The Desolate Coast's previous album Without a Planet felt like it was destined to be a hidden gem of surf music. While I don't have an issue with calling them "surf music", I found myself thinking "The Cure" more than "Dick Dale". There was a melancholy mood to the record, though not without some explosive pent-up bursts, and a unique approach to a three-guitar attack with a low-mid-high formation. I really liked that record, though at seventeen tracks I did feel like there were high points and low points.
So I was looking forward to catching them at the Surfguitar101 Convention. They weren't on the main stage and played to a pretty small audience, but were a true "holy shit" experience of the festival. If the echoey, trebley sound of Without a Planet felt meek, seeing them in person felt like an assault at full spectrum. I was converted from a fan into an evangelist.
Anyway, here we are with their followup LP (after an EP and a few single tracks), and my first thought was that this was more of what I already enjoyed from them in Without a Planet. Similar, please forgive me, emo-surf feel with a big echoey sound and an icy high-register component to the melodic middle. I really do love the way they handle three guitars -- if you're paying attention and asking "where's the melody?" you'll find that the answer is never completely clear as it's duplicated, tossed around, or sometimes not even singular. There's an atmosphere inherent to their sound, but it's great when they put extra work in for it, like the abstract ambient glistenings in "Your Cave or Mine".
It wasn't until I started writing this review and dutifully revisiting Without a Planet that I realized what they had really done with this album. I didn't notice any specific ingredient to their sound that had been added or altered, but Shadows Ignite is a much more active album. My mind had remembered a lot of the explosive moments of their previous work, and forgotten a lot of the quieter, less focused bits. At first I thought "this is a bit closer to when I saw them live, but not quite there yet." And then, I'm embarrassed to say, I raised the volume. And as I heard it all crash and swirl around me to "Sad-Eyed Vampires", it sure did sound a lot closer! This is a band where dynamics are a key component, the loud works better because of the quiet (and vice versa), and some elements of the sound sit subtly underneath louder elements. And when you can actually hear them, that sounds incredible!
The Desolate Coast are an extraordinarily unique surf group with a sound that could cross over to fans of other genres. Unfortunately that hasn't happened, and even within surf I think this band remains underappreciated. The Shadows Ignite is their most tightly written and immediate record yet, and can hopefully serve as the best entrypoint for this band's body of work. If that's the case for you, keep the volume loud!
Get digital on bandcamp. It'll also be on CD and vinyl via Colorado Instrumental.
