I have to admit I was a little nervous for Rolling Blackout Coastal Fever’s fourth record. While technically only their second full-length, the band’s Talk Tight EP was reissued with the “Write Back”/”Career” single, and they might as well included the other five tracks they released from 2013-14 for a solid 46 minute album. The French Press EP (2017) was enough to get fans slavering, and Hope Downs did not disappoint. At this point the band has been at it for seven years, and could easily have been their moment they decide to move on and experiment with other sounds. Thankfully, they indulged in no such fuckery and instead focused on writing even better songs that benefit from their hard work touring the globe.
There’s been plenty of comparisons to great bands in the past, but they really make the most sense as a fantasy band. Meaning, you dream of what a band might sound like if, for example, The Cleaners From Venus didn’t sound like complete shit (we just found out from the recently released Dolly Birds And Spies). What if The Smiths didn’t have such an insufferably annoying singer and had not one, but three great guitarists? What if R.E.M. skipped the boring-ass dirges like “Time After Time” and “Camera,” and what if The Go-Betweens’ first two albums were more consistently memorable? Take all the best bits and you essential have Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever.
Sideways To New Italy wasn’t destined to make headlines on its release during a time like this, but on repeated listens these sparkling songs burrow into your head and the impact builds with each memorable turn of phrase (“I open the letter but the writing’s wrong” about the end of a relationship in “She’s There”), sticky hooks and choruses that can simultaneously invoke ebullience and nostalgic melancholy (“Falling Thunder,” “Cameo”). And of course there’s the fabulous guitar interplay on the Feelies-style choogle of “Cars In Space.” If there’s any single song that best summarizes this band’s ability to deftly combine multiple styles (swoopy psych, stomping glam, country twan) into a seamless whole, complete with a heart-bursting chorus accented with a simple but perfect guitar riff, it’s the closer “The Cool Change.” Holy buckets, what a way to wrap it up. I daresay it’s good enough that someday people will look back at this truly horrifying, fucked up moment of history and still get that spark of joy fueled by this music.
It all feels over too quickly to the point where some might grieve it’s ending. Take heart jangle pups, there’s bonus triple guitar rides a-plenty, such as last year’s lovely single “In The Capital”/”Read My Mind.” This may only be their second full-length, but there’s now exactly 2:32:33 of RBCF music, nearly all killer. Go get ‘um.
