If you read through the comments section on BrooklynVegan, you'll see snarky, biting, anonymous comment after snarky, biting, anonymous comment. It's almost like all of these people who spend their time commenting on posts on a music site do it just because they hate music so much. I find myself asking, "Oh, twenty-something transplant to Brooklyn from New Hampshire or Indiana or Rhode Island, who hurt you? Who made you so very jaded at such a young age?"
I think of myself as kind of a cynical person; but, when I see that stuff, those comments, I realize that I'm just a blubbering, corny pushover. Music is a transformative force for me. Music makes me do this:
 |
| I'm in the Lemuria shirt. Photo: Christina Domingues |
I think that's what appeals to me so much about Beach Slang. Beach Slang aren't a band of kids. The Philadelphia four-piece are veterans of the Philly music scene from earlier projects. Frontman and principal songwriter, James Alex, wears his heart on his sleeve and sings with all the passion and wide-eyed amazement of someone still figuring things out. Beach Slang's debut LP, The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us, is an ode to the healing life-force of rock music.
On opener "Throwaways," Alex sings in his Richard Butler rasp over pulsing shoegaze guitars of "trash like us," "restless punks," and "throwaways," misfits searching to be part of something bigger. "Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas" instantly transports me to Asbury Lanes for the last show there. I'm pressed up against the stage with 400 of my closest friends and my beautiful wife. I'm screaming, "I've always felt stuck, alone, or ashamed" along with everyone else and instantly making that very feeling melt away.
"I feel most alive when I'm listening to every record that hits harder than the pain," sings Alex on "Ride the Wild Haze." It's, maybe, the hardest rocking song on the record; and, with that line, it kind of sums up what I think Beach Slang are trying to do for their audience. He continues, "I try a lot to write. Try to use my brain; but every time I try, my heart gets in the way." That is evident on every song here.
Acoustic guitar, strings, and piano accompany Alex's strained whisper on "Too Late to Die Young." "I ain't ever felt loved," he sings. Loud and wild records, though, "have always been enough;" and he swears, "right now I'm alright."
"Young & Alive" pounds home that point. The idea that music is a force that can make you feel something and keep you going. "Go pound the snares and amplifiers (It's wild It's wild It's wild) ... We are young and alive!" The song is probably the biggest departure sonically from Beach Slang's two EPs and, perhaps, reflects the band's transformation to a four-piece with the addition of guitarist Ruben Gallego.
"I blur all this hurt into sound," sings Alex on album-closer "Dirty Lights." Throughout the record, that sound is a wall of noisy guitars that often thrums and pulses like a beating heart. The rhythm section of Ed McNulty and JP Flexner adds heft to each of those beats and brings to life the album's repeated contrast between hard and soft. The idea that loud, wild, tough rock music can bring out the softest feelings.
The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us is refreshing. It's refreshing in its absolute confidence in the transformative power of music. For me, when I listen, it's refreshing and affirming to spend thirty minutes with Beach Slang. To spend thirty minutes in my car, in my office, in my headphones with people who experience music the same way I do. With people who feel like I do.
The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us is out October 30th on Polyvinyl. It's also streaming right now at NPR.
No comments :
Post a Comment