Beach Music

Stunning. Lush, acoustic, emo ballads and lamentations. The guitar figures prominently throughout the record. This album sounds fantastic from front to back for existential late night listening. Reminds me a lot of Ryan Adams’ back catalogue at times. RIYL Pavement, Mitski, Elvis Depressedly. FCC: 2

1. (0:49) Intro - Shrieky guitar, barely discernible vocals, ominous bassline and drumming.
2. (2:40) *Bug - FCC: f***. Woolen acoustic guitar and soft synth line. Changes to more prominent vocals and less reverb around 1:00. Alternates with the amount of effects and the prominence of vocals.
3. (2:50) **Thorns - Emo ballad. Starts off slow and acoustic. Greaaaat new, penetrating guitar line introduced at 0:56 which is repeated about a minute later.
4. (2:51) **Kicker - Builds off of the intensity that was steadily building with Thorns. Opens with electric strumming and angsty vocals about feeling low. Nice, oddly satisfying occasional hammer-ons with the guitar. Alternations of a brief single note on electric guitar with acoustic strumming, beginning at 2:00.
5. (4:40) *Salt - Another sad emo song punctuated by occasional deep bass notes. Bass is prominent here in a way it’s not in other songs on the album. Quivering synth line comes in ~2:20. Haunting vocals dealing with watching over a suffering lover. What sounds like children’s voices comes in singing “ah’s” around 3:15.
6. (1:53) **Look Out - 20 second instrumental intro reminds me of cavernous church music. Glittering keyboards cascade through. Reverb. So much reverb. Stunning interlude.
7. (2:31) Brite Boy - Sounds like a lusher Girlpool. Sad confessional music about pining for “brite boy”. Orange, bright fingerpicked notes over a constant, lighter acoustic strumming. By the end there’s at least three guitars.
8. (3:31) *In Love - Wistful, foggy, melancholy. Sax and piano. Pleasantly surprised by Alex G making a jazz-inspired track. The delicateness of the vocals is sort of weak at times and detracts a little from the beauty of the instrumentation.
9. (1:28) Walk - Right from the first few seconds I was reminded of “City Rain, City Streets” by Ryan Adams. Lush guitars. Purely instrumental track.
10. (2:00) Mud - Faint guitars. Especially emo. Multiple sets of vocals. Not a particular standout.
11. (4:21) **Ready - Dialogue between Alex G and what sounds like a higher version of his voice. Silvery, Christmas synths and whoaaaaa these guitars are lush. "She came right through me."
12. (2:35) Station - Weird Iggy Pop-sounding voice. Sort of chaotic.
13. (5:04) *Snot - Rushing guitars and a subtle bass groove. Reminds me a lot of Ryan Adams’ album Gold. Entirely instrumental from the middle until the end. Introspective.