Beach Day | Native Echoes | Rating: 9/11 |
Released: August 19, 2014
Beach Day’s Native Echoes is probably the best sophomore record since Nashville’s Those Darlins followed-up their beautifully sloppy and crass country punk debut with 2011’s Screws Get Loose, an exercise in garage psychedelia channeled through the hipster artistry of New York’s Bowery in the 1970s. Beach Day have followed-up the hyper-fun-loving, hyper-sunny girl-group garage of 2013’s Trip Trak Attack with something that’s also a little more serious. Native Echoes reflects the slightly rougher, more intellectual and punker musical loves of the Hollywood, Florida band (The album’s opening track, which could be described as Beach Day reminiscing about the loveliest kind of subversions, is actually titled “All of My Friends Were Punks.”)
Native Echoes has Beach Day exploring the breadth of their influences, whether sun-or-shadow-laden, without ever abandoning the aesthetic inspired by living in a charmingly crocodile-and-bikini-filled South Florida. The album’s first single, “Don’t Call Me on the Phone,” sounds a bit like the Ramones playing a tiki hut after hearing Joy Division for the first time (Seriously…). While “I’m Just Messin’ Around” has the band resembling The Runaways embracing flip-flops and cut-offs for the first time yet firmly hanging on to their affinity for David Bowie, Keith Richards, and Gene Simmons. “Pretty” once again has the band returning to a sound akin to New Order’s rhythm section (but if they were backing Heart). “The Lucky One” is girl group balladry that rings of something halfway between a song to be found on the soundtrack to a film by David Lynch and Wong Kar-wai. And the album’s best track “BFFs” is actually along the lines of Courtney Love penning a tune for Cry Baby, except addressing a relationship that is more-meaningful and less-carnal.
In addition to the sounds of the ‘60s and ‘70s that would seem to be the foundations of Beach Day’s sounds on Native Echoes, vocalist/guitarist Kimmy Drake makes her admiration of 1990s feminine sonic badassery very apparent, often resembling a tropical take on some vixen who might headline Lollapalooza back when it was actually progressive. Grab a copy today!