Beach Slang – A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings – Album Review by Killian Laher

Beach Slang are causing a bit of a stir Stateside with their carefully curated brand of slacker rock. This is their second album, released less than a year after the debut. If anything, the opening pair of tracks Future Mixtape for the Art Kids and the very punky Atom Bomb hit harder and heavier than anything on the debut. Good old fashioned two minute rabble rousers, with frontman James Alex growling out lyrics such as “we’re not lost we are dying in style, we’re not fucked we are fucking alive” as guitars rage gloriously alongside him. It would be hard to keep up such a pace and thankfully they don’t try. Spin The Dial is a mid-paced Westerberg-scoring-a-John-Hughes-movie swaggering anthem, with the pinch yourself, Replacements evoking chorus “got a halo on my heart”.

Yearning, anthemic tracks like Art Damage, Hot Tramps and Punks In A Disco Bar will have you gleefully punching the air as Beach Slang distil your favourite slacker bands into two and a half minute bursts of energy, the last of these exploding into a euphoric shout of “YEAHHH!!!” in the outtro.

The strongest moments on this short half hour album are towards the end when they take the intensity down a notch or two. Young Hearts opens with gorgeous, reaching guitars on a track that screams power-pop classic as Alex sings “the gutter’s alive with young hearts tonight”. It’s a deceptively simple two-chord trick, but perfectly pitched and has to be one of the songs of the year. The Perfect High is a little more muscular in a Dinosaur Jr type way, with the odd Smiths jangle thrown in for good measure. These tracks show growth from their earlier material, they resonate that bit more. Something in the combination of fuzzy guitars and James Alex’s throaty vocals just… gets you, producing a response you can’t quite understand, yet hits you in the gut.

So much evocation of alternative rock heroes could be a bit cringey if it wasn’t done so goddamn well. And these lyrics could be a mantra for life: “play me something that might save my life”. If they keep going like this, they just might.

Track List:

1. Future Mixtape for the Art Kids
2. Atom Bomb
3. Spin The Dial
4. Art Damage
5. Hot Tramps
6. Punks In A Disco Bar
7. Wasted Daze of Youth
8. Young Hearts
9. The Perfect High
10. Warpaint

Atom Bomb: