reviewed by Laura Stanley
What are your summer plans? Are they to stay inside and avoid everyone you know? Take plenty of late night drives and get some solid thinking done? Get drunk with your friends on a regular basis? Whatever your plans are and whatever your mood may be, Beauts’ newest EP Waves/Wash has got your summer music needs covered.
Waves/Wash floats somewhere in the post-punk/pop-punk worlds – uplifted by catchy pop melodies and choruses but scuffed up by heavy distortion and frantic guitar and drum playing. The euphoric sensation felt one moment is gone the next when an undercurrent of sadness and anger takes over. The anxious energy of “Covers” is kicked off in the following track, and EP highlight, “Ether” and is replaced with a contagious recklessness.
On the other half of the EP, Beauts get more fierce as Jeff Lawton cries get louder against their murky backdrops as he tries to combat his own destruction. In “Clocked” he sneers, “you should see the look on your face when I’m going through the windshield” while in the title track his repetition of “don’t wipe off the blade” gets more graphic and emotional with each occurrence. But despite all this sadness Waves/Wash is never lethargic, it is constantly charging forward making you think that as long as you keep moving, the future will be better.
Beauts are beauts – what more is there to say.
Top Track: “Ether”
Rating: Strong Hoot (Good)
