Bad Pelicans
Best Of

The first strange fact is that these guys are starting their musical career with an album titled "Bets Of."

The second strange fact is that I’m DeBaserizing a French band, from Paris to be exact. I specify this because since the goals of Wiltord and Trezeguet at the Euros (I was nine), I realized that I'd never have great empathy with the French.

The third strange fact, linked to the second: even though they are from Paris, they seem to have grown up in the basement of John Dwyer or the good Ty Segall. And it's clear they are also platonic lovers of Nathan Williams, Jay Reatard, and the like. They belong to a well-defined music scene, but they are physically in another place.

And here, upon listening, all the strangeness converges: their debut is a pure celebration of the surf/garage/punk/fuzz of our declining decade. They were formed in the school of the hardest goofing around, with years of skating sessions, endless video game sessions (this preference is noticeable in the videos), wasting time in hipster clothing stores, in hipster record stores, in venues full of people with tiny mustaches, tattoos even in the pupils, water shorts up to knees, etc, etc, etc. They probably consider themselves senselessly cool, but like all of us, they are victims of the aesthetics of these years... Ah well. Although it should be noted that the taste for trash is undeniable and for what I think it earns them several points: when loafing around reaches certain heights, it is admirable.

On the other hand, the musical matter is a completely different thing: they have captured the spirit of the genre they play and pass it on to posterity divinely: they deserve a zero for creativity and a ten for reworking. The songs are all a succession of identical titles: we go from "Svrk Pvnk" to "Svrf Yovr Coffin', not to mention "Svrf Svrf", and what can be said about the original "Svrf". Then, a wavvesian quote couldn’t be missed - because it is only a quote as we are in Paris - of the theme beaches/sun/sea/I live in a swimsuit and skate and enjoy myself/get high and have bonfires with "Svmmertime". But what songs! Everything incredible, the album is all chaos and fun. The monotony of the titles is scraped away by the heterogeneity of the songs. Guitar strumming and spitting appropriately, right heaviness, surf when needed, punk when needed, garage in the interludes, same for the drums and bass, the voice is afflicted by the right raspiness and so forth. There are no blemishes. The last gem that cannot go unmentioned is "Covch Pizza", a high-level takeaway pizza anthem, a track that definitely winks at the Mudhoney sound.

To all lovers of the genre and not, I recommend a half hour of lively relaxation.