Surfer Blood’s fourth album Snowdonia arrives with something the band hasn’t experienced in a long time: good will. After frontman John Paul Pitts’ 2012 arrest for domestic battery instantly transformed the band from potential indie-rock mainstays into permanently damaged goods, he at times seemed to carry on the group out of sheer spite. Their 2013 album Pythons opened with him eating literal sour grapes and only got nastier from there; listeners understandably steered clear of it. Even the fans who jumped off the band’s surf board long ago, however, had to feel for the group last year when they lost guitarist Thomas Fekete to stomach cancer. He was only 27 years old. Snowdonia may be the closest Surfer Blood gets to a second chance, and it poses a test for Pitts: Can he really be the kind of frontman that listeners empathize with, and maybe even care for, again?
He certainly puts his best face forward. There’s no trace of opportunism on Snowdonia—no bitterness, no self-pity, no overstatement of grief. Instead, Pitts uses the terrible circumstances as a chance for reinvention. With a shuffled lineup that includes new guitarist Michael McCleary and bassist Lindsey Mills, whose harmony vocals lend welcome warmth to the record, he recasts Surfer Blood as the kinder, gentler guitar-pop band they might have been better off trying to be a couple album cycles ago. It’s their calmest record, a relaxed, sunny outing pitched at the same volume as The Feelies’ casual late ’80s LPs.
This is not the same Pitts who blasted through walls, sledgehammers swinging, on “Swim,” nor is he the same bitter soul who played the victim so passive-aggressively on Pythons. He sounds about 90 anger management sessions removed from that guy, and the lyrics are peppered with promises that he’s a changed man. “Thought I had a corroded heart/Oxidizing, torn apart/Now you’re starting it up yet again,” he sings, brimming with hope on the Inverted World-esque “Dino Jay.” And rather than reaching for that bowl of sour grapes again, “Matter of Time” opens the album with an assurance that Pitts’ aim is true this time: “In a world so full of murky intentions, we’ll make ourselves a home.” He’s really trying to make the best of things, he insists.
Given the circumstances, Snowdonia is a surprisingly light album. With its paisley guitars and Sunday drive tempos, many listeners would be hard pressed to even locate the grief on first listen. It’s a nifty trick that the song that most directly touches on Fekete’s death is also the album’s most mirthful: “Six Flags in F or G” builds from a “Rock Lobster” tempo to a confetti burst of Mamas and the Papas-style sunshine pop before signing off with some Wowee Zowee guitar scribbles. Instead of making a big display of their bereavement, they pay tribute to their friend with some sounds he always enjoyed. A similarly sweet pragmatism carries through closer “Carrier Pigeon,” a heartbreaker he wrote after his mother’s breast cancer diagnosis. He responds not by cursing the cruel hand, but constructively, with an appreciation for the woman who always looked out for him and his sister: “I know you swam upstream for most of your life, dodging the grizzlies.” He’s never sounded closer to the songwriter we were promised on Astro Coast.
So does Snowdonia mark a redemption for a once toxic band? As with all issues surrounding the art/artist divide, it’s not so clear cut. One tactful album can’t buy a musician forgiveness any more than it can erase the pain of losing a loved one. And in truth, Snowdonia probably isn't a flashy enough album to re-spark significant interest in the band anyway. At their early peak, this group had a serious wow factor; now they're mostly setting out for modest pleasures. For the first time in five years, though, this band has a reason to exist, and possibly even a path forward. It’s Surfer Blood’s first album since their debut that doesn’t invite you to think about what could have been. It simply makes the most of what is.
