Eternal Summers began their life as a duo. Safely ensconced in something called the Magic Twig Community—a cache of like-minded musicians living in the mountains of Roanoke, Virginia—the band’s first recorded efforts were a mixture jingle-jangle guitars and lo-fi minimalism. On their 2011 debut, Silver, Guitarist and vocalist Nicole Yun and drummer Daniel Cundiff tossed off anti-authority missives and swoony romantic paeans in equal measure, managing to wring a surprising amount dynamic tension from a simple guitar and drums setup. On 2012’s Correct Behavior, the inclusion of a new band member—bassist Jonathan Woods—helped to push the band’s sound forward. With the inclusion of some much-needed low end, Eternal Summer’s sonic palette finally sounded big enough to match what appeared to be their own dream-punk goals: songs that range from emotional Marine Girls-like strummers to hyperdriven juggernauts that finally sounded as big and fuzzed out as the band’s own oversized ambitions.
On their third proper full-length—the PledgeMusic-funded and generally excellent The Drop Beneath*—*the band takes another assured step forward. Having generally eschewed any outside producers in the past (Correct Behavior was mixed by Raveonettes’ frontman Sune Rose Wagner and producer Alonzo Vargas, but recorded safely at home in Roanoke by the band themselves), this time the band opted to work elsewhere, relocating to Austin, Texas to record with producer Doug Gillard (Guided By Voice, Nada Surf). The change of venue and a slight loosening of the reigns seem to have done the band a world of good.
The Drop Beneath is the most pristine sounding thing that Eternal Summers have ever recorded. While smoothing away the rough edges seems slightly anathema considering the charm of the band’s early releases, on Beneath the cleaner sound reveals what excellent songwriters Eternal Summers have become. On “Gouge” a galloping guitar melody plays counterpoint to some of Yun’s most arresting lyrics—“Gouge my eyes out/ Cut tongue from my mouth”—all of which are delivered with the sweetness and ardor of a love note. Such is the charm of the album’s best songs—“A Burial” and “Deep End” among them—in which seemingly moribund sentiments are optimistically splayed out against walls of shimmering guitar. And while The Drop Beneath will likely do very little to quell the band’s reputation as savvy 90s alt-rock revivalists—“Keep Me Away” could pass for an American Thighs-era Veruca Salt outtake, not that that’s entirely a bad thing—the band’s frame of reference does appear to have grown. Yun’s voice and the band’s deftness with effects’ pedals might invite easy comparisons to the likes of Lush and pop-inflected shoegaze, but they also make the kind of loopy art-pop that would fit nicely alongside anything Too Pure were releasing back in 1996.
Judging by the overall sense of clarity on The Drop Beneath, it would seem that bringing in an outside producer has mostly been a blessing for the band. Not only does one have a sense of what an excellent and rangy guitarist Yun actually is, her voice is something of a revelation here. On tracks like “Until the Day I Have Won” (in which she sings “Thrill/ is more than a swill/ It's more than what you feel/ It's knowing you've finally got the knack”), she sings with a kind of calm assurance and that previous releases only hinted at. That being said, the production polish can occasionally be a curse. The album’s prettiest songs benefit from the most from the more crystalline proceedings, but the rockers often sound a little restrained. In a live setting there’s no doubt that “100” and “Make It New” would sufficiently shred, but on record one can’t help but wish Yun’s voice would occupy a little less of the sonic real estate and that the guitars were allowed to rip a little harder. Also seemingly out of step on the record is “Not For This One”—a mellow, Feelies-vibed mid-tempo track in which Daniel Cundiff takes over vocal duties. It’s undoubtedly one of the album’s loveliest songs, but it sounds like it could/should appear on a different record altogether—one that perhaps Cundiff (who has a history of contributing vocals to interesting one-offs on previous records) should consider actually making.
In a career that seems predicated on striking some kind of balance—a balance between whisper and roar, messiness and finesse, between articulating Heavenly-style twee bedroom musings versus whipping up walls of roiling melodic noise—Eternal Summers appear to have nearly hit their stride. While nothing here qualifies as any kind of radical reinvention of the indie-rock wheel per se, the band manages to astutely put their own spin on it, seemingly figuring out their own sizable strengths in the process.
