Grab Some Summer While You Still Can
The Ventures, The Yardbirds and The Beach Boys had a love child, and that child is Allah-Las. As their Bandcamp bio says, the Allah-Las were formed while the members worked at the famous L.A. record store, Amoeba Music. One can easily imagine them poring over the countless records in that shop, listening to the surf-rock and British Invasion staples and saying, “yeah, this is our sound.” Every song on Worship The Sun is filled with twangy, reverb heavy guitars, lethargic lead vocals (not a bad thing) and backup vocals that, as opposed to the computer-perfect backups you so often hear on albums these days, refreshingly sound like they were done live.
Listening to the album, two things become immediately apparent. First, Worship The Sun is perfectly titled; and two, the release date is pretty unfortunate. The band sounds as if they’d just spent all day lying poolside on a vinyl lounge chair sipping beer — sweaty, sticky, and tired from the sun. The fact that the band is from L.A. is unsurprising, a group from the rainy northwest could not have made this album. The whole thing is just drenched in sun. Tracks like “Had It All,” “Nothing To Hide” and “Worship The Sun” find Allah-Las at their best and most relaxed. Lead singer Miles Michaud sounds as if he’d just woken up from a midday nap, and even the guitars sound tired. This doesn’t make the band sound apathetic or boring, though. It only adds to the breezy, sweat-flecked atmosphere.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the record is that the band is able to sound this relaxed while executing impressively crafted arrangements. They’re a deceptively tight group. There’s not a note out of place and each element of the album seems absolutely necessary: The Pet Sounds-esque instrumental interludes (which never sound superfluous) and the slide-guitar track on closer “Better Than Mine” seem absolutely necessary. This is both a testament to the skill of band and to the skill of producer Nick Waterhouse, an accomplished musician in his own right.
Much like Foxygen’s We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic and Temples’ Sun Structures, Worship The Sun is simultaneously an homage to a sound and also an update. Allah-Las were able to pick and choose the best elements from their various influences and construct an album that transplants all of those different groups to a specific place and time: A hot summer Sunday in California, spent relaxing by the pool. This is why the timing of this release is so upsetting. As September is starting to die down and the weather is starting to change, we have just been given what should have been the album of the summer. Instead, we are rapidly running out of time to soak in the weather before it becomes too cold to listen to this album in its proper setting.
So keep Worship The Sun on repeat for the next couple weeks while it’s still relatable, then turn it on again in the dead of winter to remind you of better days.
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