Nude Beach

Nude Beach have been borrowing the same records as P.S. I Love You, and what mighty fine ones they are. Take "Walkin' Down My Street" and "Radio"; these are sweaty throwbacks to Tom Petty's bacchanalian adolescence, but behind the infectious jangle there lurks personal angst, generational malaise and a lonely desperation to sniff items stolen on the sly from some girl's gym locker. The Brooklyn, NY's band's tropes are comfortingly familiar: "Radio" revisits the exact chord progression and rhythm of P.S. I Love You's finest song, "First Contact." And even when the self-pity rises to the surface, as on "Love Can't Wait," it's easy to be sympathetic. Although the easy thrill of late '70s highway-rock is always seductive to the riotously whiny, few manage to be quite so riotous, or as whiny, as Nude Beach. For that, they stand fast amongst their peers, bare-chested and howling.