Label: Foxfive Records
Release Date: 29th July 2020
Rating: 8/10
"Phillips brings to the table her effortlessly cool rock-star vocals, demonstrating both range and monotone delivery that just drip with attitude and charisma."
To describe ‘Beaches’ as the perfect comeback song is bold, but it’s hard not to revere Black Honey’s first release in a year as anything short of a banger. Following the success of their eponymous debut LP back in 2018, the indie four-piece return with a real earworm track, which we hope is a tease for more to come soon.
Laced with nostalgic production drawing musical influence from an amalgamation of genres from funk to punk to surf-rock, the song feels like if milkshakes met mohawks. Vocalist Izzy B Phillips sums it up best: “’Beaches’ is a cheeky twisted collage of all things weird, set to a playground clapping song. It’s all eye rolls, punk gigs & girls in polka dot bikinis. A nonsense filled retro world I wanna disappear into at times like these.”
The Americana aesthetic is something which Black Honey have always integrated into their sound, but it shines through more than ever on ‘Beaches’, which is unlike anything they’ve done before but still unquestionably them. Phillips brings to the table her effortlessly cool rock-star vocals, demonstrating both range and monotone delivery that just drip with attitude and charisma. Featuring an experimental sonic palette of brass instrumentation, groovy synth and catchy hollers – it's brilliant.
Like most projects right now, ‘Beaches’ was born out of the lengthy lockdown period. The companion music video to the track is a self-directed portrait series which sees Phillips and co playing dress up as old-school characters and even the face of quarantine season himself, Joe Exotic.
‘Beaches’ is a massively infectious track that sets Black Honey apart from the rest: as a band who aren’t afraid to go against the grain and make music fun.
Words by Jess Hodgson.
1st August 2020.
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