[rating=8.00]
Goth beach is the type of bizarro moniker that can at one turn feel like a salty acid trip or a meandering moonlit stroll along the water. It’s a descriptive phrase that supposedly comes the closest to defining SoCal outfit the Growlers. They’ve latched onto it to a certain extent because everyone needs a title, so to speak. Those two words don’t even come close to describing the amalgamation of Alex Ebert-esque vocals, Best Coast minimalism, girl group harmonies, and expert use of castanets as exhibited in “Black Memories,” though. Within one song, the Growlers have enough far-flung influences to base an EP at the least. Still, they dig deeper.
A failed session with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach surely inspired an upping of the ante. Before that moment, the Growlers had reveled in the frenetic, especially the unpredictability of a rushed recording session. In Auerbach’s attempt to harness their energy, one can only assume the difficulty of changing the Growlers’ fast atom liquid back into a solid. What the Growlers did learn in that session was that, as modern recording technology can be so lifelessly precise as to click track drums to perfection, so it can be manipulated to reflect subtle refinement.
“Dull Boy” sets the example, its lilting vocals especially Ebert-esque. Vocalist Brooks Nielsen is versatile in the way that Ty Segall and Sonny and the Sunsets tend to be. He simply can’t stop creating, whether it’s an added harmony to the call and response of “Good Advice” or in his loud and proud stage attire. Restraint tends not to be in his vocabulary, though Chinese Fountain certainly signifies his dabbling in it. Guitarist Matt Taylor similarly follows a “less is more” strategy.
Perhaps the most involved track, “Love Test”, is an anecdotal romp through the Growlers’ new respective home and what it means to approach a city pace from a town teeming with beach bum chillness. Hailing from a literal historic location in California, the Growlers began nearly surrounded by water in Dana Point, CA. Their sunkissed songs were at first a loose collection of influences and, as their perspective has widened the focus of an ever-tighter musical mosaic, the Growlers have similarly tied up their own loose ends and perceived short-comings.
Late track “Not The Man” acknowledges that shift in Black Angels throwback fashion. The faintest of organ tones bolster the song’s harmony and are a welcomed addition to the Growlers’ confident sound. Restraint is but a relative thing and with Chinese Fountain, the Growlers do their damnedest to turn barely over a month of composing and recording into a cohesive missive on what they ultimately want: a distinct sound that is unmistakably their’s through and through, be it beach goth or any heap of genres. Let them be the Growlers. It’s a great sound indeed.
