Beat Awfuls
PAWS
(Youth Kulture/Cocoa Beach Tapes)
3.5/5
Richmond (by way of Lexington and Boston) lo-fi rock trio Beat Awfuls intrigue and provoke on their fourth album, PAWS.
With song titles like “Interstate Skeletons” and “Ego Death Kult,” it’s clear that PAWS was intended to be edgy. The album conveys a cherry-flavoured apathy for life through minimalist mixing of crunchy vocals and mellow bass.
A majority of the lyrics depict a darker side of today’s youth culture. Touching on drugs, suicide, and recent politics, most songs could not be mistaken as upbeat thematically. The distortion and repetition of the vocals evoke a brain-numbing buzz.
Despite the overall dreary tone of the album, it still manages to deliver easy-going grunge tracks. Some melodies are a softer approach to melancholy, with less emphasis on lyrics.
Beat Awfuls tap into a feeling familiar to the chronically detached on PAWS and invite you to be a silent observer in a daunting yet intrinsically beautiful world.