There are a few albums from early summer that we still need to catch up on, and we'll try to keep the reviews short so that we can cover other releases at the same time. We've written about 'Beezewax' previously, they released a succession of singles leading up their 7th (!) album 'Peace Jazz' and we featured them a couple of times, mostly recently in April when wrote about their single 'Two Diamonds'. We also keep missing them when they play live dates in the UK - maybe if we promise to bribe them all with beers they'll come to Manchester next time...
'Peace Jazz' is just 8 tracks long, but with some substantial offerings is almost 40 minutes long, and a feature of it is definitely the consistenty high quality of the songs. 'Everything Happened' is a typical track, appealing and always melodic guitar riffs, with slightly melancholy pleading vocals. I just love 'Rainbows' (still), outrageously catchy with a huge sing-a-long chorus, it's definitely one of my favourite tracks of the last year, whilst 'Closer' (also featuring Jon Auer of The Posies and Sophia from Night Flowers) has a slightly slower if anthemic feel and definitely written in a Teenage Fanclub style - which is obviously right up our street.
'Graffiti' has a real early 90's Indie Shoegaze feel, the sound reminding me of theose emerging bands that had such an influence on my music listening, and although 'The Conduit' is more reflective and simpler, I think it's a really powerful track both lyrically and musically. 'Tall Island' works slightly less well for me, simply because I find the melody less appealing, but the previously featured 'Two Diamonds' is just classic Indie, with bright intertwined guitars, a succession of tunes and all delivered at a belting pace too. But it's actually concluding track ' Peace Jazz' that gets inside me the most, almost 7 minutes long with sustained sections of instrumental sound that I really like, building to an intense prolonged wall of guitar sound that allows the album to finish on a high.
There's really nothing not to like about 'Beezewax' - infectious, interesting and always entertaining Indie Pop with big melodies at the heart of their songs. For sure, there is a huge nod of influence back to UK and US Indie Guitar bands from the late 80s and 90's (Dinosaur Jnr, Teenage Fanclub amongst others) but again that can only be a good thing, and 'Peace Jazz' is an irresistible album that surely everyone will appreciate. We're just really sorry it took us so long to write about it.
Nordic Music Review 8/10
Peace Jazz was released 3rd May 2019 via Sellout! Music