Album review: Surfbort – Reality Star

When IDLES released their second album, 2018's Joy As An Act Of Resistance, the world hadn’t quite descended into the hellscape it is today. Nevertheless, the idea behind that title has always been pertinent throughout the history’s struggles against oppression – that it’s still possible to enjoy life while the world burns. It’s actually a play on a phrase often attributed to 19th century anarchist Emma Goldman: “If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.”

In fact, she never said that. Her actual words, written in her autobiography, were: “I did not believe that a cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy.” The idea is the same, though – and it’s shot through this third full-length from Brooklyn punks Surfbort.

On the surface, Reality Star’s 14 songs could be interpreted as little else other than expressions of pure, youthful hedonism. Opener Hot Chicks Cold Beer is an unbridled party anthem, followed by Candy, a wistfully lustful ode to unromantic love. Both suggest decadent joy (and letting loose at gigs) is the answer to the malaise and discontent of modern life – or at least the personal problems of it – and both sweep you into thinking that dancing, drinking or fucking the pain away is perhaps the best approach.

But as the album progresses, the effects of more universal problems start to creep in. On the grungy slackerpop of Jessica’s Changed, Dani Miller proclaims that she’s ‘A sexy-ass bitch in a world gone mad’, while Notorious Brat wrestles with the malaise and discontent of being alive in a capitalist hellscape, and MK Ultra tackles the illegal human experiment programme of the same name that was operated by the CIA in the postwar 20th century. ‘Take me back to when everything’s easy,’ Dani laments on the grungy title-track, and although she doesn’t go on to explicitly state why it isn’t, she doesn’t need to. We all know.

It's worth pointing out that these songs are all a reaction to the state of the world – the material conditions – that inspired them, rather than being directly about those things. And so the punk rock blitzkrieg of USA Cheese is a celebration of nihilism, FUGOMF (Fuck You Get Outta My Face) is an explosion of frustration and rage, and Alien is a poignant depiction of isolation and loneliness. It’s Peaches And Cream, though, that captures this record’s overwhelming sentiment best.

‘I wanna laugh more than I cry until I die,’ drones Dani over an atonal barrage of fizzy, fuzzy guitars. Emma Goldman would be proud.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Amyl And The Sniffers, IDLES, Lambrini Girls

Reality Star is released on March 6 via TODO.