Beach Day Never Ends, It Echoes

While summer is almost a wrap for most people, Beach Day is just getting started. Their newest album, Native Echoes, doubles down on the ins, outs, and influences of girl bands in the sixties.

As a band that is more about the attitude than the genre, expect some heady attention to the detail. Sure, they were much more about fun than form when the band debuted last year. But this time out, Kimmy Drake (guitars, vocals) and Skyler Black (drums) are in a different place. This is much more than the recasting of The Black Rabbits. It's Beach Day.

Native Echoes is bottled up fun. Uncork it whenever.

Mostly, the Florida-based trio sounds re-energized. After a year of touring and stepping inside the studio with Jim Diamond (Sonics, Dirtbombs, The White Stripes), Beach Day was ready to reach beyond the confines of nostalgia and knock out ten revisionist tracks that fire up this decade too.

Even with the absence of former bassist Natalie Smallish, who left the band after the release concert of their debut, Beach Day has never sounded better. In some ways, it solidified the commitment of Drake and Black to play on and go out. It creeps in often on Native Echoes as passionate desperation.

Where you won't hear it is on Don't Call Me On The Pone. The video, which premiered in July, eases into the album much like their album last year with a lyrical twist that chastises a likely boyfriend for being predictable at best and boring at worst.


While Don't Call Me On The Phone is pretty standard fare for the band, most of the other tracks showcase something more. This is an album about friendships — those lost, found, and bruised beyond repair.

All My Friends Were Punks takes on the theme in the broadest sense, with Drake taking on a dense and reminiscent bent with her vocals and on the guitar. Think of it as a toast to those lost teenage years. She does the punk scene proud, despite the overindulgent hand claps.

Where the album truly picks up is later on in the track listings. After the lackadaisical BFFs track, Beach Day gets down to business with I'm Just Messin' Around. The tempo change couldn't come soon enough, even if it plays to pedestrian sensibilities. It's about driving around and doing stuff.

The bottom half of the album is even better. Pretty picks up the thumps better than I'm Just Messin' Around. It sounds like it should be played loud in a cruising convertible despite never mentioning words like car or ride or anything else. One might even be inspired to stand up and put their arms out (seat belt laws not withstanding).

All their swirling buzz numbers follow. The Lucky One, Fades Away, and Lost Girl are the best tracks on the album. Collectively, these three dial down the notion that Beach Day is only about the fun. Drake and Black can be contemplative too, even if they seldom get specific about it.

Sure, some people are going to focus on the fact that Beach Day still doesn't push themselves enough. Maybe. But there are some subtleties on the album to appreciate, like running a 12-string guitar through an Allen Gyrophonic speaker to make it sound like a synth. Does it matter? Yes and no but mostly yes.

Native Echoes By Beach Day Blows Out 7.4 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale. 

Native Echoes is another stepping stone for the duo that tours with a guest bassist. So give the band a little more time as it matures into something even better. And in the meantime? Run through the track list and dig into their standouts. There are several, especially on the back half.

You can pick up Native Echoes by Beach Day from Amazon. The album is also available for download from iTunes and Barnes & Noble carries the vinyl edition of Native Echoes. For something more, especially tour information, visit them on Facebook.

Splashh Debuts With Comfort Mood

When Toto Vivian and Sasha Carlson left Byron Bay, Australia, last summer, neither one of them knew precisely where the collaboration and collection of psychedelic indie pop songs might end up. It wasn't really clear, in fact, until they landed in Hackney, East London and lined up their first gig last May.

As soon as they did, the duo knew they couldn't put it off anymore. They needed a little help from their friends to round out the band. So they started calling around until Jacob Moore and Thomas Beale turned up for their first live set and it all fell into place.

With Vivian having played with Beale in another band and Carlson having known Moore for years in Aukland, the only real hitch was that Moore was still in New Zealand. The whirlwind trip had him playing with his old band one day, and flying to London the next day to rehearse with his new band.

Comfort is a brilliant alternative indie rock debut with ample psychedelia.

The album, Comfort, doesn't really take its name from being a theme per se. It's more like a state of being. Everyone in Splashh has played in several bands before and they've all settled into the idea that it is more important to do things with people you like rather than those who promise everything.

Most of the music came together by playing in the moment. They prefer to go with it more than overwork it.

Vacation, which was the first track the band ever played together in the studio, sounds like that. It's a fuzzy fringe daydream song about taking off and finding some solace away from the hectic pace of wherever you are. It's simple, but has a stylish and steady psychedelic atmosphere.

All I Want To Do feels much the same way, except with a sound that is even more relaxed and almost underwater. It's not just about wanting a vacation, but imagining what it might be like to live without worker worries. The music can be a bit mangled, but only in the best possible and most cheery way.



For anyone who has listened to music for more than a few decades, there are similarities and familiarities to be found, casting the foursome as a cleaned-up grunge band in some quarters. But maybe what's more interesting than who they sound like is the crowd that found them. They never heard that music.

Not everything about the band has a sunny smile. Just most of it.

While most of their music floats along with Carlson delivering a steady stream of distant and dazed vocals, Splashh doesn't rely on single gimmick to win people over. They balance out their brightness with edgier and somewhat darker tracks at times.

Two of them, So Young and Washed Out, touch on sadder stories — dismissive in one instance, heartbroken in the other. There is a tinge of hopelessness in both songs despite the airiness that cocoons the lyrics. Headspins, which opens the album, isn't as cheery as you think on the first pass either. Neither is Need It, which carries the casual call to run away from everything.


What makes it all work are the simple but penetrating chords, the right amount of fuzziness, and enough authenticity to give pop a punch in the head. It's human and modern but unafraid to give nods to the late 60s and early 90s. Comfort is worth owning as an album and make sure to add the bonus track Sun Kissed Bliss to the mix.

Comfort By Splashh Makes Waves At 9.5 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale. 

Comfort is a jewel because it achieves exactly what it sets out to do, without trying so hard or thinking that fuzz and distorts can turn something foul into something fun. While it probably wasn't nearly as effortless as it sounds (or the band makes it sound), Comfort catches everyone off guard in that it's a debut that gets it right. They can only go up from here.

Comfort by Splashh can be found on Amazon or order the vinyl from Barnes & Noble. Comfort is also available from iTunes. The band has also put most of their songs up on YouTube, but the best place to catch their chronicle is Facebook. Add them to this year's best debut list.

Beach Day Likes Walks, Boys, Shoes

Not everyone will like Beach Day, but Kanine Records started sneaking out singles for the band back in December anyway. They've released three of them now, just enough to make a 5-track EP.

It's hard to say if they will or won't. The 60s centered girl-fronted fuzzed up pop rock band has been called Best Coast on crack. It was meant as compliment, but it's also a nod to the fact that the band is too fresh to take seriously. They don't take themselves seriously.

Beach Day is a diversion and that makes it fun. 

Just to be clear, there is no comparison to Best Coast. Beach Day isn't even this band's main gig. Maybe it will be one day, but right now all three members also play in the Asheville, North Carolina-based The Black Rabbits.

More exactly, they are The Black Rabbits with a different sound, different first names, and no frontman. The question some people have to ask is if The Black Rabbits can survive. These borrowed beach garage pop grooves might be more addictive than the source they sprang from two years ago.

Claiming Hollywood, Florida, as their new hometown, the trio isn't especially great. The music isn't especially fresh. It's not something anyone could play day in and day out. But it's precisely these reasons why everything clicks. Sometimes life just doesn't need to be so fucking serious.

That pretty much sums up their latest standalone single, Boys. Clocking in at a clipped two minutes, Boys reaches for a lovesick sweet sixteenie who breaks it off with her boyfriend and goes boy crazy. The single is also slated for their upcoming LP, Trip Track Attack.


While it's unclear if some of their other singles will grace the album, it's impossible to talk about Beach Day without adding these various tracks. The very first cuts I heard last December were Walking On The Streets and its B-side, Little Red Shoes.

The single is a straightforward slow pop number. The song is all right for something that reminds me of of a roughed up Ronettes number, but mostly it proves that Beach Day's head elf Kimmy Drake can really sing. Little Red Shoes is the better number. The B-side track has more rock and less pop.

Because Kanine Records released the second single — Beach Day with the accompanying Get It Out Of Your Head — I didn't hear it until after Boys landed in my inbox. While it might sound impossibly familiar to anyone who lives closer to the real Hollywood, Beach Day is still sonic-pop perfect for any summer day with surf, sand, whatever.


Much like the first single, Get It Out Of Your Head might be the better track. The B-side sleeper is well composed, significantly smoother and fuller than any of the others. And it's almost knowing that will make people wonder just what the band intends to do on the album.

The fact is that the trio frequently puts down live shows and puts up videos that aren't nearly as polished as their studio work. The fuzzed out and dirty cuts, sometimes dropping vocals or other elements out entirely, doesn't sound nearly as good as when they play their music effortlessly and straight. In fact, it's when they try too hard that they run into trouble and fall dangerously close to becoming a parody of themselves and others.

Beach Day Finds All Boys At 7.3 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale. 

After the review, some people might wonder why I scored them higher than most people would anticipate. It's easy enough to explain. I want Beach Day to succeed because they could make a lot of fun music without being overtly presumptuous like some alternative bands. At the same time, I freely admit that I don't always like how much I like the band.

You can pick up Boys from Beach on iTunes, along with their other singles: Beach Day and Walking On The Streets. Beach Day is currently on tour and sharing some updates on Tumblr. You can also follow the band on their Facebook page.

Xray Eyeballs Catch Splendor Squalor

The Brooklyn band with the curious name has a new lineup and a brand new album. It's enough change that 2012 could very well be the year that Xray Eyeballs finally catches fire.

Gone are Jay High (guitar), Rop Style (synth and theremin), and Allison Press (drums). In are Liz Lohse on guitar and synth (formerly with Heaven and Runaway Suns) and Sarah Baldwin on drums and vocals (formerly with The Girls At Dawn). Lohse and Baldwin join stalwarts Carly Rabalais on bass and vocals, and O.J. San Felipe on guitar and vocals. It's almost an entirely new band.

Xray Eyeballs change up their sound, but not their look. 

If you’ve heard the band’s previous work, you’ll immediately notice that the new version of Xray Eyeballs is a bit less goth in sound. Only the appearance remains relatively unchanged. It all seems by design. Band founder San Felipe knows what he wants but it took awhile for him to find it.

He originally relocated from his native San Francisco to Brooklyn around 2000 and quickly found himself part of a burgeoning music scene playing in a variety of bands, most notably Golden Triangle. If you've never heard of Golden Triangle don't feel bad. They were always light on output, but made up for it with their fiery live performances and wacky stage presence.

It's also where San Felipe met Rabalais, and shared his vision. He wanted to do something different.

“I just wanted to make every song sound like a lullaby," he said. "To me, lullabies are the most memorable kind of songs; everyone remembers them from when they’re babies. They’re not all happy lullabies either. I think people like songs they can relate to, with things like love, loss, dark vices, and sex.” 

San Felipe wrote the songs and then started recruiting band members, with Rabalais being the first. Not Nothing was released in the spring of 2011 on Kanine Records and earned the band props for their dreamy pop hooks and hazy, fuzzy sound that makes one think of Jesus and Mary Chain and Velvet Underground. But that's not what makes Splendor Squalor really tick. Here's the lullaby, live.





While you can't catch it all in the clip, Splendor Squalor actually kicks up the songwriting several notches. The synths are more prominent. The showcase is all on the harmonies of San Felipe and Rabalais with a strong garage pop noir sound. And you can hear it better here, from last year.





The 11-track Splendor Squalor offers up a nice bunch of tunes. Not one of them sounds too much like the others, with the band shifting effortlessly from garage rock to an eerie rave up.

Die Little Love is very new wave, punctuated by a piercing guitar and low-key synth. Gotham Low Lifes (sic) features jangly guitars with a pulsating rhythm. X is a punchy tune featuring Rabalais’ throbbing bass, and Four, the first track on the CD, kicks things into gear with a driving beat that makes you want to get up on your feet.

After a few listens to the CD in its entirety, you will hear some traces of the Shangri-Las, X’s John and Exene, and maybe even the Raveonettes (to a lesser degree). Yet, Xray Eyeballs manages to mix it all up and deliver something original. It's inspired and inspiring.

Looking forward, this is a band that manages to do what few can. They bring the intensity of their live shows to their recordings. Want proof? Check out another clip of the band in action at the Mercury Lounge on Vimeo. It includes everyone in the new lineup.

You can stay up to date on the band's comings and goings on Facebook. Twitter too. Right now, the band has a few shows set in February and March, with a Feb. 28 show on their home turf of Brooklyn. In March, they hit Houston and then Chicago.

Spendor Squalor By Xray Eyeballs Raves Up A 7.4 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale. 

If you are still unsure about the sound, take it for a test run. You can download the song X from their Bandcamp page. In exchange, all you need to do is share your email address.

If you are more certain, then you can find Splendor Squalor by the Xray Eyeballs up on iTunes. The entire album is a steal at $7.99. Listen to X, Four, Pill Riders, and Cold Bones first. Summer Daze too if you like something less expected. The album is also on Amazon, but we haven't seen Kanine Records put it up at Barnes & Noble yet.