Label: Loma Vista Recordings
By Seth White
Your most-loved Aussie surf rockers are back in business with their first album in three whole years. Their new release holds dear their raw, burnt-out surf indie style whilst becoming perhaps the most spacious and euphoric adaptation of the Skegss sound the band has ever ventured to achieve.
After an agonisingly long wait broken up by single releases, the duo of Ben Reed (Vocals, Guitar) and Jonny Lani (Drums) are upping their game massively with this record. Recording this album at two separate renowned LA studios The Village and Topanga Canyon’s Fivestar Studios, Skegss have definitely pulled out all the stops, whilst not breaking away from their roots.
‘Pacific Highway Music’ refers to the coastal Australian highway frequented by Reed many times, crediting the classic soothing highway drive to be the suited aesthetic for this album. I personally see the vision perfectly; this album is the ideal coastal driving album. And, as a dude who is blessed to live on the Cornish coastline, I shall be utilising this record to its full potential.
On opening track, ‘Tradewinds,’ the lyrical content is in the classic dishevelled, disorderly yet extremely freeing rhetoric that Skegss are much loved for. They are beaten up and a bit rough around the edges, and that is almost entirely their charm.
Catchy little riffs and a driving backbeat bring us along to the most recently released single ‘High Beaming’, which is yet again, textbook messy Aussie surfer rock all over.
However, this record does contain the lingering sentiment that the duo have sought to slow themselves down and perhaps pull the reins in from their previous records containing largely hectic and erratic tunes. The slow down acoustic ditty ‘I Think I Can Fly’ is exemplary of this.
The middle portion of the record delves completely into the introspective lyrical makeup of the record and gives us a tasteful peek into the mind of Ben Reed. On ‘Brain On The Highway’, ‘Stuck In Cheyenne’, catchy single ‘Spaceman’, ‘Batten Down the Hatches’ and ‘Aeroplane Heart,’ the lyrical content highlights the sheer difference in tone this album has to the rest of the Skegss discography.
There is a sort of dreamy and drift away quality of these album tracks that has not occurred at all by accident. Ben Reed had this to say on the matter:
“I’ve spent a lot of my life driving on the Pacific Highway, and most of the time it puts me in a bit of hypnotic state, with this album I tried to be as honest as possible, but I also wanted to create the kind of songs that give you that same feeling—songs where you can shut your eyes, let your imagination take over, and drift off into another world that exists only in your mind.”
There is a range of lyrical diversity and dynamic shifts in emotion throughout this record, making it a thoroughly enjoyable ride from start to finish and marketable as a full piece of work and not just a mixup of good singles and forgettable album tracks.
There is a particular emotion Skegss are trying to pick at here, one that endures a lengthy stretch of coastal highway and is resolved in a sort of moment of clarity as you reach your destination. ‘It Is’ and ‘Kelly Heroes’ are the cool down tracks in a sense, as you exit the highway and slow down, reach your destination and park up.
‘Kelly Heroes‘ is a particular album favourite of mine, with the acoustic elements mixed with the blown-out drums making for the perfect sonic comedown I needed after ingesting this entire album in all its glory.
Skegss have smashed this one out of the park again. They know the assignment when writing a solid anthemic surf indie record. By no means is this album groundbreaking or taking the band in a completely different direction, it’s simply a refreshing take on the tried and tested Skegss formula. Stick it in my veins!