Surf City - Kudos

With a name lifted from a Jesus and Mary Chain B-Side, Surf City are a band comfortable with wearing their influences on their sleeve. Formed in 2004 and slowly building up a reputation down in New Zealand; their debut, ‘Kudos’, sees them finally attempt to fulfil the potential they’ve been promising all these years.

To Surf City bands such as The Clean, Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth are all merely reference points from which to leap. Whilst yes they owe a great deal to their predecessors, Surf City are clearly comfortable in their own ability to craft a sound that avoids the clear pitfalls of imitation and nostalgia. The record is driven by layer upon layer of distorted guitar lines underpinned and kept in line by steady and controlled percussion. Such is the style of the band’s sound the vocals seem to take - to the determent of the record overall - a backseat to the music.

Despite the fervor of tracks such as album opener ‘Crazy Rulers of the World’ and album highlight ‘Icy Lakes’, ‘Kudos’ lulls and trails off in its latter half with tracks such as ‘Retro’ and ‘In The Times Of Approach’ feeling like slower tempo, sparser versions of earlier, more impressive tracks. This misstep in terms of consistency is a problem prevalent throughout the record and whether intentional or not, some tracks do disappointingly blur into one another taking away from its initial allure.

The chaotic hazy energy is without doubt the album’s greatest asset with its self indulgence being both its charm and its own undoing. So with the double edged sword of its own sound ‘Kudos’ manages to just about teeter on the right side of worthwhile. With it’s thoroughly kinetic energy in abundance and atmospheric sound it’s a record that can’t be accused of being half-hearted

It’s clear that Surf City are a band still discovering themselves and at the same time defining and fine tuning their own sound. Whilst it may not be the debut that sees them flourish in a way they probably deserve, what it hints at in the near future is something ferociously promising, and that in itself is downright impressive.