Swansea’s Beach Fatigue have been bubbling below the surface for a few years now; this March, they are set to unleash their self-titled debut album – via Kool Girl Records. The first cut to emerge from it is To Die For, revealed on Friday.
‘Don’t want to settle down with you,’ reiterates a sneering Amy Zachariah as she takes a giant scalpel to her man’s approach to the roulette of love, hunting down his bad intentions the way a snake stalks its prey. It’s underpinned by a hypnotic groove and unsettling tension. A dark back alley cruise that twists and turns from grimy early Yeah Yeah Yeahs garage pop to The Sonics with reverb-heavy surf riffs that sound like slashing knives, blown apart by apocalyptic sci-fi sound effects. Its twitching menace sounds like a soundtrack from a great long lost B-movie with a throbbing, self-destructive heart. In the hands of some these influences, it could sound retro, but Beach Fatigue deliver it with such conviction, personality and adventure that it makes them unmissable. Beach Fatigue have IT, whatever it is!
Previously called Heavy Petting Zoo, their re-naming seems to bring with it a harder, even more menacing outer shell, and a real progression both on stage and on record. The frenetic Drunken Grrrls came out last year and was lapped up by eager ears, while previous singles Crash (Too Pure Singles Club, 2014), and Isabelle (Joy Formidable split single, 2015) and a standout slot at SWN 2015 at the tail end of last year, have all built the anticipation for their first full-length release.
