Dustin Payseur sounds confused on Clash the Truth and rightfully so-- the Beach Fossils frontman is dealing with some tricky stuff. The time that's passed since Beach Fossils' solid, well-received eponymous debut has given its name an unintended resonance; when we all pass from this mortal coil, songs like "Daydream" and "Vacation" will be artifacts frozen in time, informing our descendents of what happened in 2010 when the attitudinal tenets of chillwave were leeching into fuzzy, soft-focus indie pop. There's the big picture stuff too: how to let one's ambition manifest, what really endures in a world where so much is fleeting, the challenges of squaring artistic expression with financial temptation. These are all relatable even if you're not in a band, and they've proven fine inspiration for musicians who confidently use their art as a means of making sense of it all. On the other hand, you sometimes get a passive-aggressive album like Clash the Truth, which just sounds kind of confused.
That's really the bigger concern. Their first album peers Wild Nothing, Real Estate, and Cloud Nothings have already proven themselves with assured, expansive sophomore LPs, and in even quicker succession, former guitarist Zachary Cole Smith's Dive went from "Beach Fossils side project" to DIIV, a band that surpassed them while operating in the same lane. There's a lack of conviction on Clash the Truth that finds numerous ways to infiltrate otherwise fine songs; the opening title-track makes an unexpected shift into a post-punk monotone which only stresses the utter lack of urgency in Payseur's vocals. By introducing a darker, more socially aware edge, it makes a song on the opposite end of the spectrum like "Taking Off" ("I'm taking off again/ It feels like it's so soon/ Am I excited or am I just so confused") sound like a sheepish retreat to their previous work.
Elsewhere, Beach Fossils' indecisiveness arises more subtly. Some wondered if the relative cleanliness of their 2011 What a Pleasure EP detracted too much from the scrappy charm of Beach Fossils; it isn't the production methods that defined them so much as a kind of instrumental formalism where all the moving parts work in an almost militaristic lockstep. Without that rigidity, you get amiable, mid-fi college rock jangle along the lines of "Careless" and "Crashed Out", or drowsy, rainy-day window-watchers like "Sleep Apnea" that are perfectly tuneful in the moment and do little to impress on one's mind in any way, let alone establish themselves as the work of Beach Fossils and no one else. You also get the sense of a bigger, conceptual gambit that they couldn't quite grasp. The inclusion of several short guitar pieces isn't a bad move in theory; their riffs are often tasked with handling the expression when Payseur's flat, affectless voice cannot. But while their titles suggest some sort of attempt at unifying the disparate sounds of Clash the Truth, they manage no sequential effect and unlike DIIV, the difference between their instrumentals and vocal pieces is too wide to hear them as anything other than filler.
The wishy-washy attitude may be slightly bothersome for most of Clash the Truth, but it's frankly inexcusable on "Generational Synthetic", a song about the intersection of commerce and art whose title makes its point abundantly clear. Whether or not you think Beach Fossils have earned the right to make a song like this is a moot point. Two years ago, you wouldn't have thought Cloud Nothings would've had much to say about it either, but by making their sound a philosophy, Attack on Memory was a kickass rock album and potent criticism. With its ringing guitars and brisk drum rolls, "Generational Synthetic" is not too different than any other Beach Fossils song. If they admitted to their own ambivalence, they'd come off as sympathetic. Instead, Beach Fossils come from a place of judgment and open themselves up to criticism.
As such, "Generational Synthetic" doesn't stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny-- when Payseur leans on sarcastic, passive-aggressive commentary ("Oh your words are so poetic/ Generation apathetic"), he comes off as both preachy and phony in the context of music that sounds like part of the problem rather than the solution. And considering the troubling financial realities of even the most successful indie bands are common knowledge, by sneering "trade your fortune for a song," he just sounds naïve.
Beach Fossils aren't hypocritical for making "Generational Synthetic", as criticizing a system you fully participate in is pretty much democracy in action. But a guy like Craig Schuftan, author of the alt-rock dissertation Entertain Us!, has thought longer and harder about the clash of indie rock and major money and calmly, unintentionally ethers their message with one sentence: "It's not so much about whether playing in front of a logo makes a mockery of your principles, it's more about making sure your principles are good in the first place, that they're strong enough to survive a process like that." Or, as Iceage put it, "Where are your morals?" On "Generational Synthetic", Beach Fossils get on a soapbox without taking a stand, and it's the most damning example of the mixed messages that pervade Clash the Truth-- as the cliché goes, be the change you want to see in the world.
