Ah, yes. Crispy, California dreamscape guitar waves to start out the brand new Peach Pit album. It’s that beautiful feeling of turning to an album with eagerness and trepidation to discover that one of your favorite bands still sounds like themselves. All of a sudden, you simmer back into the dusk of a June evening.
You’re listening to From 2 to 3, Peach Pit’s third full-length album. The band, fronted by vocalist-guitarist Neith Smith, hails from Vancouver, though this album was indubitably plucked from Californian sounds and experiences. If you’re looking for something new, you might not find it here, though the surf rock lull might pleasantly surprise you.
Since 2020, when the group’s last album, You and Your Friends was released, it seems as though the group has found their peace, and perhaps a pool to swim in. Instead of the melancholic party tableaus that broke all of our introverted hearts, we’ve got intricate love stories in sunny apartments.
Sure, you might want to shake the album by the shoulders at times so you can hear Neil Smith’s lamentations over his indie-boy guitar and cheery drums, but you’ll get used to it. The sailing, modular melodies are loveable and warm. It’s worth noting that the album was produced by Robbie Lacritz, who has worked with Feist and Jack Johnson. Now the glassy guitar and mellow vocals make sense. The shallow, panned-back drums are an apt backdrop to float away to.
A standout track is “Up Granville,” which — in glorious Peach Pit fashion — bemoans a lover who refuses love through a slightly insulting depiction of their effervescent but tragic demeanor (read: cocaine use). You can pick which mental images you’ll choose to hold on to while listening. For me, it’s skipping said lover’s street on your walks.
The first single, “Vickie” has a jovial, early-aughts alternative feel. The song is about a good friend who couldn’t be more wonderful, though you are definitely glad they aren’t your roommate. The sentiment is jocular, but sweetly relevant to us all. The guitar gets oh so groovy and ambient. You’ll want to lean in.
If you’re looking to bang your head and brood like you’re in a basement of a co-op even when you’re not, allow me to suggest “Lips Like Yours” and “Pepsi on the House,” salty and yearning tracks where the album really begins to pick up some angst. The latter goes: “Holding my baby like you / When you turn me on / It’s the height of fun.”
And if a mellow gorge day track is what you need, “Look Out!” is a cheery, almost folksy diddy that makes the album feel balanced in tone. The band experiments with harmonica and lap steel without it feeling gimmicky. It’s that wonderful California surf cowboy sound that you’ve been craving in a new album. When you hear “2015,” you might just want to crawl inside of the bright, muted guitar sound and stay for a while.
Tracks like “Lips Like Yours”and “Everything About You” bring a sultriness to a radiant day’s charged nightscape. The melodies are sonorous and addictive.
If you’ve been missing something new to languish about on an uncharacteristically sunny Ithaca day, this album’s for you. Change is good, but a band doing what you love them for instead of trying something new is also pretty good. It’s ok. We can admit it. Go ahead, fall in love as the temperatures climb, whine about it, and turn on some Peach Pit.
Greta Gooding is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].