Hailing from California, The Growlers play a low-key, often up-tempo style of garage rock, which serves as the perfect soundtrack to a lazy summer evening. Chinese Fountain is their fourth album and it is a very polished beast, bearing many similarities to our very own masters of garage cool, The Cruel Sea.
Full of radio-friendly tracks, this album is clearly designed to move The Growlers into the mainstream. Opener Big Toe is chock full of surf-rock melodies that evoke memories of The Strokes in their early days. The title track, meanwhile, is one seriously funky, disco-tinged slice of magic – the boys are bang on target with a track that should pull in plenty of new fans.
The reggae-lite Dull Boy is a deeply cool, toe-tapping rant about dead scenes and the search for something new. The idea of music as commodity has strangled originality and it’s always satisfying to see acts like The Growlers refuse to conform to trends and instead carve their own path.
Chinese Fountain is certainly an interesting little album, full of relaxing chill-out ditties that are grungy enough to entertain on a balmy Saturday night or soundtrack a Sunday morning recovery session.
The Growlers’ fourth album, ‘Chinese Fountain’, is available now.
Listen: The Growlers – Dull Boy
