Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Hope Downs

This is going to be a short review. It is, to some degree, written out of necessity. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are a band that are completely new to me. I hadn’t heard anything from their debut album, Hope Downs, or either of their previous two EPs prior to this week. Within a couple of days I‘ve purchased tickets to see them play in October and they are currently my new favourite band.

Hope Downs

They are everything I love about guitar music. Great melodies, interesting lyrics, vocal harmonies and the perfect blend of professionalism and sounding like they are just on the edge of losing it.

They remind me of Eyelids if they’d come from Melbourne rather than Portland, or Parquet Courts if they’d grown up listening to The Go-Betweens rather than Sonic Youth. Lazy comparisons aside they are just a great band, three guitarists all singing and song writing backed by a solid rhythm section. Ten excellent songs coming in at an economical 35 minutes.

It is a great album from start to finish but smartly hits you with a knock-out three-punch of ‘An Air Conditioned Man’, ‘Talking Straight’ and ‘Mainland’ (surely the feel-bad hit of the Summer?) at the start of the record.

It’s only July but we have a serious contender for album of the year on our hands.

9/10

By Dorian Rogers

Share

Dorian

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *