The weather’s been pretty shitty in Montreal lately, all rainy and cold and lacking in vitamin d. There’s not a whole lot I’d like more right now than to be transported to a sunny beach party with all of my friends where we could rock out to surf tunes and get tans and be best buds.

Unfortunately that ain’t gonna happen. Oh, well, at least I have Surf Curse’s new album Buds to listen to. Made up of Jacob Rubeck and Nicholas Rattigan, Surf Curse is a pizza-eatin’, movie-lovin’, surf-rock duo from Reno, Nevada, which has officially moved up a few notches on my “places I should probably go check out sometime” list.

With repetitive choruses (“you promised me everything was gonna be alright, woah, you promised me everything was gonna be alright, woah, you promised me everything was gonna be alright, woah…”) and ample falsetto ooooh’s throughout, Surf Curse is like a marriage between Wavves and The Ramones. And a beautiful marriage it is. As can be the case with this genre of music, there tends to be a slight overuse of the falsetto ooooh’s  and many of the songs blend together into one mesh of repetitive shouting choruses, but that’s not really a problem if you ask me. There’s not one track on this album that I don’t want to get up and dance to; in fact, I’m bobbing my head along to my favourite track on the album  right now: “Goth Babe.” The song starts strong and fast with pounding drums and a punky guitar riff, and proclaims:

“I want a goth babe in my life
I want someone I can bite
I want to listen to the cure
I want to tell you that I’m yours”

Every line of the song seems to be punctuated by an exclamation mark, and the enthusiasm is infectious, capturing the uncomplicated simplicity of summertime that everyone dreams of. At times abrasive, always pretty loud, but never not dance-worthy and upbeat, these old school, lo-fi surf tunes are perfect for that basement beach party you’ve been dying to throw.