Culture Abuse : "Bay Dream"

The traces of hardcore continued to be shed as the opening is a lazy British beach ballad. Even at this point calling it post-punk would be an exaggeration of the word punk. I can hear more Brit pop and new wave in the almost more 80's like sheen that is buffed out by a warm organic mix. Speaking of pop it is hooky and has more pogo in it's bounce than say the Drums, but the melodies do reach a similar zip code. The guitars come more to the forefront in "Dip" , but the novelty of what they are doing begins to lose some of it's luster by the time you get there. "Bee Kind to the Bees" is more like the Shins. The lyrics are clever and on the surface this all sounds pretty happy. There might be more than sunshine and sugar bears going on in their heads.

They almost get a mainstream of a sound as Weezer on "S'Dream". Am I referencing too many bands? Some might say this is lazy writing, I beg to differ. Since this is my blog I'll write however the fuck I feel, but if a band doesn't want to be compared to anyone then maybe they should step up their game and find their sound identifiable sound.  The lazy jangle of "California Speed Ball" cements this music for rich stoner white kids. This could easily be on the soundtrack of some teen show on the CW. Not that it's a bad song, quite the opposite. It might not be what I was expecting going into this , but they have become good at what they are doing. So it's not that this shoe doesn't fit them. I guess it's the process of getting older and becoming wiser song writers.

You can hear hints of punk on "Calm E" . The vocals have more swagger and the song is more driven by the bass. The guitar riff almost has a touch of grunge, and by grunge I mean Hole, so in it's less metallic form. "Dave's Not Here" has a touch of the Ramones if we are thinking about their happy more Beach Boys influenced pop leanings. "Dozy" just breeze by without really grabbing my attention. "Bluebird on my Shoulder" starts off as almost more of a ballad and the tempo gradually builds to the same kind of jangling pop they have been churning out the duration of this album. I'll give this album an 8.5, it succeeds in what they set out to accomplish, it just depends how high your threshold for pop is.