"I'm not ready to look the other way," Surfer Blood frontman John Paul Pitts lets loose halfway through "I'm Not Ready". So it would seem. "Ready" launches Tarot Classics, Surfer Blood's first proper release since early 2010's Astro Coast. Title aside, it's a modest effort, four sturdy pop-rockers, 15 easy minutes. Blithely confident, Astro Coast's sunsoaked power-pop found Surfer Blood blowing through one breezily bulbous hook and escapist lyric after another. Tarot Classics finds Surfer Blood throwing a little shade.
With its so-bright-you'll-squint melody and bummer-in-the-summer vibe, "I'm Not Ready" would've fit just fine almost anywhere on Astro Coast. But its crisp handclaps and neon guitars belie a serious compositional sophistication, a seemingly endless string of bridges charting the path to the song's bounding hook. "Your mouth is running off now that you've seen a few things," Pitts admonishes, and "don't get too big for your britches" seems in some ways Tarot Classics' guiding principle. As on Astro Coast, they seem confident in their every move but unwilling to take on more than they can handle.
First single "Miranda" is a bit of a blur, highlighted by its a rousing guitar break, its one-word chorus (hint: it's a girl's name), and a more-than-passable Morrissey impression from Pitts. The hints of Anglophilia that emerge on "Miranda" and through the rest of Tarot Classics are, in many ways, their biggest step away from the distinctly American roots (Beach Boys, Weezer, Cheap Trick) of Astro Coast. Pitts' voice wears this somewhat dolorous tone every bit as well as he did Astro Coast's shouty Brian Wilsonisms, and the band follows suit, lending a richly textured, slightly overcast New Romantic lean to the proceedings that feels deeper-- if a bit less retina-searing-- than the brasher Astro Coast.
"Voyager Reprise" takes off slowly, eventually settling into a shuffly, somewhat morose melody and dance-night-at-the-pub groove pitched somewhere between the Strokes and those early Cure singles. It's aching melody amplified by that newfound gravity in Pitts' voice, "Voyager" certainly feels like Surfer Blood's first truly sad song, the longing in its simply stated chorus impossible to miss. Closer "Drinking Problem" is alternately Tarot Classics' highlight and its least characteristic track, a lush, staggering bit of New Romantic pop that finds Pitts switching out the Moz for a Bernard Sumnerian swoon not unlike that of Kisses frontman Jesse Kivel. A shimmering synth melody buoys the aching Pitts, reassuring himself with, "at least I know who my friends are," every utterance sounding less and less convinced of itself.
A year and change on the road finds Pitts seeming a bit guarded, picking at the long-term scars of short-term affairs, questioning everyone's motivations, starting with his own. But if he's undergoing some crisis of confidence, it's not shared by his bandmates; like Astro Coast, Tarot Classics' popcraft proves well beyond promising, and these songs are certainly sturdy enough to handle their lusher productions and knottier sentiments. Tarot Classics once again fixes the spotlight on Surfer Blood's insidious melodies, refining-- rather than reconfiguring-- their self-possessed sound. It's still summer where Surfer Blood come from, it's just a little colder there now.
