Surfer Blood
Astro Coast

“Astro Coast” has the taste of seaside brine. Boisterous like a night hook-up on the beach with a girl you just met an hour before at a party (something that happens to me often).

Surfer Blood are the freeze-frame of thousands of scorching Florida backyards with attached pools, where adolescent indifference is left to stew. Everything is suffused with an opulent, lazy, tired sun. Hence the need to channel all this apathy into energy.

The recipe to awaken the complacent torpor of our afternoon siestas consists of a powerful sound system. The impact of these ten songs is comparable to a bucket of water in the face.

The best thing the barely-more-than-kids from West Palm Beach managed to do was to give this album an indecipherable climate. There is the lightness of the best lo-fi nineties Pavement, the garage chaos of Pixies, and the pop anger of Weezer. The mood is sarcastic, the melodies catchy, the feedback and delays expertly measured. What the heck more do you want? An altered voice of unheard arrogance that devastates the eardrums? That’s there too, don’t worry.

Right from the opening “Floating Vibes”, all our certainties are swept away by a stoner-surf squall.

The best episodes are given to us by the reverb-heavy hard-rock of “Swim (to Reach the End)” with an ice-cream truck interlude; the timeless hybrid ballad “Take it Easy”; the college-rock of “Twin Peaks” and “Fast Jabroni”, which in the first half winks at Arcade Fire.

“Anchorage” is a reverent homage to an indie-concept such as “Teen Age Riot”. Also enjoyable are the garage-noise of the instrumental “Neighbor Riffs” and the carefree “Catholic Pagans”.

What are you doing standing there, dive in too, preferably without a swimsuit.