Surfer Blood’s promising debut album Astro Coast was full of carefree vibes and sunny melodies, but the Florida quartet’s subsequent releases have been cast in dark shadows. Domestic battery allegations (dropped) against vocalist John Paul Pitts surfaced during the production of follow-up Pythons and the band’s new album 1000 Palms is released to the news that guitarist Thomas Fekete is fighting a rare, aggressive form of cancer.
While the disappointing Pythons felt weighed down by trials and tribulations (including the reality of working with an ill-fitting major label), 1000 Palms punches through the pain with a run of quality tracks that pair rugged surf-pop riffs with loved-up, blissed-out melodies. Astro Coast remains Surfer Blood’s masterwork, though they may have devised their finest song yet in I Can’t Explain – telling the tale of a romantic encounter on New Year’s Eve, it ends with a guitar riff that sounds like a saxophone blowing staccato notes in a static-drenched snowstorm.
There are a number of other high points scattered throughout: the nostalgic Island is a sturdier number than the album-starter Grand Inquisitor; wistful single Dorian builds to a fist-punching guitar solo; and the marching drums and math-rock guitars of the forward-thinking Other Desert Cities and reflective comedown of NW Passage make for a heady finish to the album.1000 Palms stoically keeps its focus in the face of turbulence and finds Surfer Blood with a new spring in their step.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
