Beaches
She Beats
Chapter Music [2013]
Fire Note Says: She Beats is an intoxicating blend of shoegaze, psychedelia, and krautrock!
Album Review: Beaches is five piece band from Australia, who happen to be the finest purveyors of a style of music that mixes shoegaze, psychedelic music and krautrock and come up with a unique sound that is both heavily influenced by those genres, yet uniquely original. The music pulses and throbs while it thrills the ears. Tracks blend into one another creating a unified sonic theme that the listener never tires of and the pacing and sequencing of the songs is remarkable.
Highlights are plentiful on She Beats, but because the record has such a flow, it can be tricky to distinguish one track from the next, not because they are similar, but because the transitions are often seamless. “Distance” is one of my favorite songs on the record. Let’s start with the drumbeat; it’s a repetitive krautrock beat, that as it repeats itself, becomes a part of you. You can’t help but feel it in your bones. You begin to nod your head uncontrollably to it; you begin to bounce your leg in time to it. It is propulsive and all consuming. The guitars are overdriven and dreamlike. Psychedelic without being completely trippy, similar to My Bloody Valentine and Ride in that they wash over you and leave you feeling awestruck. The vocals are little more than chants, but they repeat over and over, and like the drumbeat, they drive into your brain, until you can’t help but repeat them yourself. “Tanzanite” starts off slow, but about the 30 second mark, a repeating guitar line comes in, followed closely by a more wah wahed out guitar, and then the vocals. The whole song has a dreamlike quality that is quite impressive. It is almost like the song is barely there, it is floating along and we are able to catch a brief glimpse at it as it flies by, but as the music and vocals start to swirl and build intensity, it starts to pull away from us, like it is spiraling right out of our grasp, and then suddenly it is gone.
This is a record that has to be heard. I can’t adequately describe its intoxicating feeling. I was hooked by the end of the first song. If psychedelic/shoegaze/krautrock influenced music sounds appealing to you at all, you have to get this. This one is a little light on actual “songs” the lyrics are almost secondary to the music, so don’t be expecting Ride’s Nowhere lp, this is more in line with something like Loveless. This is more a total listening experience than a collection of great pop songs. Check it out!
Key Tracks: “Out of Mind”, “Tanzanite”, “Distance”
Artists With Similar Fire: Ride / My Bloody Valentine / Neu!
Beaches Website
Beaches Facebook
Chapter Music
Born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, I am extremely proud of the area I grew up in and the influence it has had on the world at large, from the Wright Brothers to Robert Pollard, the area has been a center of innovation both technologically and artistically. During my college years at the University of Dayton, I found myself becoming more and more immersed in the local music scene, a period of time in the early to mid 90's that coincided with the rise of bands like Guided by Voices, Brainiac, and The Breeders, who added to the rich musical legacy of the area. Dayton is also the hometown of many giants of funk in the 70's and is also the birthplace of Jazz greats Billy Strayhorn, John Scofield and Bud Shank. I wrote extensively for The Fire Note, a great online magazine focused on indie rock, in the 2010's while simultaneously being a partner in Rockathon Records, before retiring from both in 2018. In 2024, my thoughts turned back to helping at Rockathon and more importantly to pick back up on my writing, and more specifically to write about my love of jazz. I'm always listening, always searching for something new, something great. It's been a lifelong journey, and I still feel like there is so much out there to hear.
- Kevin Poindexterhttps://thefirenote.com/author/kpoindexter/
- Kevin Poindexterhttps://thefirenote.com/author/kpoindexter/
- Kevin Poindexterhttps://thefirenote.com/author/kpoindexter/
- Kevin Poindexterhttps://thefirenote.com/author/kpoindexter/
