Surfer Blood/ Astro Coast

Surfer Blood
Astro Coast
(Kanine Records)

They sound like dreamy-eyed stoner boys – and I know that shouldn’t endear them to me, but it does*. This is happy, shimmering, summer indie – done well.
Surfer Blood sound a little like The Shins if you removed the weight of the world from their shoulders, and maybe cross-bred them with The Las. Perhaps the best way to describe them is lo-fi and grungey, but happy.
I was initially concerned it sounded a little too clinical, a little too much like a focus-group had set out to create the perfect summer album. These churlish concerns were rapidly washed away by a sea of endorphins and Beach Boys harmonies.
Perhaps it is true that the upcoming single, ‘Swim’, does suffer for being a touch indie-pop-by-numbers, but there are far greater treasures to discover here. Opener ‘Floating Vibes’ is sunshine incarnate, and I have weird respect for any band that include what sounds very much like parody calypso on their album (in the form of the Shortwave Set-esque ‘Take it Easy’).
The album peaks appropriately with the gloriously whimsical ‘Twin Peaks’, a strange disco-tastic melange of falsetto vocals, latin beats, teen angst shouting that somehow transforms into a storming indie song halfway through.
Unfortunately, the next three songs are somewhat uninspiring. ‘Fast Jabroni’ is alright, but a let-down compared to its predecessors; ‘Slow Jabroni’ is listless and smacks of variety for its own sake; ‘Anchorage’ is also dull, and lazy both musically and lyrically.
Despite this fading away, album closer ‘Catholic Pagans’ is an absolute corker, a homage to 50's pop sweetness which culminates in a ridiculously feel good wall of sound. My only complaint is that it could have been a tiny bit longer, instead of ending in 50 seconds of distorted fuzziness. Still, to avert grumpiness, you merely have to press ‘Repeat’.
*Oh god. They look about 12. Don’t do drugs, kids.