Surfer Blood borrow a note or two from The Strokes and Pixies on "Weird Shapes."
While we were as excited as anyone about the new The Strokes song, apparently some of us weren't as patient for it to come out as others. Judging by their new track "Weird Shapes," Florida indie rock chameleons Surfer Blood just kind of went ahead and wrote a Strokes song themselves. (They also announced news of a new album, Python, set to arrive this summer.)
Listen to Surfer Blood's "Weird Shapes" after the jump.
The stop and start rhythms, harmonized guitar solos, and garage swagger of the song, the first to be released from Pythons, place it in prime Strokesian territory, although there's plenty of variation on the theme, and influence-mining, to make it their own -- dig The Pixies-like scream on the chorus, and, in a reference you're definitely not going to get (but should), the Smoking Popes croon on the verse.
That sort of stylistic shifting is par for the course for the #9tzgaze four piece, who hit the Pavement on "Floating Vibes," hit the waves with the surf-rocking "Miranda," got straight-up weird on the beach for "Take It Easy," and, of course, summoned the collective ghosts of college rock past on the shimmery, shouty singalong "Swim."
"I'm shedding my skin I'm spreading wings, all with the best intentions," John Paul Pitts sings. "I'm younger today than yesterday. Heaven and Hell can wait. Take it all out of me, I just want to make it count. It's getting late."
As Pitts explained, "'Weird Shapes' is a left of center pop song about someone who is about to go through a manic episode." Considering the surreal lyrics, that sounds about right. All those other bands' voices inside your head has got to do a number on your mental stability.
