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On my desktop “post-it” feature, I have a never-ending list of bands to check out. Constantly, I go to the many Myspace music pages and after further listening, re-arrange the artists according to priority. And every once in a while, there’s a band who effortlessly rises to the top of the list, who you can’t believe you haven’t heard before. Surfer Blood, with their uplifting summer anthems and haven’t-I-heard-this-before hooks, became that band the other week.
The band’s first single, “Swim (To Reach The End)”, pretty much speaks for itself. Right away. The first moment combines the powerful type of wail that sounds like it’s breaking your speakers (a la Win Butler in “Tunnels”) with a defining, pounding set of power chords that Free Energy must have shared with this Florida-based crew. The song quickly develops out of its initial fuzziness with the help of a few chimes and a chorus that you’ll be singing along with after first listen. It stalls for a bit midway through, but that’s only to set up for the big build about 2 minutes in that wisely takes us right back to the chorus. Short, sweet, and rocking (like a good Thermals track), Surfer Blood is ridiculously good at making arena-ready rock, and this is only their first full length.
Speaking of the album as a whole, it’s full of gems, and you need only to head to their Myspace page to discover a few of them. Particularly, the familiar, chilled-out melodies of “Floating Vibes” show off Surfer Blood’s versatility, but also utilize the oldest tricks in the indie -rock bag (hand-claps), proving (if you doubted it at all) that this band knows what it’s doing, and will be around for a while.
MP3: Surfer Blood “Swim (To Reach The End)”
MP3: Surfer Blood “Floating Vibes”
