Beachwood Sparks

Editor's Review:

Like an echo from the past out of the canyons of Topanga down to the beaches of Malibu comes the sound of Beachwood Sparks. They play countrified psychedelic pop straight out of mid-‘60s Southern California with a nod towards the Brit pop rockers (particularly the sunnier side of the Kinks on "Old Sea Miner"). It’s as if a bunch of country boys moved out to L.A., met The Byrds and Gram Parsons, took a faceful of acid while watching the sunset over the Pacific, and were never the same. Spacey and laid back, their music makes more of an impression by the mood it sets than through any catchiness of the tunes. Beachwood Sparks are adept at getting the very particular sounds they’re after, but are not yet masters of the songwriting craft. Full of pedal steel guitar, rinky dink organ and vocals so high and downy it sounds as if these boys haven’t hit puberty yet, the music winds along lazily as if the band are just too happily mellow to expend energy rocking out. Not that there aren’t up-tempo numbers ("Sister Rose" could have been an outtake from the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty), but they don’t set a below-the-waist kind of groove. Rather they float along somewhere above the neck and this lack of sexuality in the music furthers the impression that these are a bunch of preteen boys making all this sweetly innocent happy music.

There are minor flaws in this record: it is so sunny, airy and blissfully spaced out, it borders on being inconsequential; and it evokes few emotions beyond a feel-good high. Yet Beachwood Sparks inhabit an idyllic Southern California of the past, perhaps one that never really existed. It seems like a nice place to be.

Bookmark:

Record Label SubPop Released March 2000

Tracks Desert Skies Ballad of Never Rider Silver Morning After Singing Butterfly Sister Rose This Is What It Feels Like Canyon Ride The Reminder The Calming Seas New County Something I Don't Recognize Old Sea Miner See, Oh Three Sleeping Butterfly