The duo Eternal Summers hail from Roanoke, Virginia-- decidedly off indie rock's beaten path. The group's members, Nicole Yun and Daniel Cundiff, are both integral players in an artistic collective known as the Magic Twig Community. The last word in that appellation is key, as it speaks to the close-knit, self-sustaining quality of a small unit of people who probably draw more inspiration from each other than they do from outside trends and fads. The term "scene" doesn't even begin to apply.
That physical and mental separation from hipper spheres is a very likely factor in the pleasing incongruity of Eternal Summers' sound. On the duo's debut full-length, Silver, Yun and Cundiff display a pretty firm grasp of two quite disparate musical styles-- jangly post-punk and dream-pop-- and only occasionally allow those styles to interact. Were they based in an indie rock hothouse, it's easy to imagine Eternal Summers feeling somewhat pressured to streamline or smooth out their sound in a way that would be more easily describable and digestible. Instead, the duo happily flits back and forth between nervy, combustible raves and languorously pretty head nods without a care for thematic cohesion. The former mode is typified by the arch, driving opener "Disciplinarian", the trashily fun "Pogo", and the yelping "Running High", while the swooning "Eternal" and sleepy "Bully in Disguise" (utilizing a similar dramatic chug as Coldplay's "Yellow", of all things) exemplify the duo's slow-burning preferences.
One thing that does unite the group's polarized tempos and attitudes is a resolute minimalism. The only instruments on Silver are guitar and drums, and Eternal Summers take no pains to mask that fact. A paramount pleasure of listening both to the album's quick sprints and its slow dances is enjoying the clarity of Yun's simple but glittering guitar lines (particularly on the beautifully spacious "Safe at Home") and Cundiff's spartan drums (though he does plenty on "Salty").
No one's suggesting Yun and Cundiff are doing anything necessarily groundbreaking here. Past tourmates Best Coast and the Dum Dum Girls both wed lo-fi leanings to girl-group laments, while the duo's giddier stuff owes debts to late-70s punks like the Raincoats. Still, it's nice to hear a burgeoning group pursuing a couple of different strands of music simultaneously rather than locking itself into one single niche.
