Juhu Beach, Scenes of Abandoned Industry

At this point, the only way that music can move forward is by becoming something other than what we think of as “music.” While this may seem contradictory on the surface, it’s a concept which has likely been seen (and heard) since man started making noise for purposes other than the purely utilitarian. Certainly, this concept has informed the major sonic milestones of what might be referred to as “popular music.” Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto was roundly dismissed as being poorly composed and unplayable, so far did it push the limits of contemporary composition and performance; jazz threw the world of chamber music and cellos into an uproar with its smoky, sexy phrasing; jazz then went on to create its own micro-verse of tumult and tribulation, with each new movement prompting its progenitors to decry it as purposeless noise. Certainly, Rock & Roll can claim the honor of revolution, its first practitioners thought to be degenerates and dangerous to the general public. Since then, though, Rock & Roll has been the most consistent musical force in Western music, on the whole remaining relatively unchanged from those first brash chord changes.

Music these days seems to have reached critical mass and is just waiting to explode or, as is more likely the case, implode under the force of the vacuum it has become. Having apparently lost the rebellious and restless spirit that has driven musical innovation through the ages, bands are content to recast their golden idols, simply putting the same metal into slightly different molds. What results is easily confused with creativity, especially when you stumble across a band particularly skilled at this type of sonic metallurgy. Combining various and sundry signature elements from an admittedly large conglomerate of noteworthy artists, a talented practitioner can create alloys whose facets reflect a bit of everything in them, but none so much as to be brazen. What results is a piece of work which seems to shift to meet, if only slightly, the expectation and appreciation of just about anybody who hears it. It is passable.

The advantage of this is that nobody finds it truly objectionable, but this meager benefit is tempered by the fact that nobody finds it truly exhilarating. I long for the day to come when an entire generation of people gasps in collective horror at what their children are listening to, honestly and fervently believing it to be a force of corruption, mindless hedonism borne out in something only those willing to move forward will call “music.” Until that day, the best we can hope for is a steady stream of middling non-efforts, palatable in their unwillingness to challenge, but never truly exciting. The emulsification of dissent.

Unfortunately for SoCal quasi-punkers Juhu Beach, their debut effort Scenes of Abandoned Industry is not revolution, but reiteration. Like most of the music coming out of the ever more dubiously titled “underground,” these songs are fine. There’s not really anything sonically displeasing among these four tracks and a “fuck you” snippet. Some of them are even interesting to listen to, albeit in a slightly innocuous fashion. I like the bands whose sounds they’re fusing, namely early Modest Mouse, Pavement, and Built to Spill (the singer occasionally bears an eerie similarity to the ever-diffident Doug Martsch). I like the direction they’re trying to take those influences, blending stop-start rhythms, sometimes screamy vocals, angular guitars, a contrarian sense of both melody and harmony, and a slight penchant for epic bombast that rides the ragged edge of tedium without falling over.

Clearly, these guys have talent, and I certainly don’t mean to accuse them of complacency. Nobody sets out to create a mediocre record. I have no doubt that they’re trying to think outside of the box. My recommendation: forget about the box; try thinking outside of something else, entirely.