Like many bands years into their career, Surfer Blood have had their ups and downs.
The latter include singer John Paul Pitts’s arrest for allegedly beating up his girlfriend (a charge later dismissed), guitarist Thomas Fekete’s diagnosis with a rare form of cancer, and the usual rounds of record label politics.
All of which makes their third album a case of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
As with their thrilling 2010 debut, Astro Coast, the band's fuzzy riffs are hazy and sunny, though there are some bittersweet tones in the wash as well, though none as dark and paranoid as 2013's Pythons album.
Tracks Covered Wagons and Dorian are keepers, with their buzzy distortion and freewheeling, carefree guitars. But Surfer Blood are also capable of robust and intriguing structures, as on opener Sabre- Tooth and Bone.
