Every Moment Has A Song

Library Voices: Summer of Lust (2011)

This is one of those sneaky ones. If you have it repeating in the car you’ll first notice it’s providing a great soundtrack for the drive–sprightly middle-weight indie rock that compels you (weather permitting) to start rolling down windows. Then little bits of lyric float by on an appealing melody and you find yourself hitting “repeat” while you reach for the lyric sheet because they just nailed a turn of phrase or thought. What? you’re listening to a downloaded version on your iPod and have no lyric sheet? We’ll put aside your contributing to the demise of the pop album for the moment as I quote my lyric booklet (which didn’t come with your downloaded version):

All my friends are buying diamonds for their girls and bringing children into this world/Signing their names to a home on land they captured/Me? I’m still writing songs I’m scared you’ll hear some day

(from “If Raymond Carver Was Born in the 90’s”)

And…

It was Paris, 1949. It was love in a better time/Before photoshopped hips and collagen smiles, when longing meant more than a drunk dial/That’s why I’m always coming back to you

(from “Be my Juliette Gréco, Paris 1949”)

Literary references are sprinkled throughout, but don’t have the effect of an irritant (I’m looking at you, Sting). “Be My Juliette Gréco, Paris 1949” is like an energetic update of “Caroline No”. Honestly the whole album, with its propulsive rhythms and bright melodies, just sounds like summertime’s soundtrack to me.

In fact, it sounds a whole lot more like a great summer record than one from the summer previous that elicited description as a “great summer record” with a “Beach Boys vibe”. That record was Best Coast’s Crazy For You, and I think the shoreline cover art and fuzzy “retro” sound may have convinced some people it was something that, to my ears at least, it clearly was not. Though I feel sure Summer of Lust will sell far fewer copies than that album, this Canadian 10-piece has it all over Best Coast in songwriting terms. So with all that lazy, hazy, crazy just a few months off, it’s time to start that bikini diet and pick up Summer of Lust.

Listen to: “If Raymond Carver Was Born in the 90’s”

Don’t miss: “Reluctant Readers make Reluctant Lovers”

Listen to: “Be My Juliette Gréco, Paris 1949”