Jaded Juice Riders - "Deathsurf"
(2017 Spirit Goth)
*Chords like the growl of urethane wheels against a concrete bowl. Snares like the steady beat of UV rays against a pale neck.*
Summer's long over, but nobody alerted Irvine, California's Jaded Juice Riders. "Deathsurf," our second preview of the noise-pop quartet's upcoming Bowl Cut LP via Spirit Goth Records, drips with the residual humidity of 2009's endless July.
Look: there's the walkie-talkie crackle of Wavves' self-titled debut sweating on a glass of Kool-Aid; here's Beach Fossils' tubular melodicism wriggling like hot blacktop in the distance. There's something oddly satisfying about the beach-pop sub-genre that takes me back to a time when I had longer, greasier hair and a greater insecurity about my future: then, it was only the ordered simplicity of a staccato guitar riff over a droning bassline that could make me feel at ease.
Now, the sound hits me in a way that getting a Facebook message from an old high-school friend might. I'm anxious to be confronted by my awkward past, but comforted by the commanding presence of JJR's wildly bendy lead guitars and the slacker-rock groans that echo behind them.
"Go where you go / yes we know" sing the Juice Riders. Where they know I'm going, even I don't know. For now, I'm surfing on a wave of fuzz-riddled, dreamy ambiguity while bopping my head (one eye suddenly once again covered with murky-blonde hair) to the driving snares.
