With Beach Fossils being one of the bands we’ve always come to champion over recent years. However, when on the first hearing of new album ‘Bunny’ floating along the speakers, we knew we were in for something special.
Lead single “Don’t Fade Away” is Beach Fossils at their very best – a perfect indie-pop track whose infectious melody you’ll be humming non-stop. Similarly with “Sleeping On My Own” and “Tough Love”, tracks that have so much jangle they’ll scratch any C86 (or should I say C23) itch.
Elsewhere on the album, “Anything Is Anything”, “Feel So High” and “Numb” all skirt the line of treading into shoegaze, with the latter culminating in an expansive and rousing wall of sound. “Run To The Moon”s slide guitar results in Slowdive-meets-country (yes it works), whilst “(Just Like The) Setting Sun” is a shimmering slice of dream-pop. As for “Dare Me” and “Seconds”, both fit nicely into the garage/post-punky sound Beach Fossils carved out on their second record ‘Clash The Truth’.
With Beach Fossils’ music in the past, there was always a sense that Dustin Payseur was making music that explored the nostalgia of a period he wasn’t able to experience firsthand. But with ‘Bunny’, Payseur is able to look back at Beach Fossils as a whole and reminisce on a nostalgia that he himself created. In turn, this results in a flawless Beach Fossils record that is undoubtedly their best yet.
“I’m always trying to do the exact opposite of what I’ve done in the past. We did the self-titled album and the ‘What A Pleasure’ EP, which were more relaxed and dreamy. Then I wanted to do something that represented the live Beach Fossils more and had more of the punk and post-punk stylings in it, so we did ‘Clash The Truth’. Then the opposite of that was something grand – the opposite of what Beach Fossils was – leaning into the baroque pop influences with strings and saxophone and pedal steel and harpsichord- just seeing how far we can take our sound.
When we started working on ‘Bunny’, I didn’t know what to do at first, but what felt the most natural was to go minimal – back to the original Beach Fossils sound – but pushing our song structure as best it can be and pushing ourselves to create something that had more pop sensibilities that we had ignored in the past.”
Dustin Payseur (Beach Fossils).
We’re over the moon to have influential dream-pop band Beach Fossils back with a new album “Bunny” (2023) continues the stunning evolution of Beach Fossils’ sound, pulling elements from the jangly melancholy of the self-titled debut “Beach Fossils” (2010) and “What a Pleasure” (2011), the gritty, post-punk inspired tracks from “Clash the Truth” (2013), and the lush arrangements of “Somersault” (2017).
The Fat Angel Sings 