Beach Fossils are back with a new record. This will be significant news to some. Those with a certain sensibility and record collections. It seems a long time ago now when this particular journey started. Way back in 2010, the original fresh faced quartet emerged from Brooklyn, New York and released their eponymous record.
It was at once a journey. into the past, and as it turned out, into the future. At least as far as a particular seam of American Independent guitar music was concerned. An exercise in intense delicacy, and sensitivity. It called out to many.
Twee, intensely twee. The record harked back to The Byrds, most all, the sound of guitars ringing, chiming. But also onwards from The Byrds into the Eighties. To R.E.M and The Smiths, New Order, C-86, Sarah Records, other aspects of Factory, Railway Children. And most of all a specific moment in life. Teenage awakenings. Holding someone's hand for the first time, first kisses, the brief period in your life when your heart first awakens.
Like I said it was treasured by many, and was a partial inspiration for any number of American bands and a movement of sorts over the years that followed. Real Estate DIIV, Alvvays. Arrested development, stasis. The best summer of your youth. The one which never ended.
Beach Fossils sixth Bunny, is hardly an evolution of this sensibility, It's an attempt to realise it fully. Distil it. Capture first love in a bottle. It's Bobby Gillespie's decision to stay in love with his initial vision, The Byrds, Love, and not to listen to those nasty Rolling Stones and wander off the woodland path to Grandma's House. It's a sweet delightful record that sticks with admirable determination to the bearings it plots for itself. The secret of eternal youth.
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