Bands to Watch #186: Surfer Blood
Every now and then, a band comes along that gets me real excited – so excited, I actually want to shout their names from the rooftops. Alas due to health and safety issues, I passed on the rooftop idea and took to Twitter instead, and have spent this past week annoying my ‘followers’ (mostly consisting of Spanish bots trying to sell me, er, enhancement drugs) with countless tweets about my love for Surfer Blood, my new indie crush.
And here come the comparisons. Think the summertime hooks of Vampire Weekend, add a dash of vintage lovesickness ala Beach Boys, and finally, a pinch of the true staying power of indie giants ala Pavement and The Pixies – and I think we have cooked up a nice recipe reflecting Surfer Blood – my favourite discovery of 2010 so far.
The Floridian quintet have already been given the green light by king of pretentiousness (but hey, no doubt brilliant tasting) site that is Pitchfork – who placed the band’s debut single ‘Swim’ in their ‘Best Tracks of 2009’. Said song revels around in an echo chamber, filled with thundering guitar riffs and reverb chants inducing epic, stadium worthy sing alongs. Indeed, after hearing ‘Swim’, I was pretty darn psyched, so I decided to check out Surfer Blood’s debut album, ‘Astro Coast’. The record is a bundle of fun, filled with indie gems lined with a surf edge. Tumbling guitar licks, and swirling vocals singing about David Lynch movies – Astro Coast, and Surfer Blood as a whole, are far too good an indie force to be tomorrow’s fish and chip paper.
Check out the video to ‘Swim’, below, and be sure to catch Surfer Blood at Reading/Leeds Festival this August.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AEldiUP408[/youtube]
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