Surfer Blood – Astro Coast (2010)

Up until 2010 I thought I was well aware of all the relevant indie bands out there through my friends. This kind of changed in 2010. I had never been to the Flow Festival in Helsinki before, because I didn't really know any of the performers and the ones that I did know, were the kind of electronic music I wasn't that much into. Then, in 2010, I actually took time to listen to the Flow Festival artists in depth in advance and a whole new world opened to me. There were a bunch of new bands that I had never heard about that had just released their first album and many of them were really good. This is how I found Surfer Blood. Unfortunately Flow Festival isn't what it used to be anymore, and I could hardly find any new artists that would interest me in their listings anymore. The festival has become too mainstream and thus it has lost its meaning as a festival that introduces new talent.



Surfer Blood was one of the bands that I was most excited about in 2010 Flow Festival. I bought Astro Coast on a nice colourful vinyl a couple of months earlier and went to see the gig knowing all the songs. This was great about seeing bands after they had just released one album. you pretty much knew which songs they were going to play and they were all familiar. The gig was good but not great and I do not have that many memories from that gig. I still listen to the album occasionally though.

Surfer Blood's debut album is a mixture of rhythmic guitar indie rock and echoey surf rock. The rhythms remind me of another band from that era, Vampire Weekend, that ended up becoming much more popular than Surfer Blood even though, I thought they weren't half as good.

Surfer Blood really knew how to appeal to a bunch of 2010 hipsters. Their music had original sounds, even if it was constructed of a variety of influences from earlier genres. Their music videos were even better attuned for hipsters of that time. The video for Floating Vibes has been filmed with bad reception TV style and the band members act out a retro news programme in the video while playing their instruments. The style is very 2010 right from the ironic moustache to the checkered shirts.

Astro Coast is a typical debut album in a sense that it starts off really strong, but gets a bit lame by the end. We've seen this kind of pattern more recently in albums, because hit singles mean so much more than full albums in the post-CD era. Bands have to convince the listeners with the first couple of songs and that's enough to get a following, at least for a while. Floating Vibes, Swim and Take It Easy are all very catchy and upbeat songs that are good to dance to. After those songs, Harmonix  and Neighbourhood Riffs reveal the more experimental sound of the band and in the hindsight, these are probably the most innovative songs by the band. The guitar sounds remind me of Sonic Youth. After these songs, the best parts of the album are over. The rest of the album sounds a lot like any other band from that era.

Astro Coast was a strong debut album and I guess many people expected quite a lot from Surfer Blood when it came out. Unfortunately, their second album was outright boring and at least I lost interest in hearing their more recent albums. Astro Coast is, nevertheless, a nice album that I recommend to anyone.

Listen to the album on Spotify.