The third
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever album might have been written and recorded under unusual lockdown-enforced conditions, but the result is of a piece with their other recordings.
Endless Rooms is a shimmering, searching album built on graceful guitar interplay, hooky melodies, and often breathtaking songs that threaten to whirl the listener away into a world where jangle pop reigns supreme. It feels like they could crank this stuff out in their sleep, but they have too much invested in their art to do that. It's clear from how fierce the guitars sound and how committed the vocals are that they are putting their hearts into the music and it's impossible as a listener not to feel that. The power of the rhythmic section is also something that's hard to ignore, and they are as rock-solid as ever here with the guitars glimmering and flashing around them. Something does sound a little different on
Endless Rooms, though. The guitars have a little more bite to them, especially on tracks like "My Echo" or "Tidal River," where the band intentionally push the recording meters into the red and keep the fidelity pegged around the middle area. After
Sideways to New Italy, the band could have decided to get slicker and grow their sound to arena-size dimensions. That they kept it small and slightly scuffed up is something to celebrate. They certainly sound energized and that's no small part of the reason why. The state of the world as they were writing the album is another reason, and many of the songs feature the band reacting and reflecting on the social upheaval around the globe and in their native Australia. It never gets too heavy, though, and the guitars are so transporting that one doesn't even need to hear the words to get a sense of the feeling behind them.
Endless Rooms is another strong outing from the group, definitive proof that they are still gleefully exploring their sound and are more than willing to take whatever approach is needed to put the songs across. ~ Tim Sendra
