#lifeguards

[illustratus]

Life Saving Patrol by Edward Moran

[gabecebro]

(oc) Mandy taking a break

[xofeno]

Rescue: HI-Surf / 1.06, "Drift" (2024)

[tomsainsburyseale]

[male-overload]

Reporting for duty

[brianfrench1995]

I love the scalloped edges - 1979 Vero Beach Postcard

@postcardtimemachine

[luriostragedy]

Remember Fire(d) Lifeguards?

[dustedmagazine]

Sharp Pins — Balloon Balloon Balloon (K / Perennial)

By all accounts, Kai Slater has had a hell of a year. Though it was originally self-released in 2024, Sharp Pins’ Radio DDR reached a wider audience via its re-release back in March. In her Dusted review, Jennifer Kelly praised the album for “conjuring the bittersweet baroque pop magic of icons like the Hollies, the Byrds and Tom Petty,” plus it was one of my two picks for the Dusted Mid-Year Exchange. Slater’s noise-rock trio Lifeguard also put out the vivid, punishing Ripped and Torn on Matador back in June. So, to get another Sharp Pins album so soon, especially one this good, is a welcome surprise.

The main touchpoints I hear in Balloon Balloon Balloon are pre-psychedelic, mop-top Beatles, with their upbeat guitar sounds, sophisticated passing chords, and catchy vocal melodies. Shadowing this bright side is the prolific lo-fi songcraft of Tobin Sprout–era Guided By Voices, where the fidelity of the recording see-saws wildly to keep the listener on their toes. At one end of the spectrum there’s the magnificently tuneful opener “Popafangout,” which crams a ridiculous number of hooks into its three-minute runtime, with new changes even arriving during the song’s fade-out. At the other end of the spectrum are the noisy, experimental “Balloon” interludes, and the astonishingly muddy drum sounds on songs such as “(I Wanna) Be Your Girl.”

Among the album’s 21 tracks are plenty of songs that immediately stand out for their personality and charm. Aside from its startlingly GBV-esque title, “Queen of Globes and Mirrors” could well have come straight off Bee Thousand, with its melancholy-yet-hopeful vocal refrains and guitars that sound like sitars. “Talking in Your Sleep” is a pristine slice of mop-topped jangle-pop, with big Ringo vibes on the drums. The droning, lysergic malevolence and serpentine, whistling feedback of “Stop to Say Hello” brings to mind The Brian Jonestown Massacre. And “All the Shop and Stores Are Closing Now” distills all the wistful whimsy of The Kinks into a pristine 70-second miniature.

Slater has found a way of collating a raft of familiar guitar tropes and injecting them with fresh energy. He seems to have ideas simply pouring out of him, plus enough of a quality-control filter to stack up an album’s worth of songs that fizz with inspiration.

Tim Clarke