Beach Vultures – Pocket
The music tends to shower brand-new bands with love and appreciation. It’s easy to understand why. These groups are something new to talk about; they might introduce new sounds and might make new music fans pay attention to the music and to the critics. Sure, new bands tend to be really enthusiastic about what they do, and this is often reflected in their music.
It’s great to hear new musicians play instinctively, having to figure out ways to use the little that they know. But, often nowadays, I tend to prefer musicians who’ve already spent endless hours tuning up guitars, sitting in musky-smelling rehearsal spaces, and recoding hundreds of hours of jams that nobody will ever hear. They’re the ones who really get to understand what works and what doesn’t in a musical performance.
Beach Vultures’ “Pocket” sounds like the music made by people who routinely get together in a basement, make music and listen back to it. This is not some kind of jazz hybrid or fancy progressive rock. It’s much more interesting. It’s a dynamic indie-rock sound where every piece falls exactly where it should. The vocals and the drum sound are the focus of the recording. The singer possesses a subtle distortion to his tone that makes it an immediately pleasing sound. The drums sound natural and create the kind of dynamism needed for this type of sound. I am afraid you won’t get this on the first try or when starting your first band. Beach Vultures’ sound is the result of wasting many hours jamming with your friends. It paid off.
STEREOMA – Destroy
You can’t lie to everyone all the time. But just think if you could. You could have everything, and no amount of success would be impossible. There’d be so much success that you’d have to employ an army of accountants just to count your money, people just to make you a cup of tea, and you’d never even have to learn the names of each of them.
You want a hit? Rock music, modern technology, and YouTube tutorials, technically provide you with all the tools that you need. You might be clever enough to get all the information. But there’s something else that most musicians can’t access. It’s a certain personal touch, a way to make their music more alluring, and an X factor.
STEREOMA’s “Destroy” sounds like the music made by professional songwriters and producers tasked with writing an indie/alt-rock song. It sounds like homework. But it also sounds wickedly good, as if all the elements needed for the formula stuck to each other perfectly. You can take “Destroy” and stick it on indie-rock playlists seamlessly, and you’ll want to listen back to it. That’s the whole story! The song wins on the virtue that it sounds better than many of its competitors. You can fool all the world sometimes!
