Surf City-It's A Common Life

Surf City's "Crazy Rulers Of The World" was a song that just popped up on my iPod one day, an all too common occurrence due to the rate of tracks I download, seemingly at random while managing this blog. The track, and the album it came from, Kudos, are incredible if you a haven't heard them, pure old-school noise-pop bliss, like a missing early '90s indie rock gem from an alternate dimension, right down to the Steve Keene-like album artwork. That was all the way back in 2010, though. Now, after a near eternal wait of three years, Surf City have returned, a drop quieter but no less vital in anyway. "It's A Common Life" has the same noise-pop glory that their previous records did, all spacy distortion, and the warmest near-shoegaze fuzz you will likely hear all year. However, the band let's those sounds be turned down slightly in the mix, even letting them drop out occasionally. The track actually leads on an almost power-pop core, sharp power chords and well placed "ooos", though it happens to be a deeply shambolic take on the style, ready to fall apart at any moment. Like the way Big Troubles morphed from their debut to their sophomore, Surf City are perfectly pulling off the balancing act of bringing in more sheen to fuzzy indie rock. It's this melding of fuzzy and throwback guitar pop that makes "It's A Common Life" so good; the song is compressed mass of 30 different hooks swirling around for attention, creating the most wonderful of ruckuses in the mean time.



Links:

Surf City's Facebook
Pre-order We Knew It Was Not Going To Be Like This here, from Fire Records