If you don’t feel like summer’s quite over yet, Cayucas might be for you. Just when you thought you had enough surf-style indie rock, Cayucas come along and drench you in the musical equivalent to vitamin D California sunshine. (Even the album art is a colourfully buoyant.)
Cayucos, the opening track, gives you a great idea of what to expect. Put down whatever you’re doing, grab a beach towel and prepare a mojito. It’s time to sunbathe. High School Lover carries on with the same sort of stupidly catchy beach pop that cheers you up without insulting your intelligence. A Summer Thing hits it right on the nose with a 400-pound hammer, but that’s kind of the point — subtlety isn’t Cayucas’ strong suit.
The comparisons I keep seeing are Beck on anti-depressants and Vampire Weekend. In reality, it’s kind of like Vampire Weekend got really drunk with Beck on a Saturday afternoon and performed an impromptu live show somewhere on the ocean shore. On another level, the album’s going to amuse potheads the same way that Tenacious D causes a sense of the giggles. I don’t smoke it, but if I did, the title track would probably blow my mind. As it is now, it’s just like the rest of the album: Disgustingly catchy, brilliantly fun and irresistible.