After winning fans and the attention of record labels with a handful of shorter releases in the late 2010s, Austin, Texas duo
Being Dead
landed on
Bayonet Records
for the release of their debut album, 2023's
When Horses Would Run
. A lively, good-time mix of '60s garage and surf rock, girl groups, sunshine pop, and psychedelia with wryly dark lyrics and plenty of sugary boy-girl harmonies, it left
's
Falcon Bitch
(
Juli Keller
) and
Shmoofy
Cody Dosier
) with a little something to be desired, given that in the meantime they'd gained a reputation for their rip-roaring live shows. Seeking a relatively less polished, rowdier sound for their
Bayonet
follow-up, they hired Grammy-winning producer
John Congleton
and headed to Los Angeles for two weeks of sessions that included appearances by their touring bassist and occasional co-songwriter,
Nicole Roman-Johnston
. The resulting
EELS
adds flashes of punk, druggier psychedelia, and more on a shape-shifting 16-track set list that kicks off with a ringing guitar stroke and a tempo at around 150 bpm on the beachy "Godzilla Rises." A joyous, dual-vocal, clap-along banger replete with harmonized sighs, trippy bedroom invitations, and lyrics about how we've got Godzilla all wrong, it would set expectations too high for most albums, but that turns out not to be the case here. The opener is followed by the spookier,
B-52s
-esque "Van Goes," and the band soon go full-on narcotic on "Problems," which introduces harpsichord-, flute-, and theremin-like timbres amid its shimmery guitars, rumbling period bass, steady drumbeat, and
Mamas & the Papas
-evoking harmonies. That's then contrasted by the racing borderline grunge-punk of "Firefighters," the album's infectious lead single. And we're not even a third of the way through the track list.
continue to mix up styles, tempos, and tones from track to track while locking into the sounds of the '60s (the
Donovan
-type acoustic entry "Dragons II" is next), and despite its lengthy song list, there's little if any filler. Some highlights from the second half include the tuneful anti-anthem "Rock n' Roll Hurts" ("Rock & roll will hurt your soul") and the pining "Love Machine," a two-minute, twee-inflected ditty that leads straight into the reverb-drenched "I Was a Tunnel," as if to emphasize the album's theme-park-like adventure. Even setting sequencing, production, and stylistic reference points aside,
is simply chock-full of great songs. ~ Marcy Donelson