Beach Fossils

Something that's easy to forget when thinking about the wide variety of beach-themed music that's popped up over the past 50 years is that most of the music only has a distant relationship to the actual beach itself. None of the actual Beach Boys could even surf, after all; the idea of the beach was more an idyllic dreamscape for SoCal suburbanite Brian Wilson than a locale he knew from direct participation. This holds for Brooklyn's Beach Fossils, for whom the beach often seems like a thing they look at from a passing car, or the window of a web browser.

This is not to say the band's songs don't evoke the same ideas that beach bums ponder, as titles from the band's assured 2010 debut include "Youth," "Vacation," "Lazy Day" and "Daydream." The music combines punk's starkness and simplicity with languid, clean guitar lines that evoke Peter Buck's early experiments with '60s West Coast folk rock. On standout track "Twelve Roses," frontman Dustin Payseur's vocals find a detached register, which leads to a compelling result that feels like someone left "Paint it Black" out in the sun too long. When it comes down to it, that's likely the best frame for Beach Fossils' quietly unique sound: the drained resignation of the sun setting after a long day spent enjoying it. —Eric Harvey