Album Review: Beach Slang - "Beach Slang Ruins Everyone He Loves"

 

James Alex aka Beach Slang is certainly a prolific guy if nothing else. As well as recording three excellent albums, he's also done an acoustic album and a couple of EP's as Quiet Slang and several covers EP's down the years. So I suppose the arrival of an acoustic covers album from the guy recorded in lockdown isn't a particularly big surprise really.

The song choices here are very much from the indie/college rock end of the music spectrum with the likes of Sebadoh, J Mascis, Elliott Smith and the Magnetic Fields all represented. It's as rough and DIY sounding as you'd expect with just Alex, his guitar and a couple of FX pedals here and there. I guess how much this will appeal depends on your taste for this sort of music - in terms of bands I'm familiar with, there's a suitably spooky take on the Eels' PS You Rock My World and his version of the Smiths classic Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want is decent enough (although I've heard better versions of it down the years) while his renditions of Daniel Johnston's True Love Will Find You In The End and Paul Westerberg's Never Felt Like This Before have a Jacobites style eeriness to them which works well.

Really, I think this is more an album for Beach Slang completists than those looking to get into this band (if that's the case then you'd be better off starting with A Loud Bash Of Teenage Feelings and The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City) but it's certainly an interesting curio to pass half an hour with 

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌓🌓🌓🌓🌓🌓🌑🌑🌑🌑 (6/10)

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