The whole nu-garage wave is starting to bum me out a bit. Don’t get me wrong – I love snotty-nosed ’60s underground pop more than most, ever since discovering the original Nuggets in the late ’80s. But I’m generally way over hearing every great new hope trying their hardest to sound like they don’t quite have control of their instruments, voices or production. The veneer of wild abandon is completely undermined when you ponder how much they must have worked to get just the right amount of retro ‘attitude’ into their music. Which is probably the thing that makes the debut album from Danger Beach so enjoyable. While having an obvious foundation in garage rock of the aforementioned variety, it’s a foundation on which they actually build rather than slavishly imitate.
Lo-fi drums, loud tambourines, cavernous reverb, out of tune monotone vocals and twangy guitar riffs all make their presence felt at some stage across Pacific. But Danger Beach doesn’t leave it at that. Lots of other elements creep in as well. The heavily compressed drum outbursts across the title track remind me of ’90s Flaming Lips, coldwave syntheticness floods across tracks like ‘Neon’, ‘Cold’ and ‘Dark Blue’, Dugite-via-Ducktales style (nu)new-wave guitar intimacy in ‘Magnum’ or even grandiose post-rock moves in the closing ‘Dark Blue’. The album really is, not so much a genre hop, but a patchwork of genre overlays on a bed of underground styles from the past five decades. Which probably reads like a yawn inducing, unfocused mess of stylistic thievery. But it’s not. There’s something about the ragged juxtapositions that remain consistent, no matter the styles being thrown around. And there’s also something resolutely catchy about each track, even the purely instrumental pieces, such as ‘Neon’s melodic synth wails and white noise snares over a backing of 8th time guitar chug. And just when things might be feeling a bit dark, something like ‘Bee’ kicks in, led along by its tambourine and Beach Boy melodies. Pure bliss. Hi-fidelity is eschewed across Pacific but interesting production never is. Even relatively simple tracks like ‘Glory’ allow the ragged glory of roughly hewn nylon string guitar plucking to fill the stereo field warmly.
Pacific is a great album that I’ve been enjoying very much. The fun with which a bunch of friends have got together with main man, Lachlan Thomas, to create music is clearly apparent (one third of the tracks feature guest collaborators). Thomas first came to prominence as a member of Assassins 88 and this album is clearly grounded in that band’s garage ethos. But this ethos is shattered out into a kaleidoscope of wonderful, high contrast aural pleasure. And, yes, it’s a few months old now (my apologies, this one got lost in one of those piles!) but well worth seeking out for those who have not yet had the chance to listen.
Adrian Elmer
