| The Sunbathers formed in 2007 when guitarist Paul contacted old friend Julie to say he'd been working on some
new songs and was looking for a vocalist/lyricist. She jumped at the chance and after many months of writing and recording the
band are ready to face the world with a clutch of songs about life, love and standing around on beaches looking
longingly out to sea...The band's influences stretch far and wide. From sixties girl groups like the Shangri-Las, through the
early 80s pop of Altered Images, the indie tweeness of Talulah Gosh and more recently the mighty Camera Obscura. Their biggest influence
is undoubtedly the Marine Girls but they're far from being sheer copyists...
In fact, their sound ranges from brittle fragility (Don't Go Home, This Town) to out and out indie pop
(Hope, You Love Me Too), with occassional dark undertones (Six Of One, The Bitter End) and moments of sheer exuberance
(Train Song, Bossanova).
The songs themselves are stripped back to the bare bones; the band eschew complex chord progressions and extraneous middle eights in favour of simple
structures (with an occassional twist), which showcase Paul's imaginative fretwork and Julie's everyday (but never trite)
lyrics to perfection.
Their love of the sea, and the British seaside town is clear in songs such as Sea Change,
Every Day, Hope and The Summer Made Me Love You. "There's something I find quite exciting, but at the same
time disturbing about the sea", explains Julie. "The idea that it's always constant, but every wave that hits the shore leaves
something behind and takes something away. I also love the quaintness of certain seaside towns as though they belong to
another lost era. And of course Paul writes these great tunes that just sound like summer." | |
