reviewed by Laura Stanley
It’s (unofficially) summer! Tis the season to eat fresh fruit and let it dribble down your chin and arm. It’s also a time when the heat exacerbates romantic misfortunes, encourages immobility and caters to your wallowing. According to the sounds of their debut EP Sweet FA, this is also what summer means to Vancouver band PEACH PIT.
PEACH PIT are wrapped in summer’s warm embraced, are sticky with fruit juices, and are thinking about their crushes in Sweet FA. Their hazy, surf-rock vibes are very sweet and a perfect match for the summer’s sun but underneath is a much more depressive mood. The best showing of this polarity is in the EP standout “Seventeen” when the band jives to a sunny pop melody and lead singer Neil Smith confesses, “there’s something dark hanging over my head.” A lot of being 17 is about having fun with your friends and experiencing new things but it’s also about being confused and sad. The darkness that lingers over Smith undercuts the frivolity of the song’s instrumentals to perfectly capture those angsty 17 year old feelings.
The phrase “sweet FA” has a whole history behind it but nowadays it basically means ‘fuck all.’ That feeling of exasperation weaves its way through the rest of the EP’s tracks: the fuzzy “Peach Pit” is all about false hopes and “Drop The Guillotine,” the most outwardly bummer sounding track, is about broken hearts. In the title track, the irritation remains but it’s a bit different. Before, the nothingness of faulty relationships stung but here we hear Smith pining – “I’m gone in such a blaze of lazy love and it’s turning me to scum” – and though nothing has happened yet, he hasn’t given up hope.
Grab some fresh fruit, hang out in the sun, throw on Sweet FA, and get to thinking about your own crush.
Top Track: “Seventeen”
Rating: Strong Hoot (Good)
