous record is pretty much everything one might expect having heard a single or two or even just heard the name of the band. The words “beach fossils” invoke a feeling of something calm and relaxed but ultimately sad and decaying. So it’s no wonder Beach Fossils gives off that same feeling of remembering all those great beach days past through the telescope of someone far, far removed.
Just imagine taking an old 1960s surf rock record, dusting it off and slowing it down. Throw on some droning vocals, add some haunting reverb and you have Beach Fossils. The band’s sound is all about apathy. The guitars are playing typically upbeat melodies but are doing so in a downtrodden way. The vocals are similarly stuck between depression and joy. If there is a message in any of it, it might be that life is shit, but who really cares?
The songs somehow manage to both run together and stand apart. Beach Fossils already released the singles: “Youth,” “Vacation,” “Daydream,” but they also brought the other tracks up to the same level. There aren’t really standout tracks, because the album itself is a standout. Songs vary slightly from the jittery, tambourine-laced “Twelve Roses” to the nearly five-minute epic “Golden Age.” The album is best listened to as one unit, one sound rather than a collection of like-minded but separate songs.
Beach Fossils doesn’t really mark an kind of big change, but rather offers us yet another quality debut release from a young band. Harkening back to the kind of chilled-out music we were introduced to last summer (Toro Y Moi, Washed Out, Memory Tapes), Beach Fossils continues the trend of taking it easy. Because there’s always going to be shit to worry about in the world. Those great days at the beach are fleeting, so take it easy and enjoy them.
Beach Fossils – “Vacation” [MP3]
Beach Fossils – “Youth” [MP3]
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