Best Coast and Honeyblood are my indie sounds of the summer

Having spent the best part of 1993 crushing on Juliana Hatfield, I am predisposed to like jangly, female-fronted indiepop.

So it is with great delight that I stumbled across two new songs by Honeyblood (pictured above, left) and Best Coast (above right).

Honeyblood's newest song is The Black Cloud - a Record Store Day exclusive that's also the band's first single since drummer Shona McVicar was replaced by Cat Myers.

It finds singer Stina Tweeddale (love that name) eulogising a friend who "fought my corner when I wouldn't open the door." As she emerges from her eponymous Black Cloud, the track opens up into sunny, hazy harmonising.

It's lush.



On first listen, Best Coast's Feeling OK seems similarly optimistic.

"I know it's love that's got me feeling OK," sings Bethany Cosentino. But that "OK" is telling: She's not going full Nina Simone on us... and, true enough, there's a melancholy undercurrent, as she observes: "I get so down, but I'll keep trying to stay this way".

Best Coast - Feeling OK (lyric video)

Feeling OK is taken from Best Coast's third album, California Nights, from which we've already heard the title track and Heaven Sent. Those three songs seem more focused than their earlier work, while retaining the band's wispy charms.

According to the band, the record has been informed by 1990s grungepop (hello again, Juliana!), while trying capture LA's "epic sunsets" in musical form.

"When the sun sets, I feel like there is a large sense of calmness in the air, and I feel like everything that happened to me prior in the day, whether crappy experiences or good ones, at night, it all goes away and I sink deep into this different kind of 'world,'" said Bethany.

California Nights is out in May, pre-ordering fans.

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Best Coast are giving you a free song

In the 50s and 60s, British guitar bands used to churn out songs about having a lovely time. The Kinks would laze on a Sunny Afternoon; Cliff Richard had no worries for a week, or possibly even two; and who can forget Mungo Jerry's In The Summertime with its legally-questionable advice to: "have a drink, have a drive, maybe do a ton or twenty-five"?

These days, though, our rock stars wouldn't dream of being seen out in the sun, in case the heat made them spontaneously combust. I blame punk and it's aggressive strait-jacketing of "authentic" rock topics - ie fighting, hating things, being angry and having drugs.

In fact, after devoting 30 seconds of continuous thought to the subject, I've concluded that the last decade of British rock has produced JUST ONE song about the joys of being off work and eating an iced lolly. It's this one.

Franz Ferdinand - Jacqueline


US artists don't seem to have this hang-up about the summer. Maybe it's because they actually get a summer - but American rock is literally dripping with hot fun and beach parties. FOR EXAMPLE, here is The Only Place - a new song by achingly cool LA duo Best Coast - whose opening gambit is: "We were born with the sun in our teeth and in our hair".

Download it for free, and store it up for that one week in July when Britain is "scorching hot" (23°C).



PS: I used to think Best Coast were called Best Coats. I think they should consider making the change.

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Today, we've got two songs that stick rigidly to their genre tropes, but somehow manage to make a virtue of that fact. They are the Guy Ritchies of pop music. They are The Apprentice in a world of Temptation Islands. They are....

1) Le Kid - We Are The Drums
Le Kid is a front for three Swedish songwriters you've never heard of, who penned hits for the likes of Alcazar and Agnes, who you've also never heard of.

But that doesn't matter, because We Are The Drums is a terrrific little pop song. Garishly fluorescent, perhaps, but the sort of thing you could imagine Girls Aloud singing in their prime. The lyrics are a strident call to arms against anonymous DJs and their seriousface mixtapes. The chorus runs "We are the drums / And you're just another TV theme / We are the beat / And you're acting like a drum machine".

The fact that this is sung over a stoically clichéd drum loop is either artistic genius or fantastic hubris.


Le Kid - We Are The Drums




2) Wavves - Nodding Off (feat Best Coast)
Californian surf rockers Wavves couldn't sound more different than Le Kid, but they too are sitting right in the middle of their comfort zone. Mosquito-buzz guitars, boxy drums and syrupy West Coast backing vocals are the order of the day here.

The title belies the song's energetic riffage (hang around for the genuinely exciting crescendo at 2'00"). And the song is all the better for the presence of Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast - aka the coolest woman in rock.


Wavves - Nodding Off (feat Best Coast)


(I am leaving it up to you to decide which picture is which at the top of this post. Good luck working it out).

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