Matt Rothstein with Surfer Blood's 'Astro Coast'

I think it’s safe to say that I saw Surfer Blood coming. Pitchfork’s Forkcast posted the song “Floating Vibes” last fall – and say what you want about hipster douchebags, but Pitchfork has become an incredible resource for new music with their Forkcast and daily track reviews – and I was suitably wowed. In a split second, I knew these guys were good because of their guitar tone. It’s got some fuzz, but still remains pretty crisp and has incredible force behind it. When the main riff comes in, I was pretty amazed. It makes sense that such a wonderful introduction is the first song on Surfer Blood’s debut album, Astro Coast.

Of course, there’s no way the rest of the album could live up to such a song unless these guys were once-in-a-generation rockers. Fortunately though, the rest of the album isn’t spent trying to jam the same formula onto different songs. The result is a very good album filled with guitar sounds and riffs I can get behind, a very impressive rhythm section, and the polyrhythms and distinct influences of Afropop that have been popping up all over the place recently. In fact, you may wonder why Vampire Weekend went so reverb-y at the beginning of “Take It Easy”. But you’d be mistaken! It’s still Surfer Blood, in fact, and to their credit, they integrate such obvious influences seamlessly into their surf-rock aesthetic.

An interesting wrinkle in this album is “Neighbor Riffs,” a short instrumental track right in the middle of the album which absolutely owns its title. Having only recently started playing Guitar Hero and being still unable to play the real guitar, I immediately envision nearly every good guitar part I hear nowadays being in some bizarre indie Guitar Hero game. But goddamn, this little ditty makes those fantasies COMPLETELY justified.

Of course, what would a surf party be without the late-night beach bonfire slowjam? Terrible name outside, “Slow Jabroni” is a great, evolving song that sold me right when the vocal part goes double time at about the 2:40 mark. That’s an underused, subtle way to improve a slow song a great deal, a lot like the unexpected awesomeness of banging on a Tempur-Pedic mattress. You don’t think it’ll make a difference, but lo and behold. (Observational comedy? In a music review on a blog? How absurd!)

I think that Surfer Blood has the potential to open a lot of eyes, if only to the possibility that indie rock is not exclusively the domain of poor musicians. They also pull off a pretty impressive feat in managing to be trendy and sound like they’re barely trying (read: cool).

8.5/10