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Friday 6th April 2012
All Day BBQ Festival

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On Our iPod

Golden Grrrls - New Pop 7”

Chris Devotion & The Expectations - Amalgamation & Capital (album)

Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester (album)

Throwing Up - Mother Knows Best 7”

Howling Wolf - Complete Chess Masters 1951-60

The Ketamines - A Rotten Bond/1 Yr (from Oddbox Singles Club Pt 2)

Cardinal - Hymns (album)

Proper Ornaments - Taking the Gamble Out of Buying 12”

Darren Hayman - January Songs (album)

Various: Marshall Teller EP 12”

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Album Review

Surfer Blood
Astro Coast Kanine Records

Article written by Ged M - Feb 11, 2010

Surfer Blood: Astro Coast

I was told that I'd like this so I was expecting smart, left-field tunes coated in dirty fuzz. What I actually heard was five guys from West Palm Beach, Florida playing slick guitars-in-overdrive rock that owes more to Van Halen than, say, Pavement. Their breakthrough song 'Swim (To Reach The End)' is the sort of polished anthem that was once called adult oriented rock and performed by blokes in poodle perms. The fact that Pitchfolk gave the album 8.2 points shows that you can scratch an American reviewer and an unreconstructed rock guitar fetishist shines out (though it doesn't stop them dropping all sorts of inappropriate indie references, making me worry that they couldn't tell the Smashing Pumpkins from the Mouldy Peaches). The whole album lacks inspiration or originality. There are strong echoes of Weezer and the Shins (vocals especially) and there are two blatant "lifts": ‘Take It Easy’ is a variation on Vampire Weekend's afrobeat while ‘Harmonix’ has clear echoes of the Strokes aping Television. Towards the end the album picks up with the longer songs: the leisurely 6 minutes of ‘Slow Jabroni’ channels the best of the Shins while ‘Anchorage’ is lyrically twisted rather than linguistically embarrassed as elsewhere. It's too little, too late though. If other reviewers praise it, I'll be the one telling you that we have a case of the Emperor's New Clothes. Remove the frantic guitar riffs and you're left with nothing. And having to pay top dollar for the record hurts even more.

Links:
http://kaninerecords.com/surfer-blood
http://www.myspace.com/surferblood