"Lo-fi" rock always seems at risk of steering into certain criticism. I used to think that lo-fi and garage bands sounded the way they did because they could't find an adequate singer. To hide this, they go ahead and scratch out the vocals. In no way is that true, but its something I've always thought of. What's the point of distorting the vocals like that? I'm not going to criticize Sealings here but a song like "Rails Means Rails" kind of led me to that assumption early on. But when I try to imagine "Rails Means Rails" without the scratchy, lo-fi voice blaring into the microphone, it just doesn't sound right.
But I've taken a new stance on the idea of lo-fi though the more and more I acquaint myself with it. This band, Beach Fossils, have steered me the right way. "Shallow" and "Lessons" are the band's latest release since their What A Pleasure EP came out last May. Commonly associated with lo-fi is the term "fuzzy" , there's actually nothing really "fuzzy" about these songs. Both songs achieve a very clean sound in which every guitar stroke and drum tap are heard individually, all coming together in a very ornate manner. "Lessons" and "Shallow" both possess some of the smoothest and uncomplicated guitar solos I've ever heard, and it works immensely with the mesmerizing sound of lead singer, Dustin Payseur's voice. They do not try to do anything too fancy, [I could probably score these songs in Rockband pretty easy], but that's the beauty of their sound. Beach Fossils don't strive for any sort of technical rock n' roll mastery and as a result, they standout in the midst of a vague and poorly defined genre such as "lo-fi."
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