The Explorers Club

Freedom Wind

(Dead Oceans)

Record Review by Adam McKibbin

Brian Wilson – at least in some sense – still gets around.  The pop genius behind Pet Sounds is still singing wistfully about surfer girls (see “Forever She’ll Be My Surfer Girl” on this year’s That Lucky Old Sun), and is even hitting the road to take it to audiences who will be crossing their collective fingers for “God Only Knows.”  Wilson, to make a very long story short, has been through a lot – and it shows.  But people needing a Beach Boys fix still don’t have to look beyond the original source.

For anyone looking for torch carriers, though, The Explorers Club have dropped from the heavens.  There are stretches of Freedom Wind that can actually trick listeners into thinking they are listening to Wilson and his cohorts.  More than a descendent, these South Carolina boys sound like contemporaries – like the result of a rival label exec pounding his fists on his desk and saying “We need our own Beach Boys!”

So, to be sure, Freedom Wind is a derivative affair – lovingly and unabashedly so.  To pull it off so well takes not only an abiding and earnest love for the source material but also a high degree of technical accomplishment.  Of course, there are other influences, and the moments that are truly carbon copy are fleeting.  “Freedom Wind” and “Honey, I Don’t Know Why” stay planted in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but show off a bluesier, hippie-soul sort of sound.  The latter, poised as the second track, is almost too aggressive in its attempts to distance the band from “Beach Boys knockoffs” complaints, leading to an odd voice effect that could be described as “Cookie Monsterish” (better to be Beach Boyish).

Like Wilson before them, the members of The Explorers Club aren’t just interested in the sun and surf.  While the songs that first leap into the brain are upbeat pop numbers with memorable harmonies – like “Forever” and “Do You Love Me?” – there is also a number of more meditative tracks like “Summer Air”  and “Safe Distance.”  The aforementioned title track ends the album on an interesting note, mostly abandoning the formula they’ve perfected up to that point.  As it’s the closer, it raises speculation about how the band will expand their sound on their sophomore release.  Hopefully we won’t have to wait long to find out.