These days there is no dearth of garage rock inspired by 90’s bands like Guided By Voices, Dinosaur Jr and Superchunk. That gets you in the door, but it doesn’t mean you get to stay. Hell, would you want them to stay assuming you already have Propeller, Bee Thousand, You’re Living All Over Me, Bug, No Pocky For Kitty and On the Mouth?
The quizzically named Eureka California who hail from Athens, Georgia are making the case for you to add one more fuzzy, slightly psychedelic, nuggets-inspired record to your collection. Does their debut long player which they have christened Big Cats Can Swim merit your hard earned dough? Does it merely ape their idols or is it inspired by them? Do they have what it takes to sustain your interest for an entire album?
I say invite this trio into your house for tea, crumpets and tallboys and hope to god they accept your invitation and stay a while. Their album crackles and pops with great songs that retain the vital and immediateness that you would have experienced if you would have been in their garage when they were recording them. With titles like My Life as a Smokestack, My Kind of Battery and My Boy Black Metal, you get the feeling they copped Pollard’s notebook of song titles. Unlike GBV, many Eureka California songs go longer than a minute thirty. They have a lot of good ideas about crunchy pop songs and infuse a playfulness in them that many bands often forget. This batch of songs will initially make you think of the 90’s and it’s bands, but this record pull from too many different places to be pegged as merely a 90’s throwback. Infusing the Kinks, Big Star and various Nuggets bands into the stew. That’s a good meal, especially after all of those crumpets and tallboys.
mp3: Eureka California – My Life as a Smokestack (from Big Cats Can Swim)
the finest kiss 